The Retention Journey

The Retention Journey is our standard set of member touchpoints. A new member gets a welcome, a heads-up about their ID card, a check-in when coverage starts, a few more over the first 90 days, and then a handful of friendly touches every year after that (birthday, spring, mid-year, before AEP, and so on). The goal is simple: by the time AEP rolls around, you're the person they already know and trust, not a stranger calling about their plan.

Every step is its own campaign template. You turn on the ones you want, and they run on their own.

How the steps connect

Here's the thing that trips people up: the steps aren't actually wired to each other. Finishing one campaign doesn't kick off the next. Instead, each template comes with its own automation that adds members based on a date:

• Days after their enrollment date (the day they signed up)
• Days after their effective date (the day coverage starts)
• A fixed day every year (like April 28)
• Their birthday

Because everyone's dates move along the same timeline, the campaigns line up into a journey on their own. Two templates are the exception: Rapid Disenrollment Save and Win-Backs start the moment a policy moves to a cancelling status, whenever that happens.

The Medicare journey

Then, every year (each campaign's automation only adds members who haven't been through it yet, so plan to Restart last year's members; more below):

And whenever it happens:

Most of these only pick up members whose policy is active or pending (Active, Placed, Pending, Pending Effectuation, or Pending Followup). The 30, 60, and 90-day calls are a little stricter: they only call members whose policy is Active. The texts include pending members too.

A good place to start

You don't need every step. Here's the set our agencies run most, a nice mix of calls for the moments that matter and texts for the lighter touches:

• Welcome Text and MA Welcome Calls
• ID Card Heads-Up Text and ID Card Not Received Text
• MA Effective Date Check-In (switch its automation to Effective Date if you want it on the day coverage starts)
• 30-Day Check-In Text and 60-Day Check-In Text
• MA 90-Day Check-In (call)
• 1-Year Anniversary Text, and MA Birthday Text (add its Birthday automation)
• The yearly touches: Spring Touch, Use Your Benefits Reminder Text, Mid-Year Check-In, Pre-AEP Call, Mid-AEP Call, Holiday & Pre-OEP Text, and Mid-OEP Touch
• Rapid Disenrollment Save and MA Win-Backs, so nobody slips away quietly

The ACA journey

The ACA templates are lighter on automations. Two of them add members on their own:

The rest (ACA Welcome Calls, ACA ID Card Check-In, ACA 90-Day Check-In, and ACA Birthday Text) don't come with an automation. To make them part of your journey, add one on each campaign's Automations tab (for example, Date-Based, 1 day after Enrollment Date for welcome calls), or add people yourself.

Things to know before you turn it on

Date steps don't go back in time

The date automations check once a night, and they only add people whose date lands on that day. They don't go back and catch up. So if you turn on the 30-Day Check-In today, members who hit day 30 last week won't get it. And if you turn on Pre-AEP Call on September 10, the September 8 run already came and went.

If you want your existing book to get a step anyway, add them yourself. See Add Customers to a Campaign.

Turn campaigns on before their dates hit

A template's automation is switched on the moment you create the campaign, but the campaign itself starts as a Draft. If the automation picks someone up before you activate, their first call or text gets dropped and they're marked Skipped ("Campaign was not active"), and turning the campaign on later won't bring them back. So finish setup and click Activate before the next date comes up, or switch the automation off until you're ready (Automations tab, click it, turn off Active, Save Changes).

Yearly touches hit your whole book

The calendar steps (Spring Touch, Pre-AEP Call, and so on) add every member who matches, all on the same day. For a big book that's a lot of calls at once. That's fine, careCycle ramps up and paces them, but make sure your team and your transfer destinations are ready for it that week.

Effective dates come in waves

Medicare coverage usually starts on the 1st of the month, so the effective-date steps arrive in monthly bursts: ID card texts around the 15th, 30-day check-ins around the end of the month, and so on. Expect your volume to spike on those days.

Members can be in more than one campaign

A member can be in several campaigns at once, so steps can land close together. A few examples:

• Welcome Text and MA Welcome Calls go out on back-to-back days (on purpose). Out of the box, MA Effective Date Check-In also goes out on enrollment day, right alongside the Welcome Text.
• If you move Effective Date Check-In to the effective date, someone whose coverage starts November 1 gets it and the Mid-AEP Call on the same day.
• New members who enroll in late summer can get the Pre-AEP Call within a week or two of their welcome calls.

One thing that helps: if a member books an appointment on any call, careCycle ends all of their active campaigns, so they won't keep getting calls once they've got time on the books with you. See How Campaigns Run.

Yearly touches need a restart

The 1-Year Anniversary Text fires once, a year after the effective date. The birthday and calendar automations check every year, but each one only adds members who haven't been through that campaign before. Anyone who finished last year's run needs a Restart to get it again: filter your Customers, select them, and click Restart. See Restarting people.

Make it yours

Every step is a normal campaign, so you can change anything:

• When it fires: open the campaign's Automations tab and change the date or the offset. (For example, move Pre-AEP Call to a different day in September.)
• What it says: the Employees tab. See Edit Your AI with Employees.
• How often it calls and texts: the Pulse tab. See Pulse.

Setting it up