Author: Andrew

HR 101 for Small Businesses

Posted on

December 7th, 2020

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Many startups and several small businesses often rely on a single individual to manage human resources tasks. Some business owners make this decision due to the small nature of the company and perceived lighter workload. However, even the smallest of businesses have to comply with labor laws and other work regulations.

When a single employee manages HR, that individual has to balance compliance with administrative tasks and ensuring all employees receive accurate and prompt paychecks. Their busy workload often means they have little if any time for other HR tasks like recruiting, onboarding, and scheduling.

Investing in HR software can help small businesses reduce manual tasks and master the following essentials:

  1. Compliance. Federal labor laws are complex and constantly evolving. HR ensures the company complies with these laws and handles all required forms such as I-9s, W-2s, W-4s, etc.
  2. Payroll. HR ensures employees receive their paychecks on time without errors. Payroll is a complex task involving collecting timesheets, calculating pay, and accounting for taxes and withholdings. This process is prone to human error when done by hand, which can result in costly compliance fines.
  3. Recruiting. Finding the best person for an open position is a significant challenge. HR employees have to publish job listings, filter candidates, and perform background checks. Poor talent acquisition standards can result in high turnover and poor job performance, which has long term consequences for the company’s success.
  4. Onboarding. HR has more work to do once recruiting candidates for open positions. New employees have to fill out several forms, learn company policies and procedures, and meet their team. Onboarding is critical to help employees find their groove and understand their role within the organization. Without it, they may flounder, make avoidable mistakes, or struggle to engage with their team.
  5. Attendance management. HR manages employees’ schedules and leave requests to ensure the company has the appropriate staffing. This includes paid time off, sick leave, overtime, and more to comply with labor laws. They are also responsible for other areas of attendance, including tardiness and absences.

Without absence management software, it’s difficult to track attendance. Managers from different departments may provide sick leave requests at different hours of the day, and late arrivals may go unnoticed if it’s less than five minutes. While five minutes may not seem significant, it adds up over time—especially if the employee skims five minutes off the end of the workday and extends their lunch break as well.

Robust absence management technology allows companies to track attendance with much greater accuracy. It also allows employers to notice trends and identify attendance issues that can hurt workplace morale, productivity, and profits. To learn how mobile absence tracking software can help your business, contact the experts at Actec.

How Insurance Providers Use Texting to Add Value

Posted on

November 23rd, 2020

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As technology advances, insurance providers need to pivot to keep up with shifting customer expectations. Insurers must remain relevant and innovative, as customer loyalty is a fickle thing in the insurance industry. A single bad customer service experience or technology frustration can nudge long-time customers to explore their options.

New Technology Needs

Providing superior service and support requires a modern, multi-pronged approach. For example, if the primary form of communicating with customers is email, the provider isn’t likely to see significant engagement. Even social media has its limits due to filters, oversaturation, and algorithms. While email and social media marketing are still relevant, text messaging has better potential for niche marketing.

Insurance providers that expand their communication channels to include texting can add value to their services, products, and more for their customers. The following are some of the ways insurance companies can use texting:

  1. Appointment reminders. The claims process is hectic and hard to understand for those outside of the industry. Policyholders are under an unusual degree of stress following a loss, and they may forget when the appraiser is supposed to arrive, where they’re supposed to take their vehicle, etc. With texting, insurance companies can send reminders to help insureds keep track of everything they need to know about their upcoming appointments. This eases stress, reduces missed appointments, and provides a personalized touch.
  2. Marketing analytics can provide lucrative insight into policyholders’ purchasing behavior. For instance, many insureds bundle their home and auto policies for a discount. The data may show this demographic often needs special coverage for valuable personal property. While homeowners’ insurance has some coverage for jewelry, it often has a cap that may not provide full coverage. Sending a text message about valuable personal property insurance to protect the loss or theft of an engagement ring can bring in more business than an email would likely achieve. Automating text messages to trigger based on new policies can deliver the information in a timely manner when the insured still has their policy information fresh in their minds.
  3. Claim updates. The claims process isn’t always clear to policyholders, which can leave them frustrated and uncertain. While a mobile app can provide this information as well, it’s better customer service to alert the policyholder that the update exists. If the customer knows their insurance company will keep them up to date, it eliminates the need to frequently check an app or make a phone call through a convoluted phone tree.
  4. Other important updates. Insurance companies can send out reminders and alerts to help customers avoid a lapse in coverage, to notify them of coverage gaps, or to inquire about irregularities in their policies (e.g., unusually high or low deductibles that can affect their finances).
  5. Save money. If a significant weather event is approaching, insurance companies can text helpful information to policyholders to mitigate damages and losses. They can also send out guidelines on what to do following a loss from a covered event to reduce the severity of the damage (e.g., how to prevent flood damage from worsening).

