UASTPA

UASTPA

Market

United Administrative Services (UAS) has been providing employee benefit plan administration for over 40 years.  Established in 1947 as Stephen Chelbay Company, they focused on commercial and personal insurance, as well as administration of Taft-Hartley multiple employee trust funds.  In 1971 the business model expanded to become a Third-Party Administrator (TPA) providing administrative services for benefit and retirement plans.  It was rebranded as UAS, while the insurance arm of the business maintained the Stephen Chelbay name.

Judy Sargent, who was an executive at the company for 30 years, purchased UAS in 2019.  With her extensive background in Retirement Plans and Health & Welfare Benefit Plan administration, she had the experience and vision to transform a business established 60+ years ago, into a leading provider of benefits and services for the 21st Century.  That vision included undertaking a business transformation process and embracing a digital model that allows customers to quickly and efficiently complete tasks related to their benefits.

Along with transforming the corporate website, UAS needed to update the seven Trustee benefit websites they managed for their labor union clients.  In total, eleven websites were redesigned.

The business optimization strategy included enabling online enrollment and payment to ensure customer convenience.  Another productivity feature was the ability to use online signatures on many of the required forms.  Security was integrated across all of the websites.

These important features were required while still maintaining the UAS commitment to provide benefits administration with a personal touch.  Real people still answer the phones and help address questions and concerns of the many clients who rely on them.


Solution

JWay Group developed a three-phased road map to address immediate and future requirements.  This included conducting a needs assessment, developing a digital marketing strategy and branding kit, and implementing a complex, multiple websites redesign with productivity enhancements.

Digital Asset Recovery

As a service to their many labor union clients, UAS developed and managed Trustee benefit websites for the union employees to manage their benefits.  However, overtime records of domain ownership and access had been lost. JWay conducted forensic research online to recover access to the domains, and migrate the content to a secure, centralized AWS cloud environment.

Brand Development

A brand identity kit included logo studies, typeface and color palette that would inform the new website design, as well as digital marketing and collateral materials.

Marketing Collateral

With the new brand guidelines in place, UAS needed to update its marketing collateral including business cards, brochures, postcards, and signage for an upcoming convention.  This provided an opportunity to introduce a significant innovation to their marketing materials, QRvox Voice Valet.  These unique QR codes feature vocalized content either using text-to-speech conversion or a recorded voice plus a whole suite of advanced features.  Customers use their smartphones to scan the code, listen to the message, and respond to the call-to-action (CTA) to drive engagement.

UAS used the Voice Valet codes on a postcard handout promoting auto adjudication services.  After listening to the voice content, the customer was linked to a landing page with an explainer video that described the auto adjudication process.  The landing page included a link to the UAS website for more information.

The UAS leadership team also uses Voice Valet QR codes on their business cards to deliver an elevator pitch about their role at UAS.

Web Design and Development

Information architecture and content strategy was developed for the main UAS website.  A new homepage was designed based on the brand guidelines and content was created and/or migrated to a WordPress platform.  Design features included security, SEO optimization, and device responsiveness.

The multiple trustee benefit websites were developed based on creating a model website and then building clones based on the original.  The same key features were enabled that were used on the main UAS site.  A roadmap was created to prioritize the development of the trustee sites and ensure timely delivery.

Technology Implementation

The business transformation process included shifting from paper processes to an online enrollment and payment system.  JWay developed a functional requirements specification document (FRS) to guide the implementation of the online features.  Security was a key requirement to protect personal data of the many employees who would be enrolling or making payments.

Exhaustive analysis and extensive data mapping using MindMap were conducted to identify data flows and content on all of the existing websites.  This was undertaken to ensure the accurate delivery of information when the transition was made to the new platform.  A development roadmap was used to plot deliverables over a six-month period.

Collaboration with the UAS IT department opened the door to integration with their on-premise IBM-based system and ensured the integrity of existing processes while introducing new online processes.


Result

Although the project scope was broad and complex, JWay Group delivered on budget and ahead of schedule.  This was the result of strategic planning to understand all of the key requirements and detailed schedules to keep projects on track.

The development of a marketing strategy document served as a guide to brand positioning and messaging.  A navigation framework allowed the client and the marketing and technical teams to agree from the outset to information architecture for website development.

Using the rigorous discipline of content mapping, assured accurate delivery of information.  Collaboration with the UAS IT team opened the door for online enrollment and payment. Marketing and technical expertise backed by extensive experience allowed the JWay team to help UAS through the business transformation process.  Planning is everything.