Two-Way Texting Platform to Overcome Open Enrollment Challenges During COVID-19

Dialog Health, a two-way texting platform that enables information to be pushed to and pulled from staff, announces it is expanding support for organizations adding text messaging to improve employee engagement during open enrollment.

With many employers adopting telecommuting and reducing on-site, face-to-face interactions to comply with social distancing guidelines and better ensure employee safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, open enrollment will likely prove significantly more challenging this season than in the past. Organizations are being forced to identify creative ways to inform and remind staff about open enrollment dates, provide education about benefits without the ability to hold fairs, and direct employees to use self-service web portals.

By adding the Dialog Health platform, organizations can communicate quickly, efficiently, and in a contactless manner about open enrollment with their staff via texting — the preferred communication method for a growing number of Americans.

“Text messaging should be part of any open enrollment program,” said Brandon Daniell, president and co-founder of Dialog Health. “It is the most effective way to communicate timely, critical information with a majority of employees while driving engagement. During this pandemic, texting has taken on an even greater role and importance for keeping employees informed.”

Among the ways organizations are using text messaging during open enrollment:

• Notify staff about open enrollment dates
• Provide link to benefit election page and/or portal
• Remind staff about deadline for form completion
• Share contact details of the benefits representative
• Conduct real-time feedback surveys

Adding the Dialog Health two-way texting platform is simple, with most clients going live and sending their first texts in about a week. The platform is intuitive, requiring minimal training, and the system can send messages in any language that uses the Roman alphabet. There is little to no learning curve for employees as most know how to use their phone for texting. Nearly all Americans in the workforce own a cellphone, and all cellphones can receive and interact with text messages.

Dialog Health clients that use two-way texting to support open enrollment experience substantial increases in enrollment rate response and web portal utilization, decreases in follow-up phone calls, and significant cost savings. In 2019, a study was conducted of one Dialog Health client’s usage of text messaging to support open enrollment. The client had launched a new benefits portal and directed nearly 4,000 employees to it via a texted link. That link was clicked more than 4,500 times — a utilization rate exceeding 100%. In a single month, the client sent more than 20,000 texts to staff in support of open enrollment. Nearly 95% of all employees opted in to receive texts.

“With open enrollment season upon us, organizations must overcome new challenges to effectively reach employees during this pandemic,” Daniell says. “Businesses using two-way text messaging are finding their efforts more streamlined and successful. In a mobile-led world where employee engagement has become an essential strategy, text messaging is a necessity.”

Beyond open enrollment, human resources departments are using Dialog Health two-way texting to increase the engagement rate of administrative announcements, compliance communications, and incident response and emergency announcements.

Dialog Health is a U.S.-based company that provides a two-way texting platform to organizations which they can leverage as a communication and engagement channel. Two-way texting is a convenient, fast, effective, and affordable communication resource for stakeholder engagement.