Top Tools for Managing Health Marketplace Leads During OEP

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The open enrollment period (OEP) for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) offers time-limited opportunities to generate leads, build relationships, and increase your income. OEP is generally the most productive time of the year. With a high volume of leads streaming in, it can be challenging to manage them efficiently. 

During this critical sales time, you have numerous new opportunities to demonstrate your expertise to new or existing clients. In this post, we’ll provide an overview of the top tools for managing Marketplace leads during OEP and how they can ensure success and compliance for your agency this year. 

Shortcuts:

Why Efficient Lead Management Matters During OEP

Essential Categories of Tools for OEP Success

Top Digital Tools for OEP Sales: Putting Them All Together

Best Practices for Implementing Digital Tools During OEP

The Top Digital Tools Complement Your Health Insurance Expertise

Why Efficient Lead Management Matters During OEP

It’s critical to work as efficiently as possible during OEP for two reasons:

  1. It’s high-intensity. 
  2. You only have a limited time to act. 

Efficiency is key, and the right applications will help you make the most of the season.

Limited Sales Window, High Intensity Time

OEP is the highest-pressure time for health insurance agents. It’s critical to focus on generating leads, reaching prospects, and nurturing relationships. And, you only have a span of about ten weeks to accomplish these tasks. Time to get to work. 

Consequences of Poor Lead Management

The competition for health sales abounds during OEP. Inefficiency wastes your time and directly impacts your income and reputation. 

Here are a few of the consequences of poor lead management:

  • Lost opportunities: Untapped leads could go to a competitor.
  • Compliance risks: Insufficient documentation and follow-ups could lead to compliance issues.
  • Client dissatisfaction: Frustrated clients may be looking for a new agent.

To be successful, you need to implement tools that help to mitigate these consequences. 

Benefits of Using the Right Tools

Setting up streamlined systems can help you avoid the problem of good leads slipping through the cracks. The best tools will facilitate better lead management, enabling you to maximize your time during OEP. 

Here are  three benefits of using the right tools to manage your Marketplace leads during OEP:

  1. Speed: Automation ensures no lead goes uncontacted.
  2. Organization: A well-planned lead management system enables you to prioritize prospects, track interactions and follow-ups, and maintain accurate records.
  3. Higher close rates: A streamlined system will turn OEP leads into long-term client relationships. 

Overall, efficient lead management is a must during OEP. It’s the difference between taking the lead in a high-stakes season or taking a back seat to your competitors.

Essential Categories of Tools for OEP Success

To thrive during OEP, you need the perfect balance of systems to help you stay organized and compliant while selling as efficiently as possible. 

For these systems to work, here are the software you need along with an explanation of why they can be helpful:

  • Screen sharing tool: Allows you to walk your clients through plan comparisons and applications in real time. With CrankWheel’s tool, you can even collect e-signatures to close the sale on the first appointment. 
  • CRM (Customer Relationship Management): Centralizes client information, tracks communication, and automates reminders. Examples of popular insurance CRMs are HubSpot, HighLevel, and Insurance Advisors Direct. 
  • Quoting & enrollment platforms: Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and custom applications are available that allow clients to get quotes for different plans. It saves time on the quoting process, allowing you to focus on the sale during your appointment. Examples are HealthSherpa, Quotit, and GetInsured.
  • Marketing & outreach tools: Marketing tools can include your social media platforms, email marketing, and newsletters. Community events and public speaking are also good strategies for outreach. Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and AWeber are a few of the popular email marketing platforms you could use. 
  • Compliance & data security tools: Tools like Zywave and Activepieces safeguard sensitive client data and ensure you’re meeting regulatory requirements. 

Screen Sharing Tool: Essential for Efficiency and Trust-Building

According to Lightico, only 4% of insurance professionals felt their customers could complete self-service processes using completely digital systems. 

Unlike reading a description of a retail product and buying with a single click online, health insurance plans are complex. Consumers looking for health insurance need information and guidance from experienced, professional agents.

While your tools will do much of the writtent communication for you, you’ll find much value in meeting with customers individually, even through virtual appointments. 

A huge benefit of using a screen-sharing tool for your virtual meetings is that you can walk clients through plan details in real time, just as if you were sitting next to them in their homes. By sharing your screen with them, you can visually demonstrate the differences in coverage, provider networks, and prescription benefits. 

From the customer’s perspective, a visual presentation brings plans to life, making the decision process far easier than explaining things over the phone. 

With CrankWheel’s screen-sharing tool, you get the following features:

  • Engagement monitoring
  • Remote control for the customer
  • In-bound lead capture
  • Screen-share videos
  • Instant consent forms and e-signatures
  • Screen recorder
  • Custom branding

A screen-sharing tool allows you to conduct a health insurance sales appointment with ease. It’s the next best thing to being there in person and helps build trust with remote prospects.

CRM: A Critical Tool for Every Health Insurance Agent

A CRM is a must-have tool for every health insurance agent. OEP is a critical time to manage leads. A CRM puts your leads at your fingertips. 

Here are some of the features to look for in a CRM for health insurance sales:

  • Lead capture & tracking
  • Automated follow-ups
  • Task management & reminders
  • Integration with quoting/enrollment systems

The best CRM manages an unlimited number of leads and ensures that you capture and track every one of them. You can tag and segment leads and set up a streamlined workflow for renewals. A quality CRM will also allow you to regularly communicate with prospects using automated follow-ups. 

