Author: Andrew

4 Ways Nearshore Call Centers Outperform Offshore Outsourcing

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July 20th, 2021

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near shore fnolCall centers are an effective means to deliver timely customer service for a growing company. Many businesses turn to offshore call centers because they’re often less expensive. However, offshore call centers have several hidden issues that many companies don’t discover until they start losing customers. Here are some of the top ways offshore call centers fall short compared to nearshore call centers:

  1. Unforeseen costs. The appeal of an offshore call center is almost always the lower cost of labor. However, hidden expenses often undercut most of those savings. For example, any protocol or software modification a company requests comes with a hefty price tag. Offshore call centers can create legal headaches for the company too, as they are often aggressive about reaching key performance indicators (KPI). If the call center breaches Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) protocols, companies can find themselves at the center of an expensive lawsuit.
  2. Lack of familiarity with the company. Offshore call center agents aren’t likely to know the culture of the company. Their goal to reach their KPIs can cause them to overlook the company’s end state. While they may be securing more sales, their approach can result in an inferior experience for the customer. Over enough time, customers will seek a new provider that delivers the service they expect.
  3. Culture barriers. Offshore call center agents often struggle to relate with American culture, which can result in unsatisfactory customer support. Language barriers are also a significant problem. Even if agents are fluent in English, they are often unfamiliar with slang terminology or regional accents. If the agent and customer struggle to understand each other, the agent isn’t likely to resolve the customer’s issue.
  4. Limited oversight. Companies place a lot of trust in offshore call centers, but it’s almost impossible to observe how agents interact with customers. If a call center misunderstands or fails to adhere to company protocols, the substandard service they provide will hurt the company’s reputation.

Nearshore call centers eliminate the above concerns for several reasons. Chief among them is their cultural familiarity. Nearshore call centers understand American laws and culture due to their proximity. It’s also easier to communicate with nearshore call centers as the time zone difference isn’t as significant. Contact the experts at Actec to discover how nearshore call centers can benefit your business.

Online Live Chat Support Drives Customer Satisfaction

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July 13th, 2021

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As technology evolves, customer expectations rise with it. Traditional business hours can hamstring an insurance organization, especially if their competition offers 24/7 customer support. While most organizations can’t afford around-the-clock customer service agents, offering text and chat support is an affordable alternative.

Here are a few ways text and chat support improve the customer’s experience:

  • Availability when customers need it most. Accidents and losses can happen at any time, with many occurring outside the typical nine to five operating hours. Most insurance customers want to start the first notice of loss (FNOL) process right after the incident occurs. If the insured has to wait the entire weekend to begin their claim, they’ll be in a state of high stress and agitation by the time they reach an agent. Offering text and chat support allows the customer to start the claim process, receive answers for their coverage and policy questions, and keep them up to date on their claim as it progresses.
  • Less frustration. Customers hate calling customer service and encountering a pre-programmed phone tree. When customers experience a loss, they don’t want to navigate a convoluted voice response system to reach their destination. While text and chat services operate in a similar routing method, they can react to customer responses. Whether answering questions about policies, offering solutions based on historical data, or asking for clarification, text and chat services aren’t limited to the rigid structure of a phone tree.
  • Better information intake. Filling out a long form is the last thing a customer wants to do after experiencing a loss. Text and chat support can ask questions to obtain the information necessary to start the claim. Answering one question at a time is less daunting than a form littered with fields. These services can even autofill known answers, such as the insured’s name and address, to save time.
  • Superior service. Text and chat support help expedite the claim process, but they can improve the customer experience in other ways too. Insureds don’t know the nuances of the industry and may have coverage gaps without knowing it. Text and chat services can answer their questions about policy and coverage options while also making recommendations for compatible products. For example, many insureds don’t realize their homeowners’ or renters’ insurance doesn’t cover expensive items like engagement rings. If a customer asks about adding a spouse to their policy, text and chat support can inquire about their valuable personal property as well to ensure they have the coverage they need.

Text and chat services are transforming how insurance companies interact with their customers. Providing these additional communication channels eliminates pain points and provides a better customer experience. Contact the experts at Actec to learn more about implementing text and chat services.

4 Ways to Help Employees Struggling with Burnout

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July 6th, 2021

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The ongoing pandemic has drastically altered how many businesses operate. Some are 100% remote, while others are taking a hybrid approach as the outlook on COVID-19 improves. These changes have forced many employees to adapt quickly. Employees who work from home have to juggle their family’s needs with their work responsibilities. Others have had to take on more duties or learn new technology to meet deadlines in a remote work environment.

