Tag: Human iQ

Designing Employee Training Programs to Build Human Connections

Posted on by Blake Graves

Background

This nonprofit health benefits company is focused on improving the health and lives of its one million members. It is nationally recognized in the United States as a leader for quality, customer service, transparency, and product innovation. As the fastest-growing healthcare plan in the state in which it operates, it is accepted by the majority of hospitals and primary care providers in its state. The healthcare company is committed to the community and focused on low overhead, cost savings, and personalized support, while offering a broad range of individual, family, small business, and large group plans. They also provide services to Medicare beneficiaries, placing a high priority on ensuring senior citizens receive responsive customer service that yields consistently high customer satisfaction rates.

The Challenge

The state health plan is committed to providing excellent customer service. Their internal agents deliver inbound and outbound customer care to the plan’s one million members. Determined to reach their average speed of answer (ASA) goals, they found they needed additional support to meet seasonal open enrollment demands and to help elderly Medicare customers get back on track when facing hardships.

They needed more cost-effective solutions to be able to ramp effectively with sufficient staffing levels of full-time employees (FTEs) during open enrollment. They also needed to ensure these employees were trained quickly and effectively with in-depth knowledge to provide personalized care to customers from a wide variety of backgrounds in an empathetic, understanding way.

Additionally, they sought support for accounts receivable management (ARM) and for  providing friendly reminders and solutions to help elderly customers retain their Medicare services when in the midst of hardship. The focus was on keeping customers satisfied and providing compassionate service responsive to their needs.

All in all, the company is in it for the long haul—they want to keep their customers for life and they know that hinges on providing excellent customer experiences with 100% satisfaction rates.

The Solution

iQor began working with the healthcare benefits company in 2012 with a team dedicated to providing empathetic outbound accounts receivable management support to help Medicare customers get back on track. The demographics of the customer service agents differed significantly from those of the customers they served. In order to provide the best customer service experiences, the agents needed to understand their customers’ needs. To this end, the iQor team proactively developed a multifaceted program to help agents understand and connect with older customers.

This approach yielded great success. After piloting outbound customer support for a year and consistently exceeding the healthcare benefits company’s expectations, iQor gained their trust as a valued partner in their customer service offerings. As a result, iQor transitioned to providing inbound customer support at a steady state and supporting seasonal ramps. This was the first time the healthcare benefits company had outsourced inbound customer service; iQor remains their only business process outsourcing (BPO) partner to this day. iQor provides inbound customer care on multiple lines of business with a steady state of FTEs that increases to more than 100 during open enrollment.

Implemented In-Depth Training

iQor created an intensive six-week training program to develop agents, focusing on complex content knowledge, compliance, and empathetic and personalized service. iQor excelled at training agents not only for steady state service needs, but also for peak-season ramps that required training more than 5x the number of agents so they could become experts. iQor exceeded the healthcare benefits company’s requirements for performance and did so at a lower cost than they could provide internally.

Established Frequent and Open Communication With the Client

Weekly and bi-weekly meetings with the healthcare benefits company provided an ongoing detailed analysis of operations, goals, and achievements. These meetings solidified iQor as a trusted partner in the healthcare benefits company’s success.

Created a Unique Community Outreach Program

In line with iQorian Values focused on giving back to the community and a commitment to truly understanding customer needs, iQor’s program leadership reached out to local nursing homes and senior centers so customer service teams could build relationships with members of the community and better understand their needs. Teams regularly participated in resident programs such as bingo, seasonal activities, dances, arts and crafts, and more. These partnerships heightened agent awareness of circumstances customers may be encountering and created opportunities for staff to learn firsthand about consumer struggles and needs. These activities built empathy and patience, showing agents why, for example, it may take longer to handle a customer call—plus they created long-lasting bonds for both parties.

