Ramping Up Benefits Administration Support 3x During Open Enrollment

Share the Smiles

How iQor Scaled Work-at-Home Customer Support for a Health Care and Benefits Administration Provider

Background 

This health care and benefits enrollment company services clients that range from regional to national. Their solutions enable human resources departments to centralize their health care and benefits offerings, streamlining administration and reducing costs. Employees make benefits selections and the client registers them with individual providers.

The Challenge 

As this benefits administration provider met continued success and an expanding client base, they sought additional support to meet increased customer service needs throughout the year. Open enrollment and the significant seasonal ramps associated with it presented an immediate need for trained agents fast.

The benefits administration provider contracted with business process outsourcing (BPO) companies to help them meet their customer service needs in response to their growth in business. They had a steady state of several hundred customer service agents spread network-wide internally and throughout their customer service partners. They sought additional resources to ramp to about 1,000 agents during open enrollment peak season.

The Solution

The health care and benefits administration provider partnered with iQor to help them meet their expanded steady state and seasonal staffing needs during open enrollment. iQor worked with the client to quickly ramp the number of trained agents by a multiple of three during open enrollment season the first year. This exceeded the program’s full-time employee (FTE) headcount targets and bolstered the client’s ability to efficiently service their customers during peak volumes.

Through collaboration and open communication, the iQor team developed a strong relationship with the client based on trust. We partnered with the client to design recruiting and hiring strategies that enabled us to consistently meet staffing needs swiftly and securely. We expanded the recruitment search geography to accelerate the recruiting process and quickly meet headcount expectations with high-quality customer service agents. Additionally, we expedited the issuance of hardware to newly recruited agents to support an immediate work-at-home environment in a highly secure setting that emulates the security of our in-office infrastructure. In tandem, these strategies enabled us to get the program up and running faster and meet the client’s expectations.

This partnership also empowered us to work with the client to design segmented training for their regional and national accounts, tailoring customer support to the specific needs of each account. The custom-tailored virtual training program reduced the timeframe by several days, allowing agents to hit the ground running faster and with confidence.

Currently, the program supports 100% inbound calls and chat for the client with a team that is 100% work-at-home. All agents are trained and managed in secure remote work environments with outstanding results. iQor’s flexible work-at-home solutions allow the work-in-office experience to be easily mirrored at the agent’s home while boosting agent retention and customer loyalty.

With robust endpoint protection, agents access the same virtual desktop interface through iQor’s multi-factor authentication service to deliver seamless customer experiences safely and securely to customers on all of the health care administration provider’s accounts.

Our technology infrastructure keeps team supervisors and leaders connected with work-at-home agents so human interaction remains at the forefront.   iQor’s digital CX solutions make employee engagement and performance coaching interactive and fun so customer experiences can be as well. We track performance across virtual teams and use our propriety speech analytics solution to identify coaching opportunities in near real-time for targeted support.

These solutions, developed in partnership with the client, result in smiles and exceptional employee and customer experiences.

The Results 

The iQor team and the client worked together to produce excellent results during times of increased staffing needs. Program teams received consistently high accolades from the client as well as from representatives of the accounts they service. They appreciated iQor’s creativity, flexibility, and adaptability to shift and schedule changes. They also acknowledged the team’s understanding and responsiveness to pain points.

By working with the client to understand their program needs and expectations and partnering to develop effective solutions, we were able to exceed target key performance indicators (KPIs) and provide exceptional customer service during critical periods to support the rapid growth of their business.

High Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

The team earns CSAT ratings 3% higher than the client’s goal.

Excellent Agent Attendance

Program agents have 95% show rates with 1,000 calls in queue.

Strong Schedule Adherence

CX agents exceed the client’s schedule adherence goal.

Low Attrition

By creating rewarding experiences for employees and customers, the program enjoys a low 2% attrition rate.