A Health Insurance Live Chat Experience

Blue Cross is our health insurer and although I’ve found most customer experiences to be limited in innovation and personality, I was impressed with the ease of contacting them recently. This is my first experience with a health insurance company since moving from another country where the landscape is similar but there are some definite nuances. Overall, I found the live chat experience satisfactory. My inquiries were efficiently addressed with minimal wait time- a feature I truly appreciated. However, there were a few aspects that left room for improvement.

 I needed some basic and some not so basic information about my health plan for both myself and my husband. Opting to initiate a chat first, with a backup plan for a phone call, if needed, I was pleasantly surprised to connect with a real person right away rather than getting assigned a chat bot with canned and irrelevant responses. So far, so good! 

The wait time to chat with an agent was impressively short, estimated at 1-2 minutes – pretty commendable considering the general impatience that can set in after around 5 minutes for most folks. I can’t recall if I heard this number recently in a podcast or in a CX- related article but it's generally at that 5 minute mark where a customer makes the choice to pull the plug on the inquiry or continue waiting. An important question on whether it's truly worth their time at that very moment. 

During the chat, I gained insights into the difference between various pharmacies and their specific functions. One particular pharmacy for specialty medications, and another for non-specialty medications, plus Amazon Pharmacy solely for medication delivery. I also received a general billing and coverage overview associated to each pharmacy use. Additionally, I asked for clarification on the differences between network and out-of-network providers, ensuring I navigated my healthcare plan without incurring any surprise and avoidable expenses. As a Canadian, this is a new protocol for me since we do not have to worry about in or out of network providers. I mentioned this fun fact to the agent, and he was understanding and able to see where I’m coming from, literally and figuratively. 

However, after asking if I had any more questions to which I stated I did not, the chat ended abruptly without a clear sign-off from the agent. I was also the first (and only) one in the conversation after expressing gratitude for the assistance, wishing the agent a great day! It would have seemed more empathetic of the agent if the same sentiment had been reciprocated. It was this key touchpoint which threw me for a loop- it portrayed a sudden sense of disinterest, and I wasn’t expecting it since the rest of the chat had gone well. I found myself thinking about that particular interaction more than the rest of the chat. Interesting, isn’t it? Unfortunately for an organization, customers often tend to focus more on a negative interaction vs. a positive one and my sentiments were proof.

Another notable downside was the immediate disappearance of the live chat information we had reviewed. This left me scratching my head and forced me to rely solely on memory of what was discussed and where to find the information in the future. A better experience would have been the option to save the conversation and key points for future reference.  I didn't notice any obvious link on the screen for such a function, and there was no time for me to snap a screenshot with my phone.

As a dependent spouse, there was pertinent information I couldn't access, including the billing breakdown for claims and details about an HSA. This related information could be seen on my spouse’s end but not mine. Maybe there’s a reason for it which I’m unaware of but my hope was to be able to see everything on my end which I felt I should have access to. This lack of information availability resulted in some disappointment and frustration as a customer of the plan. 

Essentially, my goal to seek plan information was not fully addressed. In the end, I received some of the information I was looking for, but not all. The live chat experience got the job done but there was a better customer experience desired. Regardless, this insurance plan inquiry chat made for a solid case study to analyze.