Overview

pFor over 20 years, Faneuil, Inc. has provided business process outsourcing solutions that span from multi-channel customer care to technical support. Faneuil works with clients that operate in complex and highly regulated industries and, as such, has partnered with several US states to build state-specific Health Benefits Exchanges for the Federal Affordable Care Act. /p pIn year-round and recurring programs that correspond with the National Open Enrollment Period, Faneuil’s customer service reps provide one-on-one support via multiple channels and in strict compliance with the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA). Reps help consumers determine eligibility to participate, compare benefits of available insurance policies, and complete enrollment./p

Supernova Award Category

Future of Work: Employee Experience

The Problem

pUS States face many concerns when sourcing, implementing, and managing Health Benefits Exchanges for the Federal Affordable Care Act (ACA). /p pState exchanges need strong customer interaction capabilities for dealing with complex products processes. A full tech stack, scalable to handle surges in ACA open enrollment is a necessity. A surge of 25-50% in headcount and call volume in a 2-3-month period is common for these contact centers, but agents must deliver great service in these challenging settings. /p pEssential to this is the ease of training and scaling of agents to become experts across broad and complex topics. Agents often need to navigate many, complex tasks to answer a single question (verify the customer; check qualifications; search, read, and interpret answers; review answers with customers; then note content and outcome of discussion). Whatsmore, large call volumes create challenges for triaging callers and get them to the right person to answer questions quickly, correctly, and consistently, the first time. /p pFaneuil already helps multiple States manage their ACA Health Insurance exchanges to tackle these challenges with Oracle CX B2C Service. Due to COVID, Faneuil changed plans to move 25% of its 4-5K agents to a remote model w/in a year and expanded  accelerated this to move 100% of its agents across all exchanges to a work-from-home model w/in 4-weeks./p

The Solution

p class="CxSpFirst"​​​​​​To help states implement  manage exchanges, Faneuil developed an omnichannel contact center solution or “exchange in a box”. Part of the approach includes a front-end, intelligence augmentation solution for agents, called Trajectory. Trajectory is a just-in-time coach for each call and sits atop Oracle CX B2C Service, bringing data and information forward from the CRM knowledgebase to the agent. This helps agents verify callers and navigate complex processes, dynamically adjusting to deliver contextual, inline guidance, answers, precise compliance language at the exact moment the interaction dictates. Common, complex call examples are placed into workflows to offer a baseline template to cover approx 80% of call types. With some nuances, Faneuil helps states leverage alike procedures, processes, technology, with or w/out staff seats, adapting to a state’s particular compliance needs./p

The results

p class="CxSpFirst"Streamlined processes and workflows reduce complexity while improving speed to quality and AHT. With contextual guidance and consistent information, agents no longer need to put people on hold to search for an answer or escalate. They’re simply guided through the case so they can focus solely on helping the client while meeting SLAs.  Contact and incident records with autogenerated notes using consistent technology are stored in Oracle CX B2C Service, helping to clean up data./p

Metrics

p class="CxSpFirst" /p ul li class="CxSpMiddle"bOne State /bcompletely transitioned from existing systems to Faneuil’s “exchange in a box” platform ul li class="CxSpMiddle"bResults Summary/b ul li class="CxSpMiddle"12.4% YoY reduction in FTE/li li class="CxSpMiddle"17.3% YoY increase in productivity/li li class="CxSpMiddle"12-month ROI of 310%/li /ul /li li class="CxSpMiddle"bAverage Handle Time (AHT) Improvements/b ul li class="CxSpMiddle"Sustainable AHT reduction of 60+ seconds/li li class="CxSpMiddle"Nearly eliminated impact of new agents at open enrollment/li li class="CxSpMiddle"Gains realized by both new and existing agents/li li class="CxSpMiddle"Hold time reduced by over 10%/li li class="CxSpMiddle"Escalations reduced by 30%/li li class="CxSpMiddle"Simultaneous improvement in quality over 20%, and AHT over 10%/li /ul /li li class="CxSpMiddle"bGains for New Agents/b ul li class="CxSpMiddle"Sustainable AHT reduction of 120 seconds/li li class="CxSpMiddle"Gained 60 days in reaching lower AHT/li li class="CxSpMiddle"Substantially improved quality by 28.9%/li li class="CxSpMiddle"The training focused on insurance knowledge and away from system navigation, helping quickly bring new people up to speed to and achieving results in line with experienced agents/li /ul /li /ul /li /ul

The Technology

pOracle CX B2C Service (formerly Service Cloud), Knowledge Foundation, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)/p

Disruptive Factor

p class="CxSpFirst"The Trajectory interface for agents optimizes the user experience by serving as a single source of truth and eliminating call friction. With contextual guidance and consistent information, agents no longer need to put people on hold to search for an answer or escalate. They’re simply guided through the case intelligently so they can focus solely on helping the client while meeting SLAs.  Contact and incident records with autogenerated notes using consistent technology are stored in Oracle CX B2C Service, helping to clean up data. Four states are now live with Faneuil’s solution./p p class="CxSpMiddle" /p ul li class="CxSpMiddle"Faneuil is well-placed and ready to assist other states coming off the federal exchange /li li class="CxSpMiddle"Faneuil is helping States develop exchanges that move away from older portals built years ago by SIs/li li class="CxSpMiddle"No one in this market is currently using chatbots due to complexity and compliance. Faneuil is capturing responses to complex questions, which will eventually feed automated chatbots and client portals./li /ul

Shining Moment

p class="CxSpFirst"bCOVID-19:/b/p p class="CxSpMiddle"In response to COVID, State ACA Exchanges held special open enrollment, to allow people touched by the economic downturn and unemployment to get much-needed insurance coverage. Faneuil was planning to enable 25% of its on-prem call center agents to work from home (WFH). The pandemic accelerated these efforts and Faneuil expanded its plan and moved all of its agents to WFH w/in 4-weeks to lessen any disruption in service for customers. /p