Shifted the Customer Interaction Focus Away From Being Time-Sensitive and Toward Building Caring Relationships

Because of the elderly customer demographic, KPIs like average handle time (AHT) were less important. Instead, customer service agents needed to talk to the consumer slowly and perhaps loudly so they could fully understand and appreciate the service and solutions being provided. Agents learned to take their time with customers, in part because they may be the only person the customer talks to that day. Program agents were also trained to understand the individual and unique challenges many of the consumers may be facing, including heart conditions or arthritis that could impact the speed of their interactions or how challenging it may be to hold the phone or write notes.

Implemented a Focus on True, Meaningful Customer Service and Compliance

The iQor team covered all angles of training and ongoing coaching to ensure agents were equipped to provide personalized, empathetic service to a niche customer base. The teams also placed a high level of importance on compliance, ensuring all endpoint security measures, training, government regulations, and healthcare guidelines were followed.

The Results

iQor implemented a budget-friendly, results-focused customer-care solution that included weekly and bi-weekly touch-bases with the client. The iQor team worked closely with the healthcare benefits company to ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and to establish procedures for following up with customers that may need additional support.

iQor’s actions resulted in improved scores that met and exceeded operational goals. The KPIs for the different lines of business reflect differing results based on the needs of the customers for each program.

Expanded Engagements With Nearly Identical AHT

Total call volume jumped 45% from 40,000 to 58,000 while AHT stayed nearly constant, demonstrating consistent support.

Exceeded Medicare Quality Score Goals

The program team generated a 1% improvement in the Medicare Quality Score.

Excelled at High Quality Ratings

The team supporting the individual plan surpassed the quality experience goal by 7% and the quality technical goal by 8%.

While the metrics matter, there’s one true measure of overall success: client and customer satisfaction. iQor has provided exceptional service and earned its place as a loyal and trusted partner of the healthcare benefits client for more than a decade. iQor teams are truly committed to providing exceptional service that makes employees and customers smile.

How to Increase Employee Retention and Engagement with Leadership Training

Posted on by Blake Graves

When BPOs invest in leadership development, they inspire improvement across the organization. From frontline call center agents to operations directors, clear and effective leadership can motivate, energize, and inspire employees at every level.  

One study showed that companies displayed the following results from leadership training: 

  • Return on investment was nearly six times the program cost. 
  • Workplace relationships improved by 77 percent. 
  • Teamwork improved by 67 percent. 
  • Fifty-one percent of employees reported greater job satisfaction. 
  • Overall quality improved by 48 percent. 

The takeaway? Effective leadership bolsters employee job performance, and leadership training is a highly successful way to ensure leaders at all levels can bring out the best in their teams. 

Leadership Development Drives Retention, Engagement, and Employee Satisfaction 

Starting off on the right foot is critical to new leaders and their teams. When leadership training only occurs post promotion, it can be difficult for new leaders to transition into management. And without the proper knowledge of how to coach, support, and engage with team members in a way that’s aligned with company culture and values, leaders can veer off course and develop habits that can lead to unsatisfied employees. 

At iQor, we have challenged ourselves by revolutionizing professional development throughout our global footprint via our award-winning sQholar program. This 6-month program provides future leaders with the training needed to successfully execute and perform at a level that allows their team to meet or exceed performance expectations from the minute they hit the floor. Every quarter, the Corporate Training Team progresses a batch of leader-ready employees and, in turn, accepts new applicants into the program.  

We train sQholars to be supportive and how to build trust and provide constructive feedback. As employees pick up on these skills, there is less turnover and more engaged agents who are equipped to handle customer service issues.  

What is iQor’s Leadership Development Program, sQholar? 

The sQholar program is for high-potential employees with exceptional leadership skills who are team-oriented and want to progress in their careers. The program consists of nine to eleven hours of eLearning and team-building activities that align with the organization’s leadership competency model. 

The program includes our four-day workshop — PeaQ Performance Qoaching –that teaches agents to identify and document behaviors that lead to strong performance and how best to coach team members based on their individual needs. 

