Northern California Kaiser Permanente members rely extensively on the NCAL Pharmacy Call Center. The contact center frequently handles prescription orders, which means agents typically interact with ailing, frustrated, or elderly members that require specialized attention. A phone survey, manually conducted by another department, found the satisfaction rating of members calling into the contact center was 89 percent out of 100. Additionally, the phone survey resulted in a response from only 300 out of the 1500 members. This kind of survey presents two downsides. Members, called days after the initial interaction, are less likely to participate and, if they do, they are less likely to accurately rate the service of that specific interaction. In both instances, this type of survey results in a small sample size and inaccurate results. The contact center faced two key challenges: managers required a more accurate way to measure service and an efficient method of implementing training for their agents to raise member satisfaction scores.
Raising the Voice of the Customer
The NCAL Pharmacy Call Center implemented Autonomy Qfiniti customer survey module, Survey, to gain a more accurate and comprehensive view of its service delivery. Survey provides an automated post-call satisfaction survey in which the results are directly linked to call recordings and specific agents. The NCAL Pharmacy Call Center has been using Autonomy Qfiniti’s online coaching and training module, Expert, since 2005 to train agents on new procedures and processes. The eLearning courses are typically small modules specific to procedure changes, followed by a short quiz for reinforcement. Modules were distributed once a month for the first year, giving managers an idea of where agents stood in terms of understanding the new information. After the implementation of Survey, the contact center found another use for Expert that directly affected member service scores. The surveys revealed that agents in the contact center needed training on having more effective and empathic interactions with a specific group of Kaiser Permanente members. As a result, the contact center’s online training content was immediately tailored to include best practices for interacting with these members.