Text messaging can give insurance companies an edge over the competition by providing personalized service, superior support, and timely product recommendations. To learn more about the benefits of text and chat support for your insurance company, contact the experts at Actec.

5 Ways Text Communication Improves Insurance Claims

Posted on

November 9th, 2020

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Insurance providers know that first notice of loss (FNOL) plays a critical role in customer satisfaction for the duration of any given claim. However, any bottlenecks or frustrations can tank customer loyalty. Retaining existing customers costs much less than trying to secure new ones, so it behooves insurance providers to keep their existing client base happy. One of the easiest methods to achieve this is to enable text communication between claim adjusters and customers.

Claim adjusters can harness the usefulness of texting in the following ways:

  1. Reduce error-related delays. Insureds aren’t well-versed in insurance documentation. The effort involved is often cumbersome and frustrating. Their irritation intensifies over denials related to small clerical errors. Text message communication allows insurance adjusters to review documents and help customers make any necessary corrections before submitting the paperwork.
  2. Simplify sharing photos and videos. Following a loss, having a picture or video of the damage helps adjusters get a jumpstart on the claim. However, many images and video files are too large to attach to emails. Many insurers allow their customers to upload files via a mobile app, but this isn’t helpful if the insured doesn’t already have the app on their phone. Waiting for an app to download, creating a login, and figuring out where to upload photos will annoy the customer when texting is so much faster and easier.
  3. Eliminate lengthy voicemails and missed calls. Customers don’t like listening to long-winded voicemails, and many don’t check their inbox at all. According to a report by Adobe, email communication fares better with an open rate of 20-30%. However, text message communication blows both out of the water with a whopping 98% open rate. Texting often yields faster communication as well, as most people open texts within three seconds of receiving them.
  4. Enhanced accessibility. Most customers have a smartphone and know how to text with ease. This isn’t always the case when it comes to navigating a mobile app or attaching documents to an email. Texting is also beneficial for customers with hearing loss. Texting gives adjusters access to almost every customer, which allows them to deliver superior service.
  5. Streamline commonly asked questions. Insureds aren’t always familiar with their coverage, and the claims process can leave them with more questions than answers. Calling their insurance company, navigating a phone tree, and sitting on hold to get an answer for a basic question provides a subpar experience. Text communication allows customer support agents to field these questions while also producing a written record of the exchange. This frees up insurance adjusters’ time so they can focus on claim-related issues.

Text message communication provides benefits for both the customer and the insurance adjuster. It improves workflow while delivering superior customer support. Contact the experts at Actec to learn how text communication can improve FNOL and claims management for your insurance company.

Absence Management Mistakes Costing Your Business Money

Posted on

November 2nd, 2020

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A talented team isn’t enough to ensure a company’s success. Projects will suffer if critical members duck out early, show up late, or fail to show up at all. This puts extra stress on punctual employees who have to pick up the slack, but this approach isn’t sustainable for long. Eventually, those employees will burnout, and productivity will tank across the board. If you start missing deadlines, clients and stakeholders will lose faith.

Remote employees add a layer of complexity to absence management. Many employers have a hard enough time keeping track of who arrived and at what time at their brick and mortar offices. Remote teams are even more difficult to keep tabs on due to the virtual nature of their work. For businesses that suspect or know they have an attendance problem, the following mistakes could be the cause:

