How COVID-19 has challenged and transformed Medibank’s retail experience

I admit I didn’t know what to expect when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and we were forced into lockdown. It was a massive change and all of a sudden, we were thrown a huge curve ball. Our retail stores were closed and we had to navigate a new way of working.

To paint a picture, some of my team have spent years having face-to-face conversations with our customers in retail stores, so not only did we all have to adapt to working from home, but also using channels like web chat and speaking to customers over the phone.

It’s a lot of change in a short space of time, but I am extremely proud of how my team in South Australia approached these major changes with enthusiasm. It was fantastic to see how excited they were to challenge themselves and how they also embraced being able to learn new skills.

This was all happening while they were supporting our customers through a difficult period. But I think what got us through it was having the team connected through daily online chats.

Now that more than 90 per cent of Medibank stores across Australia have reopened, it feels like they were never closed as the transition back has been so seamless.

I am really enjoying being back in-store and the feedback from customers has been so positive. While it looks a little different with sneeze guards, hand sanitiser stations and limits to the number of people in the store, the experience customers have with us, is the same. We want our customers to know we are here to help them.

We’re carrying some of our new skills into life back in our stores. So not only are we there for retail customers, but customers who want help via messaging or phone. So, if you walk into one of our stores and we’re on the phone or tapping a keyboard, please know that we’re serving another customer. But our promise to you is we will get to helping you as quickly as we can, as we know your time is valuable.