Top 5 Agent CX Improvement Stories
Taking Ownership
“She makes the needed change in real-time.”
Shaquana McEachin is committed and dedicated; truly a team player. Shaquana has been with Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) for a little over three years. She started as a contractor and proved to be a dedicated and high performing Customer Service Professional (CSP) and was soon converted to a permanent BCBSNC employee. Shaquana is a problem solver and does a great job dissecting our member’s issues to find a quick resolution. She drives First Call Resolution on every call. In addition, she ensures she upholds a positive attitude while working with our members by handling their questions and concerns in a courteous manner and by empathizing with them regarding complex and personal situations.
Shaquana is a very knowledgeable CSP. She is trained in numerous skills and has the ability to handle almost every call she receives. Due to Shaquana’s strong knowledge base regarding claims, benefits and eligibly, and billing she is able to assist her peers with their questions and concerns. Shaquana is an active participant in her team’s daily chat and always willing to assist her team members with any issues they may have. She handles all questions and concerns from her peers in a positive and professional manner. She has received numerous kudos from her peers regarding the daily assistance that she provides. In addition, she ensures she provides the resources needed when helping her team members so they have what they need for future calls. Shaquana also assists her leadership team with complex member issues and questions by completing thorough research.
Shaquana is committed and always receptive of feedback. When an area of opportunity is presented to Shaquana regarding her performance, she makes the needed change in real-time.
Overall, Shaquana made a 19% improvement in 2016 when compared to her 2015 WCC score. She ended 2016 with an 85% WCC score. Shaquana was able to make this tremendous improvement due to her ability to stay focused, committed, and knowledgeable about how to handle her customer’s questions and concerns. She was also able to make great strides due to her ability to personalize every call and provide world class service, and ensure she conducts thorough research. In addition, if Shaquana offered a follow-up call to her member she always followed through on her commitment. This ultimately helps Shaquana build trust with her members by taking ownership and ensuring she handles her member’s issues from start to finish.
Shaquana McEachin – BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina
Significant Steps to Improve Service
“He continues to think outside of the box to find solutions for customers on their first call.”
Steven has an extensive history at Cogeco Connexion starting as a Storefront Customer Service Representative over six years ago. Steven felt that he had expertise that would make him more valuable in a technical role and wanted to work more closely with our customers in resolving their issues.
In September 2015, he applied and successfully obtained a position with the Technical Support team in a front-line capacity. Since this date, Steven has continued to utilize his strong customer service skills developed in his previous role, while also strengthening the technical aspects of his new role at an accelerated rate. Steven is very active in mySQM™, reviewing the customer verbatim and identifying areas of opportunity with his supervisor on a regular basis.
In reviewing his SQM surveys, if Steven identifies a process as a repeat call driver, or a point of customer dissatisfaction, he will be proactive in submitting procedure feedback. When submitting feedback, he will not only identify the root cause - but also provide a solution that he has tested with customers he has worked with. Throughout the course of his first year in Technical Support, Steven provided procedure feedback in excess of 100 submissions. By utilizing the Voice of the Customer, Steven has taken significant steps to improve service that not only he provides - but also the Tier One Contact Center as a whole.
As an example, Steven identified a repeat call driver around unsupported equipment issues. This driver was also identified at the site level as the #1 repeat call driver in our SQM Root Cause analysis. Steven researched our third-party contact information and informed his supervisor that the 3rd party manufacturer phone and website information available to reps was missing a number of entries as well as had outdated information. With the assistance of his supervisor and the Procedure Support Co-coordinator - he formulated a plan to get the list updated with the missing information and verified all current entries. In-between calls and on his own time, Steven developed a comprehensive list that was in turn updated on our internal intraweb. The list is now being referenced hundreds of times weekly by internal and vendor staff resulting in a reduction of call backs - where the customer was not provided the manufacturer information or had been previously provided misinformation.
