Shelly Mushinski Reveals What Sets The Westport Group’s Enrollment Services Apart

Shelly Mushinski joined The Westport Group with an extensive history of worksite marketing experience, specifically the implementation and enrollment of executive voluntary benefits. Through strategic, results-based enrollment solutions and effective, customer-first service models, she has been integral in helping to drive carrier growth, establishing market reputation, and achieving industry-leading voluntary participation rates.

As Director of Enrollment & Implementation, Shelly works directly with our clients to ensure a smooth and successful enrollment experience and on-going management of their plans. She is also key in developing and managing the tools and processes utilized to support our innovative product and enrollment solutions in the marketplace.

Wondering what sets TWG’s enrollment apart from the rest? Read on for Shelly’s perspective on how our consultative approach offers the perfect solution for clients.

With new online capabilities, how does TWG use new technology in the enrollment process?

Online enrollment only functions as one piece of a holistic service model. A firm can have the bells and whistles of new technology incorporated into their enrollment, but these tools are virtually meaningless to the client without the support behind it and integration with the existing priorities and systems in place. For example, many firms offer online enrollment, but we knew that beyond its fundamental goal of creating enrollment efficiencies, we’d have to make sure it brought value to the client in additional facets that are important to them. That’s why data security is the base of our system, being SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certified, while also being GDPR compliant. Additionally, we can easily support our international clients as our functionality deals in in multiple currencies. At TWG, new tools are used as a supplement to our services to combine innovation with overall service models.

Are you now moving toward conducting all of your enrollments digitally?

We are using it on more and more cases, but certainly, it has to be the “right fit” for a client and their eligible population. Firms sometimes lean too much on online enrollment because it’s flashy, or easy for them, and the client gets lost in that. At the end of the day, clients come first, and we always analyze their needs first and make meaningful strategy proposals second. Maybe online enrollment is not the right solution for a certain client, or perhaps most of their eligible would prefer online but a smaller group requires a more white-glove, traditional paper enrollment. We cross-analyze the needs and cohorts of the eligible population with our available tools and resources to construct the best multi-dimensional plan design and enrollment experience for them. Plan administrators’ concerns are alleviated with the confidence of knowing they have a team of experts standing behind them to shoulder the burden of supporting their existing benefits culture and partnering with them to meet goals. 

TWG prides itself on the firm-specific nature of their offerings. How do you incorporate this into your enrollment design and the online portal?

An initial hurdle we overcame when designing our system was aligning it with the bespoke nature of our offerings. Since we custom-design all of our plan designs to meet our clients’ specific needs, the site needed to reflect this flexibility. Also, as a user, you don’t want to login and see some generic landing page, you want something built for you and your experience. So, all the pages throughout our portal are tailored to the firm and the eligible group.

Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach when designing our online portal, we made sure the functionalities of the site best served the interests of all our stakeholders and their user experience. One of the most impressive aspects of this is our proactive management, tracking, and monitoring of the process to give updates to the client and respond to enrollment needs in real-time. For example, in a recent enrollment one of the participants was newly married and wanted her last name updated in the system. The system allows for these types of updated in real time so that we made the change and she could complete her enrollment online. Our power as a firm stems from this flexibility. You have to have the nimbleness that only comes from a knowledgeable and experienced team.

In your view, what are the most important elements of client satisfaction?

Clients choose TWG not only because of the comparatively superior product offering, but also because of our demonstrated service solutions at both the plan sponsor and participant levels. For plan sponsors, a TWG team of experts are involved in ensuring a smooth, easy, meaningful experience at all stages of the relationship from plan design development to implementation to on-going administration. At the participant level, we extended the same level of service to ensure the “use experience” is engaging, informative, but also expeditious. We pride ourselves on doing the right thing for the customer even if it means applying a little more elbow grease on our side to make it happen. 

How has your process helped position the company in a competitive marketplace?

As a firm, I think we understand the importance of balance. We continually tap into what has always made us successful which is the importance of relationships, holding ourselves accountable and establishing and maintaining trust. At the same time, we have identified innovative opportunities that will enable us to better serve our customers. It’s looking at our clients’ needs from all angles and ensuring the most efficient, meaningful solutions, and having the agility to adapt as needed. We integrate that innovation with a contiguous alignment to our value proposition. 

What’s next for TWG?

Currently, the team is in the process of developing an administrative system to provide even greater efficiencies for the firm which will translate to the overall customer experience. This includes online tools to assist TWG with the quoting and underwriting processes as well as client invoicing and plan management. Of course, as usual at TWG, client feedback will be central to our development and design. Additionally, no matter how many enrollments we conduct, we continue to learn with every opportunity which enables us to continually evolve and improve our process. TWG is never complacent – always learning, always evolving, always fluid.