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Aug. 15, 2000
Contacts:
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina -- Elizabeth Hammond, 803-788-0222, ext. 44626 or 800-288-2227
CIO magazine -- Karen Fogerty, 508-935-4091
South Carolina Blue Cross Wins CIO-100 Award for Customer Service Excellence
Framingham, Mass. – CIO magazine today announced Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina as a recipient of the 2000 CIO-100 Award, a program that recognizes organizations around the world as exemplifying the highest level of operational and strategic excellence. This year's program focused on excellence, innovation and improved business performance through the use of customer-oriented practices.
According to Abbie Lundberg, CIO editor-in-chief, "Customer relationship management is a way for large organizations to gain the depth of understanding of their customers that comes naturally to smaller, local businesses. It takes a tremendous commitment to get to this point. This year's CIO-100 honorees have demonstrated excellence in one or more of the critical areas of managing the customer relationship."
To provide a vision of ever-changing business trends, the focus on the CIO-100 changes annually. This year, CIO honors 100 companies that make the customer central to doing business and set the benchmarks for others to follow. Complete coverage of the 2000 CIO-100 Awards is featured in the August 15 issue of CIO magazine and at www.cio.com.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield won for its Web site, www.SouthCarolinaBlues.com, which offers a secure section called My Insurance Manager where policyholders and providers can view real time information such as claims status, deductible and out-of-pocket amounts, inpatient and outpatient authorization, eligibility, and other health insurance such as coverage through a spouse. Members also can request a new ID card, choose a physician and access benefits booklets.
"Empowering policyholders and providers with self-service day or night, seven days a week, using the Internet was paramount to us," said Stephen K. Wiggins, senior vice president and CIO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of South Carolina. "The information members and providers can see is secure and real time, directly accessing our back office systems, which makes us a leader in customer service in the health insurance industry. We are especially pleased to see our efforts for customers recognized among many industries by the CIO-100 Award."
The 100 winners were selected by a judging panel of nine industry experts and ten CIO magazine editors and writers. Blue Cross launched www.SouthCarolinaBlues.com in December and has since also won four other awards: a Best of Blues Award for Electronic Media and Interactive Programs from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, Hospitals & Health Networks (H&HN) magazine's Most Wired Innovator 2000 Award, a Merit Award in the Insurance category of Health Information Resource Center's 2000 World Wide Web Health Awards program, and another CIO magazine distinction, which was their Web Business 50/50 Award based on innovation in Internet sites.
Based in Columbia, S.C., Blue Cross covers over 1.3 million people in South Carolina and is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. It makes its My Insurance Manager functionality available to other insurance and managed care companies through its subsidiary company, Companion Information Management Resources (CIMR), also based in Columbia.
CXO Media, Inc. (formerly CIO Communications, Inc.), publishes CIO magazine. CXO Media is an executive reach company, serving CIOs, CEOs, CFOs, COOs and other corporate officers who use technology to thrive and prosper in this new era of business. The company strives to enhance partnerships between CIOs and CXOs, as well as create opportunities for IT and consumer marketers to reach them. In addition to publishing CIO magazine, CXO Media produces Darwin magazine, the www.cio.comand www.darwinmagazine.com Web sites, as well as CIO and Darwin Executive Programs, a series of conferences that provide educational and networking opportunities for corporate and government leaders.
CXO Media, Inc. is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading IT media, research and exposition company. IDG publishes more than 300 computer magazines and newspapers and 4,000 book titles and offers online users the largest network of technology-specific sites around the world through IDG.net, which comprises more than 270 targeted websites in 70 countries. IDG is also a leading producer of 168 computer-related expositions worldwide, and provides IT market analysis through 50 offices in 43 countries worldwide. Company information is available at www.idg.com.
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