At a glance, your CRM should show you where your leads are in your sales funnel. This visibility helps you prioritize tasks and minimize the risk of overlooking leads. A task management feature in your CRM can also flag critical deadlines, renewal dates, and pending applications to ensure you stay on top of every appointment and sale. 

Further, integrating your CRM with quoting and enrollment systems allows you to move seamlessly from the first contact to finalizing the sale. It’s an important feature that minimizes errors while improving client satisfaction. 

Quoting & Enrollment Tools

Efficiency is about taking action as quickly and accurately as possible without sacrificing quality. 

Quoting and enrollment platforms give you the ability to deliver accurate plan comparisons and streamline applications while ensuring compliance. 

You can share side-by-side comparisons of health plans using a quoting platform and share them using your screen-sharing tool. A visual snapshot of a client’s choices makes it easier for them to make an informed decision. 

Enrollment platforms pre-fill the client’s information, reducing errors. The platforms integrate with marketplace systems for faster approvals. 

Features that may be available to simplify the process include: 

  • Eligibility verification
  • Subsidy calculation
  • E-signature integration

These platforms improve your close rates by reducing back-and-forth interactions before the close. Such tools allow for a seamless, end-to-end customer experience.

Marketing & Outreach Platforms

As much as you plan to approach OEP using the most efficient plan, numerous other agents are doing the same. A primary challenge for health agents during this time is to stay visible and at the top of their clients’ and prospects’ minds. 

Social media platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, are popular places for people to hang out. Many people may have been waiting for OEP to open up and explore their options. If you’re visible on social media, they’re bound to find you. Platforms like Hootsuite and Buffer will help keep your social media content current and fresh. 

Email marketing is also a successful strategy to keep incoming leads warm and engaged. Here are three tips for utilizing marketing and outreach platforms:

  1. Pre-schedule your campaigns before OEP begins.
  2. Segment your leads into new leads and renewal leads. 
  3. Use compliance-safe templates for messaging.

With regard to all your tools, you’ll want to abide by the best practices for implementing them. 

Top Digital Tools for OEP Sales: Putting Them All Together

How do all the tools work together seamlessly to assist your sales efforts during OEP? 

We’ve put together a mock scenario to help you see how the top tools could work:

Let’s say that the Hanson Health Insurance Agency employs eight insurance agents. The agency owner and the health agents felt things hadn’t gone smoothly during the previous OEP. They’d had two compliance issues and wanted to prevent any more with the coming OEP. 

Without a targeted system to follow, the agents were overwhelmed by the influx of incoming leads. Things just got worse from there, so they decided to do something about it. 

In a team meeting, the agents put their heads together and identified the following issues:

  • Leads slipped through the cracks
  • Too much time manually quoting
  • Too many interactions to close
  • Agents double-booked appointments
  • Agents overlooked appointments
  • Compliance risks with clients sharing data via email

The team researched digital tools that could help solve these problems, and settled on the following tools:

  • CRM: AgencyBloc
  • Quoting & enrollment: HealthSherpa
  • Scheduling: Calendly
  • Email marketing: MailChimp
  • E-signature: CrankWheel

The team worked together to set up workflows that leveraged their newly implemented digital tools. They used their CRM to track their progress and analyze their results. 

The agency owner announced the following results:

  • 40% increase in conversions compared to the prior OEP season
  • Zero compliance issues at all
  • Agents saved 6-8 hours per week
  • Clients provided positive feedback, noting smoother, faster service

Note: CrankWheel’s screen-sharing tool allows you to use ACA consent and ACA attestation forms in keeping with HIPAA.

While this is a mock sales scenario, it demonstrates how the top tools for managing health marketplace leads can improve efficiency, compliance, and customer satisfaction during the intense weeks of OEP. 

Best Practices for Implementing Digital Tools During OEP

Acquiring the best tools for OEP sales is only part of the challenge.Our article on best practices for implementing digital tools will ensure that all of your sales activities remain compliant and work to your advantage. 

The following best practices will help you tick the proper boxes:

  • Ensure your digital tools are ACA-compliant.
  • Standardize your workflows so your entire team is on the same page.
  • Gather your team and do some training before the start of OEP.
  • Set up a system to audit lead pipelines to prevent leads from stagnating.
  • Use analytics to track appointment show rates, conversion rates, and policies issued.
  • Identify places within your workflows where you can add a human touch to make the sale feel more personal. 
  • Review HIPAA & CMS compliance requirements during OEP.

Overall, the best tools complement the expertise of the top agents. 

The Top Digital Tools Complement Your Health Insurance Expertise

OEP is a highly condensed season, and the top tools can pave the way for success. Efficient lead management matters, and is of the utmost importance during OEP. The consequences of poor lead management will be evident in your conversions. 

The right tools should include a CRM, quoting and enrollment tools, and marketing and outreach platforms at a minimum. Take the time to evaluate which tools best fit your agency’s size, budget, and goals. 

Consider best practices as you implement your tools and workflows. Keep compliance in mind every step of the way. Lastly, use this year’s OEP results as a springboard to make further improvements for the following year. 

You’ll find that using the top tools will make this OEP a season to remember. 

For more information on how a screen-sharing tool from CrankWheel can enhance your sales operation, contact us today for a free trial.