Attention Health Plans: Consumers Want Control Over Their Communications Preferences

Health plans want to engage consumers, but are their communications getting through? Consumers want control over their communications preferences, and only a third say that health plans do a good job of honoring those preferences. Why does it matter? There is an upside for companies that respect communications preferences — consumers say that they have more respect for the brand of companies that capture and honor their preferences and that they pay more attention to communications from those companies. On the flip side, consumers will opt out of communications and lose respect for companies that fail to honor their preferences. To get back in consumers' good graces, health plans should look to best practices from other industries, capture customers' communications preferences, and develop a unified cross-channel contact strategy.