Transforming the quoting process

Security Health Plan, a not-for-profit health maintenance organization, offers health insurance plans for families, individuals, and employer groups. They also work with individuals over 65 to provide Medicare plans and with Wisconsin families that need BadgerCare plans.

During the health insurance open enrollment period, Security Health Plan’s customer service agents (CSAs) juggled meeting high customer service call volumes, managing a heavier load of data, and managing multiple platforms. Penrod evaluated the current processes and helped Security Health Plan streamline their complex, data-filled environment to improve both the CSA and the client experience.

Challenge

Disparate data and multiple platforms increased call times, slowed resolution, and made member service more difficult

Solution

Salesforce Service Cloud implementation that streamlined processes and unified data

Results

Faster case resolutions, shorter call times, and improved customer service

The Challenge

A Needlessly Complex quoting process

CSAs need specific information to use when speaking with members, to ensure they provide consistent, accurate, and complete information. However, the required documentation was scattered throughout the network.

Because Security Health Plan lacked a streamlined, singular customer service platform, CSAs used multiple platforms during calls. They jumped back and forth between screens to find the documentation they needed, input new customer demographics, and find plan benefits. During a single call, CSAs had to toggle up to 10 screens and platforms. The time they spent switching between platforms made for long call times, even longer hold times for new callers, and fewer customers helped. The organization also lacked a process for updating and approving member demographic information, which extended call times and lowered customer satisfaction.

Long Training Times
During open enrollment, Security Health Plan needed temporary customer service staff to handle a substantial increase in call volume. Training could take up to two months as new employees learned how to juggle multiple platforms, search for scattered documentation, and find the right verbiage to use with customers. In some cases, by the time new CSAs were fully trained, the additional staff was no longer necessary because open enrollment was almost over. These training costs cut into the bottom line and made it difficult to bring on CSAs.

The Solution

Salesforce Service Cloud

To solve the issues Security Health Plan faced—especially during open enrollment season—Penrod used Salesforce Service Cloud to create a customized solution to manage customer data and demographics, call information, and documentation. This offered easy-to-access information, customer profiles, and automation on a single, streamlined platform.

Penrod built Salesforce Service Cloud to include all the data CSAs need during a call. An easy-to-use dashboard helps CSAs monitor the call and quickly navigate to data they use for each call. Instead of searching in multiple locations for the correct information and documentation, CSAs can simply look in the Knowledge Base.

Plan, benefits, and demographic information for each member is stored on a member profile. These profiles keep the entire team up to date on the most recent member information. Notes and demographic changes are made in real time and are easily accessible during a member call, so that each CSA is able to provide the member with the best service possible.

Simple demographic changes are now automated. CSAs can click “update” and edit the demographic information on the member page. From there, a case is created and routed to the appropriate team to finalize those changes.

 

The Results

Streamlined, Efficient Service

Today, with a streamlined software system to help Security Health Plan’s CSAs, most customer inquires are resolved on the first call. For calls that need to be escalated, automation and native Salesforce functionality shortens time to resolution, as well as tracking those calls to help the organization better assist customers in the future.

CSAs are able to quickly and thoroughly respond to member inquiries with Salesforce Knowledge. All standardized responses, documentation, and plan information is at their fingertips during member calls. Call handle time was cut by more than two minutes, and average call talk time was cut by one minute.

With only one platform to learn, CSA training times and costs were cut as well. In some cases, the streamlined workflow reduces training periods from 4 to 6 weeks to 2 to 4 weeks.This shorter training period enables health plans to be nimble and cost-efficient during open enrollment, quickly bringing on temporary staff to meet high call volumes—and provide an efficient and exceptional member experience.

Lower Call Times

Average call times reduced by 13%

Faster Training

Average training time reduced by 45%

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