We are also choosing to reward Steven’s efforts with processes and being such a strong advocate for the customer this year. Our approach resulted in him taking the next step in his career at Cogeco. He is now in a contract position with the Tier Two Support Specialists and will be utilized on callbacks gathering SQM root cause analysis when the next training occurs. This will give him an opportunity to continue working on issues identified by our customers and play an instrumental piece in relaying feedback to management.
In closing, by utilizing the Voice of the Customer and his experience, and being proactive in finding solutions - Steven has made great gains in his SQM Survey results. He continues to think outside of the box to find solutions for customers on their first call while also making efforts to build a rapport. By truly being an ambassador for our customers and implementing feedback, we feel he should be recognized for his efforts with this improvement award – a 16% improvement year over year.
Steve Couper – Cogeco Connexion
Consistency is Key
“He was proactive and identified future problems we may have and put the necessary plans in place to avoid them.”
For 2016, the Enterprise Business Unit at Rogers introduced I AM Service, which is a call to action to elevate the culture, processes and customer experience within the Operations team.
I Am Service is about recognizing that great service begins with US so every customer interaction and service initiative is an opportunity for us to over deliver, impress and build trust. One consultant I want to highlight because of his ongoing effort to improve and his passion to deliver outstanding customer service is Brenton Dunkley. Brenton has been with Rogers for just over 6 years and has grown in his confidence to resolve our customer’s issues which has led him to be an expert. Brenton constantly lives the I AM Service values which made his customer experience results for 2016 stand out tall and loud. He has shown an 11% increase in his WCC rating since 2015! He ended the 2016 year with a 92% WCC rating.
Brenton is a natural charmer and a great listener, but sometimes would sound not sure of himself on calls. With continuous coaching and feedback from myself and his peers, Brenton put in to action the feedback and suggestions he received. He sat in with his peers with lower call handle time to learn how to verbalize resolution in a more effective and confident way. He stopped using words like “I think” and “Let me double-check that for you” and started to become a Rogers Brand Ambassador by using words like “We” and refraining from statements like “the policy is…” Brenton also spent time reviewing some processes he was not confident in communicating by spending time with me and on his own to review his knowledge management tools until he understood and could communicate the processes like an expert. He consistently was prepared and engaged in our coaching sessions and was eager to know how he could improve, which he did consistently and now is performing at an outstanding level.
Alongside SQM which highlights the Voice of our Customers, we have a Quality Program focused on soft skills otherwise known as behavioural metrics. Brenton held the highest score in this area on his team for the entire year. This was not surprising due to his efforts in wanting to improve in his confidence. His consistency in projecting ownership, connecting emotionally, and inspiring confidence (just to name a few metrics), reflected greatly when we heard from his customers via his SQM surveys. Brenton’s consistent customer experience performance has been recognized throughout the year by not only his management team, but of course, by his customers! Sometimes we receive surveys where customers only leave a rating and no comments. I want to highlight that none of Brenton’s CSR CSAT and NPS comments on all of his surveys for the 2016 year had a blank comment. This displays how memorable he is!
The common theme I noticed based on his customers’ direct feedback is that Brenton is helpful, polite, knowledgeable, and takes a genuine interest in resolving our customers’ issues. I am so happy and proud to know that his customers feel what I know about him-He TRULY CARES! This is not just a job to Brenton, it’s his career and it’s what he’s passionate about which he displays with consistency and pride.
I leave you with a personal commendation that one of his customers gave me over a phone conversation I had with him. I hope this highlights why I feel the way I do about his performance, and about him as a genuine caring human that values his performance and goes above and beyond to resolve his customers issues. HE is Service!
“I wanted to take the time to commend Brenton on his excellent customer service, as he truly went above and beyond. I was lost and Brenton provided a lot of help to resolve my issue. He was proactive and identified future problems we may have and put the necessary plans in place to avoid them. I work for the Government, and Brenton went above and beyond. He has excellent communication skills, is extremely knowledgeable, great with customers, and is proactive in searching for issues. The best part in dealing with him was the fact that the conversation was ENGAGING!”
