Prioritizing the Member Experience is Our Priority—Here’s Why

Employee assistance programs (EAPs) are a widely offered benefit for organizations of all sizes across all industries—with good reason. Comprehensive, high-quality EAPs can improve employee mental and physical wellbeing, increase employee satisfaction, and deliver impressive cost savings to organizations—between $2-$5 for every dollar invested.

However, this is only if the EAP is utilized, which is not often the case; EAPs report consistently low utilization rates—between just 3% and 6%—year after year.¹ There are a few reasons for this: low awareness of available benefits, fear of stigma, lack of effective communication, and poor member experience.

A poor member experience can be a quick deterrent when employees try to utilize their EAP benefits. Long wait times, inability to talk to a real person, a lack of clarity on the services covered, and other negative experiences make it harder for members to access the work-life services and wellbeing support they need.

Because we understand that a positive member experience is the most critical consideration for client success, product, and operations, we have refocused our business strategy to center on the member experience. Below, learn more about what member experience means and why a good member experience is so important.

What does member experience mean and why is it so important?

People today have high expectations for all the brands they interact with—and employee benefits are no exception.² These shifting expectations require a focus on member experience. So, what is member experience exactly? Essentially, member experience is the sum of all interactions a member has with an organization or product and the value they attribute to it based on their interactions.³

Regarding an EAP solution, a good member experience is crucial to success. When members use their behavioral health and work-life benefits and have a positive experience, they’re more likely to engage with the services and resources again. This higher EAP utilization can lead to better health and wellbeing outcomes, which reduces the cost of care for both organizations and employees. And because member engagement creates a snowball effect, as more employees utilize and find value in the EAP services, they may turn into advocates and encourage coworkers and colleagues to use them too.

How Uprise Health creates a good member experience

As people across the United States struggle with their mental health and wellbeing,⁴ offering a comprehensive, high-quality EAP to employees and their families is a great way to help. Our EAP solution provides a top-tier member experience to improve employees’ mental and physical health and wellbeing. Here’s how we’ve built an experience members love:

We prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), internally and externally.

DEI initiatives, by definition, can’t be one-size-fits-all. So, here’s how we help organizations offer equitable EAP services and mental health benefits to their employees:

• We provide resources tailored to the needs of multiple population groups, including but not limited to different ethnicities, races, sexual orientations, genders, regions, ages, and abilities.
• Our digitally-enabled EAP helps remove barriers that rural areas often face when it comes to access to care by providing digital access to resources and services for people from all walks of life, anywhere, any time.
• We extend our services whenever possible, not only to our members but to anyone living within a member’s household. Prioritizing individual health means prioritizing family health—and family means different things to different people.
• We have a robust and diverse network of 30k+ licensed, certified providers across the U.S., covering an array of clinical specialties, treatment expertise, cultural backgrounds, and language capabilities.

We focus on continuous improvement of our products and our services.

Our July and August member net promoter score (NPS) score was 78. NPS is a commonly used and effective way to measure the customer experience of a program, and it indicates if a member would recommend Uprise Health’s EAP to coworkers and friends. In general, -100 to 0 means “needs improvement.” 0-30 is “good,” 30-70 is “great,” and 70-100 is “excellent.” Although we are thrilled to be in the excellent category, we are still using feedback from the survey to improve our program. Our dedication to continuous improvement includes the following:

• We analyze data to identify which resources and services are most effective, what is underutilized, and where we have gaps. Then, we incorporate the results from the analysis into our strategy.
• We use short, easy surveys to judge member satisfaction with our counseling services.
• We are always looking for ways to improve member communication. Our operations team is working hard to keep members updated about the status of their service requests.

We make it easy for members to access our EAP services—anytime, anywhere.

Our EAP Plus platform offers members access to all EAP services—including work-life support, behavioral healthcare, and social support—through a single, unified platform that seamlessly fits into their lives. Available 24/7 via iOS, Android, and the web, our all-in-one digital EAP platform helps to reduce stigma, increase engagement, and improve wellbeing.

We offer facilitator-led peer support to members.

We provide one-on-one coaching, counseling, and group care with peers experiencing similar situations, led by a trained facilitator. Group sessions and mutual support empowers individuals from all backgrounds and situations to connect and share what they are going through with a group who can, not only relate, but can also provide insight into how they also cope with the same issue. Examples of tailored groups for Depression Recovery Group Sessions include:

1. People of Color
2. Women
3. LGBQT+

We give organizations the tools they need to improve the wellbeing of their workforce.

Our focus on building a good member experience includes our clients’ experience, too. With over 30 years of experience as a leading EAP company, we understand what matters to our clients. Here are a few ways we ensure a positive client experience:

• We give organizations access to robust reporting and data analytics to measure success. Broad and on-demand analytics measure engagement and program outcomes to assess the program’s effectiveness. Our agile analytics platform can respond to mental health trends among member populations.
• We focus on privacy, security, and transparency. Our data analytics dashboards are anonymized and aggregated, so we are not revealing private member information, but are still providing helpful information for clients to improve workforce wellbeing.
• We provide robust marketing materials and support designed to make enrolling for services and using our solutions easy and worthwhile.

Request a demo today to learn how Uprise Health’s EAP solution can bring excellent member experience to your workforce.

References

1. https://shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/Pages/Benefits19.aspx
2. https://www.cbiz.com/insights/articles/article-details/employees-benefits-expectations-are-changing-are-you-prepared-to-adapt
3. https://www.oracle.com/cx/what-is-cx/
4. https://www.mhanational.org/mind-workplace