In today’s interconnected and always-on world, consumers demand tools that enable them to interact with brands at their convenience across multiple channels. A wellness brand understands this trend and is striving to better meet its members’ expectations. Its legacy contact centre model and customer interactions needed to keep up with evolving member demands. Members wanted seamless interactions with the company across channels, as well as advanced mobile, social, and self-service tools to interact on their terms. The company needed a partner to help put the disparate pieces together in order to serve the growing needs of its members.

Our integrated capabilities made us a natural fit for the client. We acted as a strategic partner to develop new solutions encompassing strategy, technology, and customer management. Most importantly, customer service specialists needed to become experts in the company’s product, services, and processes in order to create superior member experiences. Humanify@home helped the client create and deliver advanced training programs and simulated learning tools that quickly brought 300 at-home employees up to speed within 20 days. Our ability to quickly recruit and train at-home employees also allows the company to scale up or down according to the company’s needs. For example, during the client’s busiest period from December through January, we ramped up support from 300 associates to 700 associates within a few weeks.

The phones are manned during the hours when most members call, which is a span of 12 to 14 hours. The advantages of work-at-home associates include reduced overhead costs by not maintaining a physical contact centre, and more flexible schedules. Work-at-home associates have greater opportunities to work around their other obligations, which helps reduce turnover rates and promotes employee satisfaction. This in turn promotes a more engaging and satisfying customer experience, as reflected by high member satisfaction, NPS, and associate quality scores.

The partnership began with our team covering 80 percent of the overall call volume, which increased to 100 percent within three months. We are now the sole partner handling calls, with a mix of physical centres and at-home employees. As a result, average handle time dropped from 506 seconds to 425 seconds by identifying delays and other patterns through analytics. Experts can converse with members on topics ranging from billing-related issues to suggestions for healthy recipes. We assist the client with email and social media interactions as well.

We also help the client connect members directly with human coaches via mobile tools, and provide ongoing workforce management professional services and escalation support to coaches in the field about best practices in customer interactions.

So far, results have been positive. Member satisfaction, NPS, and associate quality scores continually exceed expected levels, and more than 85 percent of consumers rank themselves as promoters after a brand interaction. Self-help tools, including the searchable knowledgebase and live chat, are very popular with members, who also appreciate the option to connect directly with a wellness coach. The company’s internal operations continue to be optimised to meet the current and future experience needs of its members.