  1. Insufficient attendance tracking. If a company doesn’t have a robust system for tracking tardiness, early departures, and absences, they aren’t going to know where to start to fix the problem. By collecting attendance data, businesses can see if the problem is company-wide, specific to a department or team, or an individual. This gives them a good idea of where to focus their attendance improvement efforts.
  2. Ambiguous attendance policies. Some businesses have a strict arrival time for employees while others focus more on when employees begin working for the day. If a company allows for flexible scheduling, this can make matters murky for employees. It also makes it more difficult to track without an absence management system. If employees come and go at different times, managers may not be able to keep track of who is trimming their work hours. Eliminating gray areas in attendance policies can cut down on employee confusion.
  3. Focusing on the negative. While businesses need to take action against attendance issues, they shouldn’t only focus on the disciplinary elements. Highlighting employees with perfect attendance improves morale and provides a model for other employees to emulate. Offering small incentives such as a free lunch for any employee with perfect attendance for the month can help reduce absenteeism as well.
  4. Not listening to the data. Even the best absence management software isn’t useful if businesses don’t look at the data. This information can help companies identify attendance trends before they become a widespread problem. Knowing where to start investigating saves time and money by homing in on the root of the issue.

Manual methods of attendance tracking are outmoded and don’t help businesses identify attendance trends in time to correct them. Actec developed an absence tracking mobile app to help businesses overcome this hurdle. Our absence management solutions provide several channels for communication including telephonic, text/chat, within the app itself, or the web. Employees can report in for the day from the convenience of their smartphones or devices. This is tremendously helpful for remote teams or teams working out of numerous locations. Contact the experts at Actec to learn more about absence management.

4 Ways to Improve Call Center Communication

Posted on

October 26th, 2020

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Investing in a call center can save companies hours of time while boosting productivity. However, how businesses communicate with their call centers will determine the effectiveness of this service. Business leaders should use the following strategies to reduce miscommunications with call center employees:

  1. Look for communication breakdowns or miscommunication bottlenecks. According to the Harvard Business Review, more than half of employees indicate the directions they receive at work are unclear or too vague. If half of the call center employees aren’t sure what their employer wants from them or what the business’ top priorities are, they may struggle to provide high-quality service.
  2. Keep emails to a minimum. Employees waste hours of their day clearing out their inbox of unnecessary emails. Most employees report that excessive emails take up too much time and affect their ability to focus on their top priority tasks. It’s also possible for important emails to get lost among the dozens of other emails vying for employees’ attention. Seeing a massive list of unread emails can tank employee motivation and morale as well. While email communication is sometimes necessary, businesses should limit the overall number of emails they send to employees.
  3. Encourage open communication within teams. Many businesses have a hierarchy of responsibility, which can make call center employees feel incapable of speaking up to their team leaders when they notice an issue. Cultivating an environment where employees feel comfortable with two-way communication within their team can identify problems, improve morale, and foster innovative ideas.
  4. Schedule team-building exercises. Creating a sense of community within the workplace is more challenging than ever in a COVID-19 environment. With so many people working from home with limited opportunities for socializing, call center employees can rapidly feel disconnected from their team. Businesses should consider virtual or outdoor team building activities that can comply with social distancing recommendations to keep up team spirit. These exercises can also help combat feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Improving communication has a direct effect on productivity, employee engagement, and workplace morale. Contact the experts at Actec to learn how our nearshore call centers can help your business.

Signs Your Company Needs a Better Attendance System

Posted on

October 19th, 2020

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Keeping track of employee attendance should be a straightforward process. However, without a cohesive attendance management system, several issues can occur. Managers may report absences at different times of the day using a variety of communication methods. With HR receiving emails, texts, memos, or in-person visits on an unpredictable schedule, errors are likely to occur. However, implementing an electronic attendance system can reduce the tedium and frustrations of absence management.

Antiquated absence management processes cost time and money. Upgrading to an electronic absence reporting system can reap several benefits. The following are some key indicators that your attendance system needs an update:

  1. Frequent errors or inaccuracies. Manual timesheets or uncoordinated absence reporting channels are prone to error. Managers may not understand the various types of leave and misreport their employees’ absences as a result. For example, an employee may request leave that qualifies for Family Medical Leave, but the manager may report it as sick leave. Having a streamlined electronic system can eliminate these kinds of record-keeping errors.
  2. Productivity issues in the HR department. If HR employees are spending several hours combing through various emails, notes, and voicemails to try and track employee attendance, they’re losing valuable time. The HR department manages several essential functions that keep the business going, such as employee benefits, employee training, job design and analysis, and recruiting. Having an electronic absence reporting system can free up their time to focus on these other critical tasks.
  3. Employee performance is lagging. Unchecked attendance issues often result in productivity problems. Employees who arrive late, duck out early, or don’t show up put projects behind schedule. They also cause stress for their coworkers as many have to pick up the slack. Having an electronic system sends all attendance records to a centralized location, which allows HR to take note of negative attendance trends. With this data, managers can take steps to identify the cause of the absence issues as well as take steps to rectify them.
  4. Morale is low. Attendance can affect employee morale in several ways. They may harbor resentments toward coworkers who abuse their paid time off without repercussions. A confusing or poorly enforced system can also leave employees feeling powerless. Either way, poor absence management can result in employee disengagement. Electronic attendance software with self-service features gives employees a sense of agency and control.

