Case Study: Blue Cross / Blue Shield of Minnesota

Solution: Salesforce Sales Cloud

How to use CRM to manage renewals and new business

Minnesota’s largest health care plan, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota provides health care coverage to more than 2.7 million members. Blue Cross offers coverage for individuals and groups of all sizes, as well as for state and federal employees in every county throughout the state. They also serve more than 125,000 members enrolled in government-sponsored programs and 184,000 members enrolled in Medicare programs.

Blue Cross needed a way to manage renewals and new business for the company’s three major employer market segments – major accounts, mid-size accounts and small groups. The project was complicated by the fact that insurance renewals were driven by multiple mainframe data feeds. In addition to managing contracts with groups, Blue Cross reps also needed to manage relationships with agencies and agents selling their insurance products.

Demand Chain integrated Salesforce.com with Blue Cross back-office systems so data feeds automatically populate renewal opportunities. The data in the feeds is linked to the group and agency records so reps can see a complete view of the relationship. As the reps close out opportunities as won or lost, management dashboards are refreshed to show the effectiveness of all the sales groups.

“We needed a better way to manage sales processes in our three major employer market segments. We also have to manage sales relationships with our partner agencies and agents,” said Amy Conway, Director, Sales Technology & Agency Relations, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. “Demand Chain showed us how easily it all could be done with Salesforce. Their customizations included integration with mainframe data feeds that automatically update our CRM tools, and dashboards that show managers at a glance the overall sales picture.”