Then, employees start the sQholar curriculum, which includes a 2-day orientation, shadowing call center management, and completing a research paper before graduation that details their plan to improve retention and increase employee engagement. 

Employees Love Leadership Training and Development 

More than 2,400 of our current supervisors have completed one if not all of the learning modules and courses within the sQholar program. Additionally, employees are exposed to iQor’s management culture, and real-time challenges that managers face every day, giving them a new appreciation for those who lead and develop their own personal leadership style.  

Since its launch in 2017, more than 700 iQor employees have finished the sQholar training, and nearly 300 have been promoted. On average, 41 percent of sQholar participants are promoted to a supervisor role within their first year of completing the program. Our program has grown to well over 465 active sQholars working their way towards a leadership position.   

The sQholar program is now a mandatory prerequisite for all internal promotions, with hundreds of applicants applying every quarter. External hires must now complete the courses and curriculum as well.    

The sQholar program has been recognized by HR.com as a LEAD award winner in several categories placing 2nd as Best Global Leadership Program in 2020, and also won the 2019 Bronze Stevie Award for Sales & Customer Service.  

In total, iQor has received 30 awards from Hr.com’s LEAD Awards over the last seven years, and 39 training awards in total for our unique and innovative career development offerings for CX leadership in our global call centers and work-at-home environment. 

Leadership Development is Good for Business Too 

We hire approximately 30 new call center supervisors every month.  New supervisors take time to understand iQor’s unique culture, performance drivers, and supervisory challenges. Additionally, our exit survey data and company surveys indicate that career growth paths are an important factor in employee retention. 

The courses and curriculum a sQholar completes during their training period are proven performance accelerators. Employees who have this knowledge have less of a learning curve and are more likely to succeed than employees hired from outside. 

A sQholar is selected by their work history, personal initiative, and the recommendations of their peers. They are expected to maintain their current performance levels. For that reason, sQholar graduates typically have significant leverage over their externally hired counterparts, thus lowering agent attrition and improving retention and employee engagement. 

sQholar supervisors who are well trained and highly engaged have the most significant impact on lowering agent attrition. For every 1% reduction in yearly agent attrition, our company saves about $500,000 a year. 

What Lies Ahead for iQor’s Leadership Training Programs? 

iQor has a long history of promoting from within. Some of our most senior managers started as agents. Our General Manager and SVP of Operations for Retail and Residential Services, Tone Holmen, has had a similar journey. 

iQor believes the sQholar program offers a groundbreaking opportunity that benefits both its company and its employees. We are continuously improving the program to provide more career choices along the supervisor and manager development paths. 

Discover iQor career opportunities at jobs.iqor.com. 

How to Build a Gamification Platform

Posted on by Blake Graves

According to Gallup’s “State of the Global Workplace,” over two-thirds of US employees are not actively engaged in their jobs.

That’s bad news for the bottom line as well as 60 million unhappy workers. Disengaged employees drag down production levels and can erode morale with negativity. By contrast, employees who are actively involved with their jobs are more motivated, which makes them more productive.

To boost engagement levels, businesses are continually experimenting with different strategies. One innovative approach is gamification, aka digital motivation. Gamification mixes work with play by applying game elements and techniques to non-game situations. It has proven effective in education and as a customer retention tactic. Now the enterprise has gotten in the game.

However, as with most technology, the success of your gamification efforts will depend on your people, processes, and the objectives you want to achieve. Through trial and error, we’ve learned some rules of what works and doesn’t to engage your players and keep them competing to win on the metrics that matter.

Gamification Innovation at iQor

Many of our gamification efforts have been developed in iQor’s Experience Innovation Lab and led by Ada Smith, an iQor IT professional. To build their successful program, Ada and her team created and played by clear-cut rules from the start. Use them or make up new ones to turn your own company into a power player.