If your absence management system is creating more problems than it’s solving, Actec can help. Contact us to learn about our absence tracking mobile app as well as our other absence reporting solutions.

4 Things You Need to Know About Call Center Customer Service

Posted on

October 12th, 2020

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Call centers are a prominent feature in the business world, particularly for large or growing companies. Providing superior customer service is vital for a business to thrive; it’s also a significant means for companies to differentiate themselves from the competition. Coupled with the fact that most customers will find a new vendor if they receive poor service, customer satisfaction is a critical metric for long-term success. The following are some of the biggest ways call centers affect customer service:

  1. First point of contact. Company leadership doesn’t often get a chance for direct interaction with their customers. They rely on call center employees to serve as the face and voice of the business. Call centers aren’t just the initial point of contact, they’re often the only point of contact. If call center employees don’t deliver quality customer service, the business isn’t likely to have another chance at winning over the customer’s loyalty.
  2. Differentiation opportunity. Businesses need to make sure their call centers provide a smooth and easy experience for their customers, but they can also use these interactions to secure their customers’ commitment. Delivering superior service such as recommending a product better suited to the customer’s needs or addressing common questions that relate to their initial inquiry can make the difference between so-so service and standout support.
  3. Providing service at all hours. One of the biggest benefits of many call centers is that they allow a company to provide around the clock service. When a business’ office hours are the same as their customers’ working hours, it can sew frustration and discontent. When customers call with vital questions or concerns only to be met with an automated recording about business hours, it sours their relationship with the business. It also means they’re more likely to go looking for a new service provider that can offer expedient and timely solutions.
  4. Greater flexibility. Waiting on hold is often an annoying and inconvenient experience for customers. Modern call centers offer multiple channels to reach customer support including by phone, email, chat, text, and even social media. Providing customers with their preferred communication method reduces friction points that can derail a conversation before it even begins.

Actec understands that providing superior customer service is a dynamic element to make your business stand out from the rest. Contact us to learn more about how our nearshore call center services and flexible text and chat support can help your company achieve that goal.

5 Ways to Better Manage Employee Scheduling

Posted on

October 5th, 2020

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Employee rosters change often, particularly for businesses that experience seasonal rushes. COVID-19 has also changed the makeup of business hours, employee schedules, and more. Having attendance software and procedures in place can help reduce the confusion, boost productivity, and improve profits. Businesses should consider the following to improve scheduling at the employee, management, and business level:

  1. Maintain an updated list of employees. If company leadership doesn’t know who’s working for them, it can result in understaffing or overstaffing—both of which cost businesses money. Businesses should keep up-to-date records on all employees including their department, any cross-training they’ve received, their skills, and job status (e.g. contractor, temporary hire, part-time, full-time, etc.). These details allow managers to schedule relevant workers without leaving labor gaps or over-saturating a particular department.
  2. Have a plan B. Even the most reliable of employees can experience a last-minute emergency. This is where having a comprehensive employee roster is invaluable. Managers can use the list to identify other employees who have the skills and availability to take over the shift.
  3. Manage talent. Scheduling employees for shift positions that don’t align with their skillsets can erode morale and slow productivity to a crawl. Understaffed workplaces often encounter this issue as they have no choice but to schedule employees even if they aren’t the best fit for the job. Reviewing employee skills and training can provide guidance for more effective employee scheduling.
  4. Look at historical data. Businesses can analyze their attendance data to notice trends like increased demand for holiday scheduling, slow seasons, and absenteeism. This information can guide scheduling practices to ensure employees aren’t over-worked, bored, or ill-suited to the work.
  5. Keep communication simple. Employees have lives outside of the workplace that can place demands on their time and require them to take leave. They need a simple way to submit leave requests to avoid scheduling gaps and reduce staffing confusion.

