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Digital Transformation

Florida Blue: Maximizing ROI with WebSphere Portal

Lisa Crawford from Florida Blue (formerly Blue Cross Blue Shield of FL) presented an excellent session at IBM Connect 2013 on the evolution of their portal platform and the ROI they have received over they years.  I’ve worked with Lisa on a number of projects and the work she leads implementing IBM solutions is one of the best I’ve seen.  Here are some of the key highlights she presented:

Florida started with portal in 2005 and has evolved over the years.

  • Started with basic portal sites
  • Moved to personalization, WCM, metrics, guided selling
  • Mobile and social admin tools
  • Transparency tools, consumer rating, chat, etc
  • Upcoming initiatives are business driven administration, SaaS, group customization

Challenges Solved by the Member Portal

  • Group customizations
  • Customer voice
  • Personalized
  • Dashboard of your data
  • Business controlled WCM
  • Cost and quality tools
  • Account information and preferences
  • RX Shopping tools
  • Wellness
  • Financials
  • Incentives
  • etc.

The voice of the customer is critical to success.  Listening to feedback and adapting is critical to the organization.  This has amazing business value such as increasing conversion rates.

Key ROI metrics include:

  • 11% increase in logins per day last year
  • 15% increase in logins over 2011
  • 38% increase in adoption in 2012
  • 57%-79% increase in RX tool conversion
  • 2.4 million visits and millions of transactions

Key Improvements made over time include

  • Navigation and user experience
  • Business alters content
  • Reduced operational issues
  • 99.99% uptime
  • 3-4 second SLA

BlueMedicare Shoipping

This portal is intended to help over 65 members.  Key metrics and success factors are:

  • Tablet friendly
  • Guided assistance selling through wizards
  • On demand chat and CoBrowse
  • 96% increase in visits
  • Sales goals exceeded
  • 69% of applications were submitted online
  • 98%+ automation
  • 508 compliance

Find a doctor

Provider directories are extremely complex and typically had a long release cycle to update. There are some very key metrics that came out of the provider search updates by leveraging an IBM WCM solution.

  • Updates can be made in 24 hours where it used to take 3-5 months
  • $200k in savings a year
  • Business controls the content.

Mobile & Social Challenges

  • Number of devices
  • Speed to market
  • Cross channel
  • Security
  • Privacy
  • Engaging, relevant, on the go, low cost cost and social strategy

Some mobile statistics include:.

  • Mobile accounts for 25% of all traffic
  • 45% increase in visits from 2011 to 2012
  • Shopping is actually the #2 most used most used capability.  There is an 11% conversion rate.
  • 24,000 downloads of mobile app

Social Media Evolution

Social media is evolving quickly at Florida Blue

  • 2011 – Facebook, Twitter, 1 staffer, Tealeaf
  • 2013 – You Tube, Blog, Social Media Dashboard, Pinterest, Developer Page, Reputation Tools, Social Media Inquiry Form

Florida Blue is truly an innovator and leader using IBM technologies to deliver multi-channel exceptional user experiences.  And, if you ever have the opportunity to attend a session Lisa Crawford presents, do not miss it.

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Glenn Kline

Area Vice President, Custom Development and Mobile Solutions

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