Problem Definition The Client maintains 6 call centers which, during seasonal peaks or open enrollment periods, receive roughly 2-3x their daily call volume. During this time, the client usually adds 10-15% new members further exacerbating the needs on their agent’s time. Even after adding new agents to meet this increased demand, customers experienced higher estimated wait times (EWT), which increased abandonment rates, and had negative impacts to customer satisfaction (CSAT), and NPS scores.

• Intelligent Call Handling through ICX – to provide self-service for any kind of transaction need- claim status, pre-authorization, etc
• Intelligent Greeting – to provide automated claim status to the caller if a claim was already open (“Are you calling to hear your claim status”)
• Swampfox Digital – for calls that couldn’t be answered through automation, the chance to engage with a Rep via Chat was offered if the caller was calling in on a cell phone and a chat was established.
• First in Line (FIL) – For Calls that needed a skilled person, ICX supported finding the best resource (inhouse expert or lower cost outsourcer) and – if there was a wait – allowed Customers to hear their real predicted wait time- and request a callback as soon as an agent was available or schedule a time when they know they had more time.

1. Self-Service – Intelligent Greeting to nudge Callers into self-service containment for predictable functions
2. Digital – Swampfox Digital Chat Diversion for enhanced and more scalable digital resources
3. Callback – Immediate Callback (ASAP) and Scheduled Callback for complicated support issues

Through the implementation of Callback (First In Line), the client was able to increase their time saved in queue by offering their callers the opportunity to receive a scheduled or ASAP callback instead of waiting on hold.

During peak enrollment times, 4,000 to 8,000 calls per day utilize FIL. This has increased their customer satisfaction, lowered their abandonment rates and lowered because the initial “thirty second angry rant” from callers that have been waiting on hold for long periods of time.

Furthermore, on normal business days, when open enrollment is not in effect, the client still has two major peaks in the day in which 2,000-3,000 calls per day go through Callback.

With Callback, the managers were able to adjust the number of slots and times offered for schedule callbacks to more evenly distribute their calls throughout the day. This cut down the wait times at their peak times by enabling callers to schedule a callback for periods with less demand. They were able to reduce staffing costs by more evenly distributing their call load during the day.

Interestingly enough, Callback has also worked as a failover when the client had a major telephony outage making it so that their agents were not able to login to accept calls. During this period, Callback was still queuing up calls, which was a graceful way of not letting their customers know that they were sitting in a dead queue. Since EWT skyrocketed during this period, customers were able to request a callback that then went out as soon as they were able to get their agents back online.