1. Have a Clear Objective

Early on, you need to nail down the top goals for the program. “We wanted to focus on changing behaviors and driving outcomes,” Ada explains. “All our content addresses three major contact center Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs—Average Handle Time, NPS Score and Quality Assurance. At iQor’s huge volumes, even a slight improvement in any of these areas makes a tremendous impact, especially in mid- or low-level performers.”

2. Choose the Right Technology

There are a number of game mechanics apps out there. Choose the one that best fits your objective and integrates easily with your existing software. Look for scalability and simplicity of use, and make sure you’ll be able to add features and customize later. iQor’s team picked Centrical as the basis for their colorful, dashboard-driven program.

3. Bite-Size the Content

Chunk the content so agents can fit in a “game” whenever they have a few minutes. “Agents can play games, read articles, and take quizzes between calls or on breaks,” says Ada. “We have a mobile app so they can play on their own time.” iQor’s program uses Jeopardy-style trivia matches, contests, challenges, missions, quizzes, and other short, engaging activities.

4. Make Progress Trackable

Color-coded graphic devices measure and define performance so participants can see their progress and track it over time. “Measurement influences behavior,” Ada comments.

5. Build in Rewards. Lots of Rewards.

As anyone who has run a customer loyalty program knows, people love free stuff. iQor’s incentive program works on a scoring system where solo agents and teams earn points for wins. The software collects and calculates the points automatically, and players can redeem them for gift cards or “iQor bucks” to spend at the company’s virtual store. Free lunches are also a popular prize.

6. Ditto for Recognition

Badges, employee-of-the-month honors, pop-up tokens of encouragement, birthday and anniversary shout-outs: It’s crucial to give people plenty of moments to shine. Research shows that workers who feel ignored and unimportant have little motivation to excel.

7. Keep It Competitive . . .

“Like rewards and recognition, competition motivates people,” says Ada. “It builds excitement and encourages them to participate.” A leader board shows participants where they rank relative to each other on various activities, providing an incentive to climb higher—along with positive feedback and recognition when they do.

8. . . . While Building Community

“We keep our program competitive, but we also want to encourage team spirit and community-building,” Ada explains. She recommends a Community page to share information, congratulate special achievers, or just reach out and connect—a kind of virtual bulletin board.

9. Don’t Forget the Human “App”

The best technology is only a tool. It takes a skilled human application to be of real use. “Our management dashboard shows supervisors agent by agent and team by team exactly how everyone is performing,” says Ada Smith. “Our leaders can quickly identify opportunities and generate content and challenges to address and improve metrics and behaviors.”

10. Change the Rules When You Need to

See what works and don’t be afraid to ditch what doesn’t. Every tweak could be a game-changer.

And the Golden Rule of Gamification: Make it fun! 

7 Ways to Morph Managers Into Leaders

Posted on by Blake Graves

Hint: break some rules to create leaders that inspire leaders

Did you know that only one-third of U.S. employees are engaged at work? According to a recent Gallup report, people are increasingly indifferent about their jobs, and even more so, lack confidence in their managers in communicating effectively or making them feel enthusiastic about their roles. This is a tough pill to swallow, especially since lack of engagement can lead to increased employee turnover and all-around dissatisfaction.

The thing is, organizations can throw manuals, training videos, and performance metric box-checking forms at their management all day, but workers’ priorities are changing, and thus leaders must break some of the hard and fast rules of regular employee management. They must be trained to be engaging, emotionally intelligent, and even more, inspirational.

At iQor, we rebuilt our leadership training from the ground up to better reflect the skills our managers, directors, and VPs need today to manage a fast-changing workforce. Called Leaders Inspiring Leaders, our program specifically focuses on how to create managers that rewrite the old rules and blaze new trails in response to our employees’ needs.

Here are seven ways you can incorporate some trailblazer-worthy training into your business today based on what we’ve learned through the creation of our Leaders Inspiring Leaders program.

