Why finding a partner provider that has old school customer service matters in the 21st Century

More and more, people want to be ‘21st century.’ The rise of tech and with everyone forced to be online under work-from-home conditions, have prompted questions on what does it actually mean to be ‘21st century’?  The story of ArmorTech (not its real name), a technology leader in semiconductor packaging, design and test services, that grew from its founder’s vision of selling basic transport parts to a full manufacturing and tech conglomerate, covering key countries in Europe, Asia and North America, reveals to us that, if you want to thrive in today’s climate, you need to go retro and find partners that will personalize their interactions with you. 

The Client Case

ArmorTech began its operations in the 1960s with its first semiconductor business in Korea. It expanded its operations in North America at the end of that decade, opening its sales office for semiconductor packaging. It became so successful that, in the late 80s, it opened an industrial office in Tokyo, Japan, and a semiconductor plant in the Philippines. Another sales office was put up in France in the mid 90s, a milestone in the company’s operations, signaling its official entry into the European market. This prompted the company to put up more semiconductor packaging plants in the Philippines and in Korea. In the late 90s, the company was listed under NASDAQ – the world’s first global electronic marketplace for buying and trading securities, side by side with the world’s tech giants, such as Apple and Facebook. Entering 2000, the company went into a joint venture with one of the largest Japanese multinational conglomerates for information technology and communications equipment and systems, electronic components, power systems, industrial and social infrastructure systems, and logistics. Despite the Asian Financial Crisis in 2008, when the company was forced to separate older employees and reduce their workforce by roughly 25%, the joint venture spiraled ArmorTech to become a bigger giant the past two decades, establishing additional semiconductor and test plants in the Philippines, in Shanghai, China, in Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, and Portugal, as well as a sales office in Munich, Germany. Company acquisitions in the past two decades include a prominent global network that manufactures quartz watches and one of the world’s leading providers of wafer level technologies and services for flip chip in North America and Taiwan. The last two decades paved the way for technology alliances with the likes of IBM, Chartered and Samsung, and with one of the world’s top OSAT, or outsourced assembly and test, company, based in Japan, that offers integrated circuit (IC) packaging services in the open market. ArmorTech is AEO certified by Deloitte – evidence of its excellence in securing its supply chain. 

In the Philippines, bnfts.ph partnered with this world-leading supplier of outsourced semiconductor interconnect services in 1994, at the peak of operations of its Philippine semiconductor plant and at the onset of its semiconductor packaging plant. ArmorTech primarily needed a health maintenance organization (HMO) that could respond to its complex plan design for its employees. This was responded to for a whole decade until their chosen HMO shifted operations in 2004 due to integration with a global provider. The task of bnfts.ph was to find another suitable provider for ArmorTech as the original provider could no longer service their needs. 

What Approach Worked to Respond to the Client’s Needs

In the face of a highly tech savvy client, the basic approach of asking the right questions and identifying and understanding the complexity of the client’s needs were core to bnfts.ph engaging ArmorTech. Two things were evident, after preliminary review of the client’s case: (1) that customization of healthcare provider services needed to be done, given the complexity of ArmorTech’s operations; and (2)  ArmorTech needed to be taught how to properly monitor and utilize their benefits data to ensure responsiveness to employee needs and company bottom-lines. 

More attention was required of the bnfts.ph team to ensure that ArmorTech achieved their benefits goals through a robust relationship with their healthcare provider. The bnfts.ph team served as its key benefits program adviser, negotiating and doing periodic assessments of ArmorTech’s benefits program performance, recommending the necessary operational or process changes for ArmorTech’s employee benefits to be meaningfully felt by its employees at a cost that was manageable for the company, especially during the period of the Asian financial crisis. 

Resolutions Reached and Results Realized

Year-on-year, the bnfts.ph team was on-call to the client and conducted regular coordination meetings for the purpose of seeing some resolutions through. Strategic conversations were held among key players for specific benefits concerns to ensure the following key results were realized: (1) customized or negotiated services with its new HMO; and (2) analysis of benefits data in a systematic, automated, and regular manner, to ensure the company optimized and managed its resources effectively. 

The following were customized and negotiated for ArmorTech: 

• On their first year with their new HMO, two medical technicians were negotiated at no extra cost to man the company’s clinic;  
• First consultations for congenital cases, though not covered in the standard plan, was covered by the provider;
• Their Experience Refund Computation was adjusted to suit the change in employee claims and total complement year-on-year;
• Selected clinics for out-patient access were secured, based on average consult costs and frequency of availment, including access to hospitals limited to in-patient and emergency room cases;  
• HMO support was secured for an in-house doctor to issue referral of tests;
• Via direct billing to client, accommodation of exempt members for diagnostic tests, even if such members were covered by another provider; 
• For hospital room upgrades found not to be the fault of the member, provider did not charge any excess amount of room upgrade, nor any incremental charges;
• Reimbursement claims could be filed within 90 days versus the standard filing period of 30 days; and
• Expanded Credit Term of 60 days versus the normal credit term of 30 days.

ArmorTech needed assistance in organizing its data. Specifically, it needed help in determining how much spend was incurred for benefits, and whether these remained relevant to their employees. Benefits analytics for optimal resource management resulted to: 

• Benefit limit for members was increased by 50k after two years with its new HMO; 
• ArmorTech’s HR and Finance ably assisted to generate a Monthly Salary Deduction Report for employees who had enrolled dependents. Complementing these, statements of account were monitored closely, ensuring correct amounts prior to release, and denied reimbursement claims were partially or fully recovered; 
• A web portal created to view employee benefits, at no added cost; 
• Reduction in threshold limit at 50%, given adjustments to human capital complement, post-financial crisis. At this time, instead of funding the healthcare plan, based on an initial deposit with replenishment, a new funding design for the plan was created. This  allowed quarterly identification of "premium" per head and ensured continuous services. The pressure of Finance or HR to immediately replenish the fund to their provider, within the standard 7 days, was eliminated. 
• Correct tagging of claims with provider, for their Claims Audit for CY 2017-2018. Also, any claims that were not covered or accessible in the plan were removed, resulting to savings of 185K.

Positive Outcomes for the Client

To date, 19,000 employees benefit from close to three decades of servicing that bnfts.ph has been able to realize for ArmorTech. The relationship has stood the test of time because the benefits adviser has made all possible means to ensure that the cost in introducing any innovation or improved access or process for benefits programming of ArmorTech will not have a significant increase in their utilization or overall cost. 

‘Old school’ customer service, where one knows the client inside-out, exhausts all means to ensure programs remain responsive and even anticipatory of client’s needs, matched with an unrelenting curiosity, are the keys to continuing strategic partnerships into the 21st century and remaining relevant despite all technological advances.