Tag: outsourced call center

4 Insights to Optimize Call Center Employee Onboarding

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September 13th, 2022

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Outsource FNOLCall centers often experience high employee turnover, and insufficient onboarding processes are a driving factor. Companies that optimize the process can save time and money while improving employee retention. The following are several insights to improve the onboarding process for new call center employees:

  1. Pay attention to personality traits and soft skills. Onboarding is useless if a new hire doesn’t have the demeanor required to do the job. Soft skills like empathy, active listening, and coolness under pressure significantly effect customer satisfaction. Unhappy agents that aren’t suited to the job can ultimately damage the customer experience and the company’s reputation. Employers can train new agents on technical skills. However, changing their personality is difficult, bordering on impossible.
  2. Gamification is a strong motivator. Videogames figured out that players responded enthusiastically to unlocking achievements. Gamification in the workplace, such as friendly competition or striving to reach a milestone, can hold the same appeal. It imbues a sense of fun and excitement that ultimately improves productivity and performance.
  3. Simplify knowledge acquisition. Knowledge bases are a must-have for agents of all experience levels. While tenured agents may know how to navigate a convoluted system, it’s likely to frustrate newer employees. A robust and easy-to-use knowledge base is a powerful training tool and allows new agents to begin fielding calls much faster.
  4. Train agents on how to handle angry callers. Phone calls from frustrated customers are common for call centers, and new agents need to know how to handle them. Many of these calls require active listening, repeating information, and avoiding putting the customer on hold. Agents that understand the process can quickly access information to meet the customer’s needs while remaining calm.

Automation and self-service tools allow customers to find answers to many of their questions themselves. However, some situations require human interaction. How well a company onboards new call center agents directly effects the customer’s experience and loyalty. Contact Actec to learn more about implementing a nearshore contact center.

4 Ways Effective Communication Boosts Call Center Success

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February 15th, 2022

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How a company communicates internally has far-reaching effects and contributes directly to its long-term success. It plays a critical role in how well a call center performs. The following are several ways effective communication improves a call center’s performance, the quality of customer service employees provide, and the company’s bottom line:

  1. Better productivity. Call center employees won’t perform well if they don’t understand their role or what their employer expects of them. Confusion often leads to frustration, which restricts productivity. Employees perform with much greater efficiency when they have clear guidelines and understand their responsibilities.
  2. Improves engagement. Managers communicate with call center employees regularly to ensure they understand the company’s goals and service expectations. However, companies need to ensure that line of communication goes both ways. Employees can’t engage as well with their work if they can’t seek input from management for clarification or feedback. Having open dialogue also shows employees that their managers appreciate their input and care about their workplace concerns.
  3. Better quality of service. Good internal communication often translates to improved external communication with customers. Effective communication helps call center employees feel confident in their role, which enhances the quality of service they can provide. Customers appreciate direct and transparent communication, and providing that improves their loyalty.
  4. Solves internal issues. Workplace tensions will simmer and explode without effective communication. Teams can resolve internal issues by employing active listening and formulating respectful and professional responses. These effective communication strategies can transform destructive arguments into constructive conversations.

Effective communication is a critical element of any successful call center. Communication strategies affect internal and external workplace relationships. Actec understands the importance of having an effective call center that delivers consistently high-quality service. Contact us to learn more about our nearshore contact center services.

4 Blunders Companies Make When Communicating With Customers

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January 25th, 2022

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Exceptional customer service is essential for an insurance company to succeed. Customers want to feel like a valued client rather than a file number, and they want rapid answers to their questions. They also place a premium on hassle-free claims. However, many insurance companies make several missteps when communicating with their customers. Miscommunications lead to frustration and a poor customer experience.

The following are some of the typical blunders insurance companies make when communicating with insureds:

  1. Chronic understaffing. Customers hate waiting on hold. They hate it even more when they have an urgent problem, such as a car accident or loss. It degrades customer loyalty to have consistently long wait times, as they feel undervalued. Call logs can provide actionable insight for staffing needs by determining when call volumes are highest.
  2. Limited communication options. It’s not always possible for an insured to call in a claim, and many prefer other communication channels altogether. For simple policy questions, some insureds would rather contact chat support. Others prefer email to maintain a record of communication. Customers expect to have several communication channels available to them, including phone, email, a mobile app, text, and chat support.
  3. Lack of adequate training. Customer service representatives need to be experts when it comes to the insurance products the company carries, how to answer questions about various policies, and how to navigate the claims process from FNOL to resolution. In addition to being knowledgeable, service representatives need soft skills, such as empathy and problem-solving.
  4. Not providing support 24/7. Accidents and losses don’t contain themselves to typical working hours. Insured need a way to establish first notice of loss (FNOL) wherever and whenever the incident occurs. If an insured can’t receive the help they need during a crisis, they’re likely to look for a new insurance provider. Insurance providers can meet this customer need by investing in a nearshore call center.

Nearshore call centers provide the benefits of an offshore service without the headaches. Nearshore service representatives are familiar with the customer’s culture and can respond with the appropriate empathy for the situation. Contact Actec to learn more about the benefits of a nearshore call center.

4 Proven Ways to Deliver an Excellent Customer Experience

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October 13th, 2021

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Positive customer experiences drive the success of all insurance companies. A recent survey from Microsoft found that the overwhelming majority (95%) of customers base their loyalty on the quality of service they receive. Other surveys report similar statistics across all industries, which underscore the importance of providing an excellent experience during every customer interaction.