Unsurprisingly, these factors have resulted in skyrocketing rates of stress, depression, and anxiety among employees. Businesses can use the following strategies to help employees struggling with burnout:

  1. Provide value-based rewards. Performance-based rewards have their place, but their primary goal is to encourage employees to work harder. By nature, they’re more likely to worsen burnout than to alleviate it. Employees need to know they have value as a person beyond their work productivity. To put it another way, they need to feel like they are more than a cog in the business machine. Some value-based rewards include gift cards, bonus paid leave, or closing the office early without requiring a performance benchmark.
  2. Avoid knee-jerk penalties. Many companies have systems in place that trigger punitive action automatically, such as an attendance policy. For example, the first tardy arrival may result in a verbal warning, the second a written warning, and so on. However, this practice doesn’t consider the why when it comes to employee attendance. Instead, companies should take a holistic view of the employee’s past attendance record. If that individual is usually punctual, the company should investigate to gain context for the situation. Burned-out employees may not feel comfortable bringing up the issue, and automatic penalties will only worsen the issue.
  3. Take mental health seriously. It’s much harder to remain abreast of employees’ mental health in a remote environment. Managers have less face time with their teams, and tone doesn’t convey over text. Companies can take several steps to show they care about their employees’ mental health while respecting their privacy. For example, managers can send anonymous surveys to gauge employee wellbeing. Using a simple rating system of 1-10 can provide easy-to-track data to identify trends. Companies can also hold meetings to teach employees how to cope with stress, handle problems at home, and manage work challenges.
  4. Reevaluate company culture. If an organization consistently emphasizes output over the individual, it’s creating an environment ripe for burnout. Some elements of company culture are carved in stone, but many are easy to change. Some examples include setting longer deadlines, improving or changing communication styles, or reducing workloads by hiring more staff.

Employee burnout goes beyond their workload. Emotional and mental fatigue take their toll as well. Failing to address stress within the workplace will lead to increased turnover, reduced productivity, and rampant absenteeism. To learn more about reducing absenteeism in the workplace, contact the experts at Actec.

Integrated Employee Absence & Leave Management Strategies to Control Costs and Reduce Risk

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June 21st, 2021

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Large corporations commonly realize tangible operational improvements utilizing a cohesive absence management strategy. A few of the notable benefits include cost reduction, improved employee communication, and increased productivity. But large corporations aren’t the only organizations that silo their absence management, disability programs, and other human resource tasks. Whether you’re an organization of 100 employees or 10,000, separating HR functions can lead to:

 

  • Duplicate forms required to satisfy regulatory requirements (more work)
  • Inefficiencies in returning employees to work after their leave expired (wasted labor)
  • HR staff struggling to track all the different types of leave (wasted time, increased risk)

These inefficiencies also lead to drop in their revenue. Numerous organizations have merged their absence reporting and absence management with disability management in order to coordinate claims tracking, integrate lost time data, and implement best practices across all HR operations. The result:

  • A reduction in overall costs
  • An understanding of employee leave and absence drivers
  • A company-wide increase in productivity

Another step in this integration process was to establish a centralized reporting center. The call center offers employees a phone number that will connect them with a representative capable of tracking all absence types and answering any absence-related questions. You don’t have to be a large corporation to leverage an integrated absence management program. Contact the experts at Actec to learn what an integrated call center can do for your business.

4 Reasons Why Your Employees Are Sick Despite Safety Precautions

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June 8th, 2021

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absence reportingMost companies implemented health and safety measures as COVID restrictions began to ease, and work could resume in person. However, many organizations are struggling to keep their employees healthy despite these precautions. The reasons driving these illnesses are surprising but simple to fix. The following are some common areas where contagion easily spreads amongst employees:

  1. Clocking in and out for the day. Physical or in-person time clocks require employees to use a communal system. With so many hands punching, swiping, or scanning, germs can easily spread. Such systems also result in queues while employees wait their turn.
  2. Paper schedules. Companies with shift workers or part-time employees may try to save time by posting the weekly schedule in a common area, such as a breakroom. However, this forces employees to congregate or come to work when off the clock to find out their schedule for the week. Scheduling apps eliminate this contact point while keeping employees up to date on their shifts.
  3. In-person meetings. Whether it’s a walking meeting or a planned conference, gathering in person increases the risk of sharing germs across entire teams or departments. While some meetings do require face-to-face interactions, companies should hold virtual meetings whenever possible.
  4. In-person scheduling requests. Organizations that don’t have an electronic system in place for leave requests have an increased risk of spreading contagion between staff members. In-person and paper-based systems pose a threat, as staff members must congregate in close quarters as well as handle leave request documents. Digital leave requests eliminate the person-to-person interaction and are much easier to track.