Actec understands that tracking employee attendance and scheduling restraints can be challenging. That’s why we created an absence tracking mobile app to simplify attendance in the workplace. Employees have several channels for submitting leave requests including telephonic, chat/text, or through the app itself. All requests route to the same centralized location, eliminating communication errors between management, various departments, and HR. Contact us to learn more about effective absence management.

How Will AI Change FNOL and Damage Detection?

Posted on

September 28th, 2020

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When a person initiates a claim following a car accident, they trigger a series of events beginning with first notice of loss (FNOL). Prior to AI, FNOL intake required a lot of back and forth between the insured and their insurance provider. Determining the extent of the damage, if a vehicle was salvageable, and the estimated cost took time and could cause delays. Further complicating matters, the inspection process is tedious and a common source of contention for underwriters—does it really cost that much for the repair? Harnessing the power of AI expedites the process and removes doubt regarding the true cost.

Using AI for Damage Detection

When tooling a machine to detect damage, the AI must first learn what a fully functional vehicle and its parts look like as well as varying degrees and types of damage. It absorbs sets of data and uses that knowledge to compare images of the damaged car components to their unblemished counterparts. The goal is to teach the machine to grade dents and scratches based on severity. It can then compute the estimated cost to repair it.

Reducing Costs with AI

Another helpful, money-saving feature is that the AI can determine if a part is actually damaged or not. Surface scratches and dents may look severe, but a machine can examine the part from all angles and rely on the historical data it learned previously. It may report that the scuffs are cosmetic, meaning it doesn’t need replacing during the repair. This translates to cost savings for all parties involved.

The AI does all this through a process called computer vision. It imitates how human eyes work while surveilling the damaged vehicle. It can perform a vehicle inspection and determine the severity of the damage at remarkable speeds as well as produce a full report to provide to the insured. Faster turnaround, precise reporting, and reduced costs benefit both the insured and the insurance provider.

FNOL is the most significant factor that affects customer satisfaction during a claim. However, delays and doubts about damage reporting accuracy can erode insureds’ trust and faith in their insurance provider. AI can eliminate those issues while resolving claims on a faster timeline. To learn more about improving customer satisfaction and FNOL, contact the experts at Actec.

How to Track Excessive Absences in the Workplace

Posted on

September 21st, 2020

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Businesses can’t function much less turn a profit if the employees don’t show up to do the work. When absences begin piling up, it has a domino effect on the rest of the company. Projects may fall behind schedule if a key employee is regularly missing. This bleeds into other projects as well as team members may need to stop what they’re doing to catch up on the absent employee’s work. This effects workplace morale as well, causing a company-wide productivity problem.

Identifying Absenteeism

Without adequate absence management software, managers will struggle to keep track of which employees have impeccable attendance, spotty attendance, or rampant absenteeism. Before taking any action, however, managers need to determine the cause of the absence as many are legitimate. Some common examples include:

  1. Calling out sick
  2. Doctor’s appointments
  3. Paid time off (PTO) such as vacation days
  4. Maternity/Paternity leave and other leave protected by the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
  5. Religious holidays
  6. Unpaid, approved leave
  7. Jury duty

Whether the absence is valid or not, employees should give notice before the day itself with the exception of requesting sick leave. Having an absence management system in place allows managers to keep track of excused and unexcused absences.

The Benefits of an Absence Management System

Absence management systems keep all attendance data in a centralized location. This allows managers to simplify tracking attendance, tardiness, leave requests, and absenteeism. It also lets managers identify trends such as an individual employee that frequently arrives late or calls out of work without notice. With that information, managers can make data-driven decisions and changes to reduce attendance issues, address work-related problems contributing to absenteeism, and improve productivity.

Mobile Absence Tracking

With COVID-19 forcing many businesses to shift to a remote workforce, tracking attendance is more challenging than ever. Having a mobile app to manage leave requests and track absences reduces confusion and simplifies absence management. Actec’s absence tracking mobile app provides employees with several channels for submitting leave requests including telephonic, text/chat, and directly through the mobile app itself. This allows employees to choose the method they’re most comfortable with, which is vital to ensure employees follow attendance policies and procedures. To learn more about mobile absence tracking, contact the experts at Actec.