For Immediate Release: December 4, 2020
For more information contact:
Barry Brakeville
Barry.Brakeville@BlueKC.com
816-395-2337
KANSAS CITY, MO. (December 4, 2020)—Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City received first place in the categories, “Best Customer Experience Strategy” and “Customer Centric Culture” at this year’s North American Customer Centricity Awards. The event, run by ARCET Global, had more than 150 entries from over 65 companies. ARCET Global focuses on sustainable customer centric business practices through training and customer experience programs.
Blue KC is dedicated to helping members navigate the entire healthcare journey, making a simple customer experience top priority for every department. The combination of Culture, Measurement, Customer Understanding and Improvement has helped drive Blue KC’s customer-centric strategy to focus on simplicity to build loyalty and trust in Blue KC as a health partner.
“Customer experience is more than just a theory—it’s a proven business strategy,” said Jenny Housley, Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President at Blue KC. “Companies that put customer experience at the forefront have consistently higher loyalty than companies that prioritize internal goals. This dramatic shift in priorities requires buy-in at every level.”
In 2018, Blue KC commissioned Forrester, a leading market research company, to help quantify how successfully we deliver on customer experiences that align with our vision of simplicity and ease. With a benchmark score of 57 percent (compared with 72 percent for top-performing brands), Blue KC committed itself to developing a customer experience that would make Blue KC an easy life choice. Since establishing their customer experience practice, Blue KC has seen dramatic improvement, reaching a score of 73 percent in 2019. And, in 2020, Blue KC members ranked us No. 1 in Overall Customer Satisfaction among health plans in the Heartland region, according to the J.D. Power’s 2020 U.S. Commercial Member Health Plan Study.
“Customer experience belongs to everyone – it’s not a department or a team it is a culture,” said Gratia Carver, Blue KC’s Chief Experience Officer. “Blue KC takes pride in our customer-centric corporate culture, which makes positive customer experience priority for every department at Blue KC. Health insurance and healthcare can be confusing and complicated but at Blue KC, we aim to simplify both.”
Blue KC continues to hold customer experience as a top strategic priority because our members will always be top of mind. Healthcare has the responsibility to rise to and exceed the expectations of our customers in a way that adds value to their daily lives.
About Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, the largest not-for-profit health insurer in Missouri and the only not-for-profit commercial health insurer in Kansas City, has been part of the Kansas City community since 1938. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City provides health coverage services to more than one million residents in the greater Kansas City area, including Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas and 30 counties in Northwest Missouri. Our mission: to provide affordable access to healthcare and to improve the health of our members. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. For more information on the company, visit its website at BlueKC.com.
