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TASKE Reports Provide In-Depth Analysis of Contact Center Activity
One of the 500 fastest growing companies in the nation according to Inc. 500 is Health Design Plus, offering customized approaches to help organizations provide high-quality, cost-effective health care to employees. Health Design Plus' core businesses include care management, disease and lifestyle management, network development and management, claims payment, and benefit support services. The company also has a strong customer service function, and uses TASKE Contact in their contact center to service both plan members and health care providers.
Prior to implementing ACD and TASKE, Health Design Plus was experiencing major challenges with their Customer Service department as customers were frequently experiencing long hold times. Without a queuing system in place, inbound calls would often be sent to voice mail, leading to frustration for both callers and agents. According to Health Design Plus Manager of Eligibility, Donna Rank, who was the previous Customer Service Manager, their ACD and TASKE implementation provided an immediate change for the better.
"Client satisfaction went through the roof after we implemented TASKE. Prior to the implementation, our clients were frustrated. Sometimes they had an urgent issue, as we're dealing with people's medical care and their finances, and they wanted to talk to somebody right away. They didn't want to call and leave a message and play phone tag. With TASKE, we noticed a dramatic decrease in the number of outgoing calls the customer service reps made and it made the department much more efficient."
Rank says that TASKE Contact was particularly useful in identifying process inefficiencies in the Customer Service Department, both internally with their agents and externally with things like hardware and equipment. Judi Griss, Director of Process Improvement, found that TASKE Reports enabled Health Design Plus to focus on the internal aspects: abandoned calls, agents, and queues. "We had gut feelings... but with the queue information it was right there in black and white. TASKE helped us to identify where calls were abandoning and it was very helpful to set up the flow of the calls to the service department. Now our average abandoned rate is under 2%"
The TASKE cradle-to-grave call reporting application, Visualizer, is also a favorite with Griss, helping to determine if a problem may be caused by external factors. "Visualizer has helped because we have had people calling in saying they were getting dropped calls, so we are able to look at that and see if there is something happening with our local telephone service provider."
According to Griss, Health Design Plus upgraded to he latest version of TASKE and is quite impressed at the results. Both Griss and Rank say that, through the entire upgrade process, the support from TASKE was exceptional.
"The Training and Service is really outstanding. Support picks up after the first ring, they can do web meetings, and they really get to the heart of the problem immediately. The service is excellent. It is nice to know you have the support behind you."
Sue Kithcart, Manager of Plan Administration, which includes Customer Service, says TASKE has helped in the resource area so much, there has been a noticeable cost savings to the company and the customer. "Agents are now allocated based on the information we are getting from TASKE and because they are more efficient we have not had to re-staff positions vacated through attrition. Therefore, we have a savings, and a cost we do not have to pass on to the client."
The Health Design Plus agents are really helped by another TASKE application, TASKE Agent Desktop, says Rank. Agent Desktop displays user-specified, real-time contact center data on an agent's computer monitor, and according to Rank, helps "...agents manage their work much more efficiently. They realize, for example, that if there are three calls in the queue and there is only one other customer service rep available for the calls, they probably shouldn't sign out for lunch. Seeing the real-time statistics really gave the reps buy in, they really could take ownership and see where they needed to jump in and jump out."
Rank says TASKE assists with both identifying agent training needs and their time management skills. "If we have people who have a long average talk time, we are able to identify that person and say 'maybe you need a little help in explaining the benefits better. Let me show you some tools you can use'. It helps us in identifying not just training gaps, but also the way our agents are managing their time. With TASKE we were really able to zero in on a lot of training issues."
Griss has found that with TASKE now fully established at Health Design Plus, they continue to discover new things about their client base, agents, and processes. "We continually improve our process as we streamline and improve our efficiency. If you look at the way we've been able to ratchet down our call time, our answer time, our abandoned rates... that translates into financial gains at the end of the year for our organization and clients. We have performance standards to meet and now we're exceeding them, so we'll continue to use TASKE to analyze the objectives of the organization and to better evaluate what our needs are for our future propositions."