The pandemic has put a spotlight on how companies conduct business and what steps they take to keep their employees and customers healthy. Switching to a digital system can help eliminate many of the above problems, which helps to reduce absences and improve productivity. Contact the experts at Actec to learn more about reducing absenteeism and managing leave requests with our absence tracking mobile app.

ESF, Catastrophe, and After-Hours Reporting in FNOL

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June 1st, 2021

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catastrophic fnolHandling events that are challenging to anticipate lives at the heart of first notice of loss. Our philosophy is that any and all customer requirements take absolute precedence. In this vein, a variety of services are pertinent when it comes to covering FNOL and Absence Management needs. Through our proprietary intake solution, we have fewer constraints than a software/ASP vendor, and can implement customizations quickly.

In addition to the various essential first notice services, we cover electronic state filing as well as call center support for catastrophic events and after-hours developments. Our custom solutions leverage a variety of features including:

  • Customer set-up profiles provide flexibility in customizing workflows, including personalized greetings, lines of business, custom questions and report types, policy, carrier and claim office assignments, distributions, etc.
  • FROI and state specific questions maintenance system
  • Catastrophic escalation identification and tracking
  • Robust distribution module
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    To learn more about what services best suit your organization and discuss implementation strategies, contact us.

    Successful Strategies to Reduce Employee Absenteeism in the Workplace

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    May 25th, 2021

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    Absenteeism is an issue that affects every industry. While providing clear attendance and leave policies can help, they’re not always enough to prevent absenteeism. Burnout, disengagement, and other stressors can lead to frequent absences. Companies can implement the following strategies to reduce employee absenteeism:

    1. Focus on wellness. Wellness programs can help companies tackle stress in the workplace. Some ideas include lunchtime yoga, lifestyle coaching for stress management, designated break rooms/frequent mini-breaks, and providing healthy lunch or snacks.
    2. Improve morale. It’s not enough to identify negative factors that cause disengagement. Companies must focus their efforts on getting employees to engage with one and other to rebuild morale. They can achieve this through inter-department competitions with fun prizes, team-building exercises, and other social activities.
    3. Be flexible. Employees’ home lives don’t always allow for traditional nine to five work schedules. They may need to take their children to school in the morning, attend night classes for professional development, or facilitate care for an infirm relative. Having the option to shift their schedules to the left or the right can eliminate conflicts between their personal lives and work. Offering a certain number of remote days per week can also help reduce employees’ stress.
    4. Reevaluate existing leave policies. Companies can claim they’re committed to employee wellness, but their existing leave policies may prove otherwise. While the financial feasibility will vary from company to company, employers should offer enough paid leave to avoid employee disengagement and burnout. Ideally, employees should have separate sick days and vacation days or a large enough pool of paid time off to account for both.

    Companies can’t afford to overlook absenteeism, as it’s a chronic problem with far-reaching effects. Identifying absence trends is infinitely easier when all attendance data funnels to a centralized location. Contact the experts at Actec to learn more about reducing absenteeism with our absence tracking mobile app.

    Artificial Intelligence Is Improving Claim Processing and FNOL

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    May 17th, 2021

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    fnol aiMovies and television depict artificial Intelligence (AI) in a variety of ways, most of them sensational. In real life, artificial intelligence is a little less thrilling and a little more practical. The implications and uses of AI can prove every bit as fascinating, but we’re not likely to see sentient machines conversing with us or trying to take over the world any time soon.
    Instead, these intelligent machines are automating tedious tasks and improving efficiency across all industries. For insurance companies, this means improving claim management and automating time-consuming claim and FNOL processes.

    AI and First Notice of Loss

    Insurers can expect AI to affect every aspect of the claims process from first notice of loss (FNOL) to resolving the claim. Improvements to FNOL are of particular importance as it has the greatest effect on client satisfaction. The claims process is cumbersome and unwieldy to a client not familiar with the process. AI can help insurance agents streamline and expedite claims for faster settlements and happier clients.