Brenton Dunkley – Rogers
Pushed me to Believe
“A lot of the hurdles I had to overcome were hurdles I discovered I was creating for myself.”
After ending the 2015 year with 68% World Class Calls, I was disappointed I wouldn’t be getting certified in my first year as a CCR with Sun Life Financial. Coming from a call center background and having worked in customer service for over 10 years, I was frustrated this didn’t come as easy or naturally as I would have liked.
I was happy to see some familiar faces of mentors, RTS agents and SMEs who had helped coach me chosen to represent Sun Life at the SQM gala for 2015. Seeing the results of the most improved CCRs from that list, specifically Amanda Zufich who helped me on consults after some of my training, it really pushed me to believe that if they could increase their results so drastically than what is stopping me?
Instead of letting the disappointment of my 2015 results get the better of me, I used that disappointment to motivate myself to do better in 2016. It would have been easy to blame circumstances, “I just got out of training” or “the member was already upset because the last CCR gave the wrong information”, but instead I looked only at myself. What could I do to help the member today? What could I do to make this right? Once I shifted my focus from just the numbers to instead truly helping the member as best I could, it all came together for me.
Now, that’s not to say there weren’t challenges. I really had to train myself to approach member calls differently. While I strived to provide excellent customer service on all my calls, I was very aware and careful with my approach to member calls specifically. I really tried to put myself in the member’s shoes and think “how would I feel if this was my own claim” or “what if this was my child who needed to take an expensive drug that needs pre-approval?” With the help of my Team Lead, I formulated an action plan to drive my results for the year. I made sure to match the pace of the caller and take extra time if needed to ensure the member was getting resolution from the call. I was also careful to use positive wording in situations where the member wasn’t getting the outcome they desired. I made sure to take the opportunity to educate the members on options available to them such as HSA, PSA, income tax, and service to sales opportunities so the member could make informed decisions about their benefits to meet their unique needs.
I pushed myself to make a personal connection with members I was speaking to so they could feel they were talking to someone who truly wanted to help make their life easier. I found that this shift in my own behavior and approach not only impacted my results for World Class Calls but it also affected my own moral and overall satisfaction at work.
A lot of the hurdles I had to overcome were hurdles I discovered I was creating for myself. Mentally, I had to learn how to not let a bad call or an angry member get to me and affect my next call. It was definitely a marathon, not a race, and slowly, one call at a time I was able to meet my goals and be certified World Class for 2016. I was so thrilled to end the year with 89% World Class Calls, and am really proud of the hard work I put in to raise my score over 20% from the previous year!
Amanda Watson – Sun Life Financial
Re-Focused on the Customer
“I will continue to do my best to put the members first.”
I was used to being World Class Certified for nine years until 2015 where I completely missed it. I partnered with my supervisor and received some coaching and suggestions on what I needed to do to improve to once again become WCC certified.
I went ahead and focused more on listening to the specific needs of each caller and really trying to understand how to meet those needs. I also made sure I followed up with them if I needed time to research their situation. In February of 2016, I received a call from a member who was very frustrated that her account had not been updated with us. She wanted to use her vision benefits and couldn’t because the company had not forwarded her information to us. I called her each day to let her know I was checking on it. After a little bit, I was able to inform her she was able to use her benefits once her information was updated in our system and she was thrilled! She was happy that we were able to take care of her within a timely manner.
I spoke with another member recently who had not received good customer service and called us. She appreciated that I took to time to listen to her questions and made sure she understood her benefits. I didn’t rush through the call and answered all her questions. To resolve the issue for her, I did need to reach out to the provider’s office to ask a question and quickly called the member back with the answer I received for her inquiry. One of the things that is so very important these days is to follow up with the member to be sure their inquiry was resolved during the first call.
I am now focusing on being a better listener, being more empathetic, responding appropriately and resolving the caller’s needs on the first call whenever possible.
We have very high standards at VSP and I will continue to do my best to put the members first.
Jeanne Dea – VSP Vision Care