With the pandemic keeping many people at home, customers are shopping online and reaching out to customer support more than ever. Whether they need help deciding on which product to purchase or need clarification on their policy, customer service representatives need to deliver the best service possible. Here are several methods customer service representatives can use to provide consistent, high-quality service:

  1. Know the products. Customers don’t often understand their policies or their coverage needs as well as they should. They need a knowledgeable agent to guide their purchasing decisions and clarify any questions they may have. Agents that recommend supplemental policies to prevent coverage gaps, bundles to help save the customer money, and tips that lower the customer’s insurance costs will be far more effective than agents that can only regurgitate a memorized script.
  2. Embrace creative problem-solving. Creative problem-solving is a much sought-after soft skill, and it requires looking beyond a quick fix. Customer service agents that thrive on finding solutions will advance customer loyalty much more than agents that focus on the customer’s policy limitations.
  3. Strive for positive communication. Customers often call their insurance providers after they experience a loss, and their emotions are running high. Agents that remain calm, friendly, and empathetic can help the customer deescalate to navigate the claim process. If a customer initiates communication through chat or text, customer service agents must remain aware that tone doesn’t always convey through these channels. Using friendly punctuation, humor, or emojis can imbue their words with warmth and compassion.
  4. Respond quickly, resolve thoroughly. Customers value their time, and they do not appreciate waiting on hold or navigating a convoluted phone tree before even broaching their problem. Agents need to respond as soon as a customer reaches out on all platforms, including calls, messages, and texts. However, customers don’t want agents to rush while resolving their problems. Respond promptly and investigate carefully to secure ongoing customer loyalty.

Customer service representatives are the first responders to customer inquiries. Insurance companies need a top-tier call center to deliver the quality of service the modern customer expects. Contact the experts at Actec to learn how our nearshore call center solutions can improve the customer experience.

Integrated Absence 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.

5 FNOL Terms You Need to Understand

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March 10th, 2016

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shutterstock_252811903 - CopyAs with any industry, insurance is filled with abbreviations. The abbreviations regarding FNOL call centers are important for businesses to understand if they want to improve customer satisfaction and handle claims efficiently. Here are five terms you need to understand for your FNOL Call Center.
ASA
ASA stands for Average Speed to Answer. This is the amount of time it takes for your intake specialists to respond to inbound calls. If your ASA is too long you may have issues with ATA.
ATA
ATA is an abbreviation for Average Time Abandonment. If a customer is on hold too long they will disconnect the call. If a customer hangs up because they receive a recorded message, the phone rings for a long time without being answered or the individual is left on hold too long you will have to deal with dissatisfied customers. Two reasons for increased customer disconnects can be ATB and CHT.
ATB
ATB or All Trunks Busy is a term used when all lines are engaged so the call center can’t receive additional inbound calls or make outbound calls. ATB often occurs when a company doesn’t have the right infrastructure to handle call volume.
CHT
Call Handling Time (CHT) is the total time it takes for a call center representative to handle a claim, including time on the phone with the customer and time after the call to complete the necessary paperwork. If an intake specialist takes too much time handling one claim, the ASA is increased, which affects the companies ATA. EDI may also impact CHT, thereby decreasing the quality of the entire intake process.
EDI
EDI is the Electronic Data Interchange used by all claim management parties. The more efficient a company’s EDI is, the faster a call center can complete a FNOL intake form. Efficient EDI also reduces penalties, fines and customer dissatisfaction.
Understanding these five terms and managing their impact on your call center will create an efficient FNOL intake process. Some companies have a handle on these five terms, while others need to find ways to improve their FNOL management. Contact the experts at Actec for more information about our proprietary intake solution, and how you can use it to improve workflow and improve customer satisfaction

Why So Many Claims Happen At Night

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December 19th, 2014

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Today’s society is now running all of the time, and people are now doing everything at all times of the day.  This means great things for the output of our country and getting things done, but it also means that a claim can occur at any time of the day or night.

People now do things at night that they use to only do during the day, including working, running and just about anything else you can imagine.   In addition the biggest claim areas most insurance companies worry about also have a very good chance of happening at night.

Though driving accidents have been down over 40% of fatal car accidents still happen at night.  In addition, of the over 2,500 deaths caused each year by home fires most of them occur during the night time when the family is sleeping.

Given all of this, insurance companies need to be sure they offer optimal after hours claim services so their customers are well taken care of at their greatest time of need.  To learn more about these services click here.

First Notice of Loss Video Tutorial

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November 26th, 2014

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Watch this cool new 3 minute whiteboard video on first notice of loss.

After-Hours Reporting Leveraging Specialized Call Centers

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August 11th, 2014

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Actec specializes in after-hours call centers for claims intake and management. Processing claims in a timely and accurate manner is crucial to effective FNOL. Achieving this requires an internal department trained in such practices, or seamless integration of an outsourced call center. Call centers are often able to provide these services with an increased level of efficiency at a reduced cost. Though there are many such solutions, the integration and customization of outsourcing is imperative in reaching the desired outcome. Actec’s many years of experience and highly skilled personnel serve to enhance the efficiency of a business while minimizing risk. To learn more, ask us.

Top Absence Management & Claim Intake Blogs

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July 3rd, 2014

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Absence management through effective claim intake is a vital service for a wide variety of medium-to-large organizations around the country. These services can be performed in-house or outsourced to a professional dedicated call center, and serve to dramatically enhance efficiency and streamline operations. Learn more about how Absence Management can help you in some of our recent blogs: