GEMS' new take on reaching out to its clients

“We believe it is critical to be on hand to render services to all of our members and potential members, including those situated in the more the inaccessible areas of the country. We would like our members to be able to communicate with the scheme with absolute ease when it comes to obtaining more information on benefits or in the event of any difficulties,” says Liziwe Nkonyana, executive: communications and member affairs of GEMS.

70% onsite resolution target

Nkonyana says that the scheme’s specially trained CLOs are tasked with attending to and resolving member queries while providing feedback to members and the scheme. It is also the duty of the CLOs to escalate any outstanding matters to ensure resolution.

The staff within the unit is responsible for improving the current turnaround times of queries and will work on a 70% onsite resolution target.

“To ensure that all the members are kept fully up-to-date with the latest service and benefit offering from GEMS and to encourage members to get to know more about the scheme and its benefits, the CLO unit will arrange special member education workshops. We regard it as absolutely essential that our members have a complete understanding of their benefits so that they are able to derive maximum benefit from them.”

Member insights will furthermore be used to help shape some of the scheme’s decisions with regard to benefit design.”

Foot soldiers

According to Nkonyana, the CLO division also supports the acceleration of member enrollment by assisting potential members to obtain, complete and submit the necessary membership documents.

“The client liaison officers are our representatives, our ‘foot soldiers’, on the ground, taking GEMS’ services even further into the communities of South Africa.,” says Nkonyana.

GEMS now provides healthcare cover to approximately 1,8m individuals in all nine provinces.