Penrod Blog

How Penrod Decreased Training Time For Security Health Plan’s Customer Service Agents

Security Health Plan offers health insurance plans for individuals, families, and employer groups. In addition, they provide Medicare supplemental plans for individuals 65 and over and BadgerCare plans for Wisconsin families who need assistance affording health insurance.

As part of the Marshfield Clinic Health System, Security Health Plan has helped Wisconsin residents find and obtain affordable health insurance since 1971. They currently serve over 230,000 members in 41 Wisconsin counties.


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Inefficient technology lengthened customer call times

Security Health Plan has always had superb customer service. But customer service agents needed to use three to five different applications and view between seven to ten different screens while trying to serve customers. Security Health Plan also faced issues with centralizing documentation.

At the time, information was spread across multiple locations on their network which slowed down customer service agent productivity and efficiency. Agents still delivered excellent customer care, but Security Health Plan leaders knew that something needed to change to make their agents’ jobs easier.

These problems increased call times while customer service agents juggled applications, screens, and finding documentation. And long call times weren’t the only problem.

Because their system was so complex, new Security Health Plan Customer service agents needed a month to two months before they were ready to handle calls on their own.

During open enrollment for health insurance during the 4th quarter, these long training times made it difficult to bring on temporary staff to help manage the increase in customer service calls.

We couldn’t have asked for a more positive experience with the Penrod team

Derek Dieringer

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A centralized customer service application

From the very beginning, Penrod and Security Health Plan meshed, Derek Dieringer, Project Manager at Security Health Plan, said. The communication between the two companies was smooth, and Penrod listened to solve problems, not charge more.

“Penrod has been absolutely incredible to work with,” said Derek. “The people we have worked with have been what sets Penrod apart from the competition. From day one, they have been easy to work with and utterly amazing. They listen to our problems and questions and come up with solutions instead of figuring out how to charge you more. They are available when you need them, have top notch technical skills and are great to work with. We couldn’t have asked for a more positive experience with the Penrod team.”

Penrod used its experience in the Salesforce Service Cloud to create a customer service application that pulled data from Security Health Plan’s multiple source systems into one console. And remember the documentation spread across different network locations?

Penrod centralized Security Health Plan’s documentation using the Salesforce Knowledge Component so customer service agents could quickly and easily find the information they needed. Instead of toggling between screens or searching for information from multiple sources, now customer service agents can find everything they need – member information, claims, coverage, accounts receivable, benefits, and documentation – all in one application.

New agents are up in running in a few weeks as opposed to months, and experienced agents can respond to member questions more quickly and efficiently than before.

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Results

Security Health Plan’s new customer service application has been live for a month now, and in that short amount of time, average call wrap-up times have decreased by a minute compared to last year. New agents can be trained in two to three weeks instead of a month to two months. Decreased call times and shortened training times result in significant cost savings, and Derek attributes those savings directly to their new system.

Ready to learn how Penrod can decrease your customer service call times? Let’s talk.