    How AI Improves Claims Efficiency

    Several administrative tasks within the claims process consume much of an insurance agent’s time. AI can take over these responsibilities, allowing agents to focus on investigating, appraising, and mediating the claim. For example, if a client wishes to review the history of their claim, an AI chatbot can assist them while the agent continues to work the claim. AI can also recognize common red flags for fraudulent claims or unnecessary repairs. An adjuster will need to make a final review, but it saves the time and expense associated with a human performing the legwork of these tasks.
    The primary benefit of AI is its ability to help insurers recruit and retain customers. It does so by improving claims proficiency and reducing labor expenses. If your insurance company is struggling to acquire or maintain its clients, Actec can help. To learn more about enhancing your claims process, contact us today.

    4 Ways Technology Improves Customer Loyalty

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    May 11th, 2021

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    An insurance company’s reputation relies heavily on the quality of its customer service. Customer loyalty is harder than ever to retain because of the sheer volume of options available to customers. A single bad experience can cause a repeat customer to give their business to a competitor. The onus is on businesses to remain competitive through first notice of loss (FNOL) and other interactions, and many are turning to technology to meet rising customer expectations.

    Technology can improve the customer experience in the following ways:

    1. Mobile self-service features. Sometimes, customers want to find the answers to their questions themselves. They don’t want to wait on hold or for a representative to look up information they can find on their own. Businesses can meet this need by implementing automated chat or text programs. Customers can then use self-service technology to resolve their simple questions without delay.
    2. Faster response time. When customers a covered loss, they want it resolved as soon as possible. They don’t want to leave a message or wait for their insurer to respond to their email. The customer threshold for frustration is low, and every minute they spend waiting fuels their dissatisfaction. Text and chat services open a channel of communication that guarantees a rapid response.
    3. Greater convenience. Part of providing stellar customer service is how convenient the process is for the customer. If the customer sat on hold after navigating a convoluted phone tree, the representative who eventually fields the call is starting at a disadvantage. Providing multiple channels of communication allows customers to engage with the company on their preferred terms.
    4. Holistic communication. More channels of communication create more opportunities for misunderstandings without technology. Text and chat software allows businesses to deliver the same quality of messaging regardless of how the customer contacts them. Electronic records also provide customer service representatives with historical data to offer faster, personalized assistance.

    Technology is a limiting factor for the quality of service an insurance company can provide. Without the proper tools, customer service will fall short of customer expectations. Implementing text and chat technology can eliminate customer pain points while quickly resolving their most pressing concerns. Contact Actec to learn more about improving customer loyalty with our text and chat support solutions.

    How to Identify Employee Burnout Before It Does Damage

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    May 4th, 2021

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    If employees are suffering from burnout, they’re more likely to make mistakes, experience drops in productivity, or start to have attendance problems (i.e. arriving late, leaving early, or calling out of work). Even if only one or two employees are struggling with burnout, managers are likely to notice the effects are office-wide. Once one employee stops pulling his or her weight, other employees have to pick up the slack. This puts added stress on the rest of the staff and can cause a chain reaction of burned out employees. Even if burned out employees don’t affect their coworkers, they are prone to making costly errors that can cause delays.

    Thankfully, employee burnout is easy to spot. If managers and employers pay attention to their employees, they can recognize key indicators of burnout and take steps to rectify it before it begins hurting productivity and company morale through employee absenteeism and presenteeism.

    1. Heightened cynicism. Once productive employees may begin to balk at requests. A sudden shift to pessimism indicates the employee is disillusioned with or frustrated by his or her work. On that note, if an employee who is known for being a go-getter becomes negative and doubtful of certain objectives or goals, he or she may be experiencing burnout.
    2. Mistakes increase in frequency and severity. Seeing more typos when employees are under tight deadlines isn’t surprising. However, when an employee who often performs perfect work begins to make preposterous mistakes, something is wrong. The employee may feel underappreciated or overworked. Employers need to take the time to determine if the mistakes are the result of the employee growing careless or if he or she is suffering from burnout.
    3. Sudden disinterest with work. If a certain employee who always has ideas or contributes to the conversation goes silent at every meeting, he or she may be suffering from burnout. If the employee is overburdened with work, he or she isn’t going to engage any further until the problem is rectified.
    4. Attendance problems emerge. Some employees struggle with attendance, but when a previously punctual employee starts coming in late, leaving early, or not showing up at all, something is not right. Absent employees can derail projects, hurt productivity, and torpedo workplace morale. Managers must leverage absence reporting tools to determine if the sudden attendance problems are the result of family issues, an illness, or excessive work. If the problem is the latter, burnout is the culprit behind the absences.

    Preventing burnout before it can take hold among the staff is of vital importance to businesses. If your company is trying to contend with absenteeism, Actec can help. Our absence reporting program can improve productivity, reduce absenteeism, and simplify your attendance keeping processes. Contact us to learn more.