1. Revamp Your Library of e-Courses

In order to morph your leaders into true trailblazers, you must “be” the change. Redesign your leadership landing and training pages so they are more engaging, easier to navigate, and provide reviews and course completion progress for your managers and their direct reports. And remember, while eLearning may not be the end all be all in development, it does provide an opportunity to introduce new learning approaches and reinforce and support other traditional learning methods.

Provide short 30 minutes to 1-hour competency-based training videos or material that speak to people on an emotional level. This can be developed in-house, or outsourced (here is one company that breaks down lessons into three-minute videos). Your goal is to create inspirational leaders by setting the foundation for developing their emotional intelligence, which is critical in building and sustaining positive and engaged individuals and organizations.

Here are some example course topics that iQor has incorporated into our e-course training:

  • Becoming an Inspirational Leader
  • Successful Delegation: Supervise and Encourage
  • Performing with Others under Pressure
  • Thinking Strategically as a Manager

2. Launch a Leadership Book Studies Group

Keep the group small (10-12 max) and meet bi-monthly. Each session should include a review of the topics covered in the previous chapters and how the lessons can apply to current challenges or be incorporated into one’s own management style.

In iQor’s Leadership Book Series, we encourage participants to apply new techniques or ideas and share feedback with the group. Again, engagement is the key theme here, with the goal of it flowing down from our managers to their direct reports, and so on. Engaged teams lead to increased customer satisfaction, increased retention, and a better bottom line. In fact, our own employees are two times more likely to stay when they are highly engaged and well-trained.

Here are a few books that iQor is including in our leadership studies book group:

3. Keep the Performance Review…But Do it Differently

Couple the traditional performance reviews and self-evaluation forms with career and goal outlines. Then, un-silo! Instead of filing this information within its traditional HR walls, share it with the corporate training department where they can use it as a resource and work with your managers when they need program support. Most importantly, make sure that the manager has open access so they can revisit it themselves and have the opportunity to hold themselves and their boss accountable.

At iQor, we call this our Performance Review 360 because we want our leaders to see the complete picture — from how they are doing within their roles to the progress they are making in their personal and career development journey.

To recap, your 360 view should include:

  • Traditional performance evaluations
  • Self-evaluations
  • Career path outlines
  • Goal setting outlines

Another tip: conduct reviews and check-ins more frequently than just once a year. Companies that do this are 45 percent more likely to have above-average financial performance.

4. Get Down to the Nitty-Gritty

Not all your leaders show up with a business degree. In fact, there are many things you can’t learn until you reach that leadership position. Thus, it’s a good idea to give your frontrunners the tools and lessons for the nitty-gritty processes that they will encounter on a daily basis.

Some of our own core-knowledge workshops include:

  • Change Management
  • Principles of Accounting
  • Social Media/Tech Acumen Training

5. Host Monthly Leadership Lunch & Learns

These 60-minute lunch workshops focus on current employee-related challenges and issues. We recommend that Lunch and Learns contain real-world examples and best-practice sharing for leaders at all levels of an organization.

Again, this is another way to engage your leaders, keep up a growth mindset, and improve morale.

6. Blend Virtual Training with Real Life Role Play

Incorporate workshops based on understanding what a competency is and how it is practiced in real life. At iQor, we blend learning formats and delivery techniques from role-playing to best practice sharing and post-training feedback sessions.

According to trainingmag.com, role-playing helps to build confidence, develop listening skills, and improve creative problem-solving.

Some of our competency-based workshops include:

  • Managerial Courage (Feedback)
  • Strategic Planning
  • Inspiring Others
  • Developing Direct Reports
  • Process Management

7. Develop an Executive Mentorship Program

Mentorship is a recognized and successful method for encouraging professional development. It also increases the chances of employees, especially millennials, in sticking around. Your organization has an abundance of seasoned and accomplished senior leaders. Why not engage them and use them for helping others to grow in their career, share their experiences, and coach other individuals who have been recognized or aspire to be future leaders?

