Transforming member experience: Securing cross-functional buy-in for a modern Member Portal

Modern member portals are essential tools for helping members achieve their highest level of health while driving sustainable business value for payers. A personalized, intuitive, and accessible experience has the ability to profoundly transform member satisfaction and engagement. As healthcare organizations strive to keep up with evolving member expectations, technological advancements and increased competition, innovative payers must take on the critical initiative to modernize their existing portals. 

While the need to modernize is clear, undertaking such a strategic initiative requires more than simply launching an IT project or buying and implementing new technology. The success of a transformation project hinges on securing cross-functional buy-in and collaboration across the organization, from IT and marketing to customer service and clinical teams.

The Critical Role of Cross-Functional Buy-In

Without the support and collaboration of key stakeholders across the organization, the initiative is likely to face significant challenges and resistance. Here’s how to achieve cross-functional buy-in:

Identify key stakeholders

Identify and involve key stakeholders from the outset. This initiative can touch various teams including IT, marketing, member engagement, customer service, compliance, procurement, operations and more. Early engagement helps to align goals, address concerns, and foster a sense of collaborative ownership.

Articulate your mission

Clearly convey why you are embarking on the journey to modernize your member experience. Collect evidence to support why member experience is a priority and have a thorough understanding of why the status quo no longer serves your business and members.

Build a strong business case

Communicate the benefits of a modern member experience to all stakeholders. A strong business case will help justify the investment in a member portal modernization project. Use data and examples from other successful implementations to build a compelling case. 

Secure executive sponsorship

Having executive sponsorship is critical for success. Executive sponsors can provide the necessary resources, engage key stakeholders and ensure the initiative receives the support and investment needed for long-term success.

Involve teams early and create a feedback loop

Engage teams in the planning phase to gather diverse perspectives. Create a feedback loop to understand: What’s working well? What’s not? Be nimble enough to change as needed, but ensure you’re continuously aligned to your member experience goals.

Define what success looks like

Ensure your strategy has key measures of success and work cross-functionally to establish these. Include leading indicators of success (e.g., engagement, satisfaction) and lagging indicators (business impact identified). Ensure measures are trackable and align on how to measure success with actionable reporting processes.

Address concerns and provide support

Recognize any potential concerns such as budget constraints, resource allocation, and technical challenges and develop mitigation strategies to alleviate them in advance.

Get buy-in from all the identified key stakeholders

It’s important to get buy-in from key stakeholders, such as department heads and IT leaders. These stakeholders can help  influence others and ensure the transformation initiative is successful.

Now more than ever, it is critical for health plans to prioritize their member experience. Offering a modern member experience that provides members with a unified digital entry point for care and benefits and is highly personalized and anticipatory of their needs will drive significant financial benefits, competitive advantage, operational improvements, and member loyalty. By following these actionable steps, you can accelerate your time to market with a solution backed by leading technology and deep CX expertise.

To learn more about how a modern member portal can improve your member experience and drive business value, read our latest report with Becker’s Healthcare.