We recommend meeting once a month for an hour over the course of a year, albeit flexible enough to meet the needs and schedules of the mentors and mentees. In our program, we encourage our mentors to share with the mentees how they were able to navigate through company challenges, political situations, and cultural norms.

Bonus Tip

One more differentiator of our Leaders Inspiring Leaders program is that it is an ongoing program. Leave out the certificates, application deadlines, and timed exams, and give your leaders the opportunity to learn and develop themselves on their terms. Let your leadership training evolve and grow over time based on their needs. By simply building up a strong foundation of leadership excellence training, you give your managers the fuel they need to inspire, engage and blaze forward.

In need of more inspiration? Check out how iQor’s leadership training programs have been snagging awards left and right, including from HR.com and the Stevies.

DX aQademy: Setting a New Course for Delivering Digital Experiences

Posted on by Blake Graves

What makes an employee exceptional?

Human resources experts say one defining quality is the desire to learn and to keep learning. At iQor, we foster a culture of excellence by giving all employees continuous opportunities to learn, grow and enrich their skills and knowledge. Our training and leadership development programs regularly win top honors from leading HR organizations. 

“Our customer care agents currently support eight million customer conversations a year across digital channels.”

Our newest training program prepares agents to deliver an exceptional digital experience (DX) with content focused on chat, social media, messaging apps, email, text, web, and self-service forums. We created it because the need for digital customer care training is acute. 

“Our customer care agents currently support eight million customer conversations a year across digital channels,” says iQor VP of Global Learning, Mark Monaghan. “In some programs, 80 to 90 percent of all customer interactions are digital. Even the most tech-savvy agents need specialized digital training that keeps pace with rapidly evolving technologies and trends so they can deliver a consistently excellent customer experience.”

Digital Tones and the Human Touch 

iQor has a long history of digital leadership. We were one of the first major service providers to launch an all-digital technology platform, and currently, almost 2,000 agents in four countries support eight million customer interactions a year across digital, non-voice channels. Over 90 percent of our digital programs are ranked #1. 

By now we know how digital customer behaviors and expectations differ from traditional voice interactions—and how they’re sometimes the same. For instance, customers expect speedier service and solutions when they use digital tools, but they still want to talk to a human when an issue becomes complicated. They expect agents to figure out how they’re feeling and empathize with them from what they write in chats, texts, or emails, with no spoken words to provide emotional clues. That can be tricky. 

“One of our modules is called Digital Tones,” says Mark. “It deals with the special challenges of digital communication. One section gives agents exercises in critical reading to draw out deeper meaning or emotions hidden in the words. Another uses simulation software to create mock chats so agents can practice de-escalation techniques.” 

The First Digital Training Certificate Ever

The simulation app, nicknamed Qori, can also simulate multiple queries, so supervisors can determine how many digital interactions agents can handle at any one time and monitor the response rate. Opportunities to monitor and coach are special features of the supervisor curriculum. 

The instructor course, limited to existing Level III trainers, concentrates on higher-level training topics such as omnichannel strategy, curriculum development, and platforms. Participants are required to develop a digital training component for course completion—and certification.

“iQor introduced our Train the Trainer program four years ago, and now a great many corporate HR programs have similar programs,” adds Mark. “We’re excited now to introduce one of the first digital training certification programs in the world and see where it leads.” 

Digital Skills for Digital Careers

Recent research shows that more than eight in ten middle-skill jobs today require adept digital skills, which leads to higher earnings and greater career opportunities. With DX aQademy, iQor aims to help close the digital skills gap and open up new career advantages for our workforce, while delivering a new level of customer experience for our clients. 

The content for DX aQademy was developed by Tarisse Grant-Shelton, Global Learning & Corporate Trainer, along with Mark Monaghan. When the program rolls out, about 1,000 agents in various iQor locations around the world are expected to participate. 

You can read about our other training programs and our award-winning iQor University here.