Company: UPMC Health Plan, Pittsburgh, PA
Company Description: UPMC Health Plan, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is owned by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), a world-renowned health care provider. An integrated health care delivery system, we are committed to providing our members better health, more financial security, and peace of mind. Our provider network includes 140 hospitals and 29,000+ physicians, serving 4M Members.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Team of the Year - Recovery Situation - Other Service Industries
 Nomination Title: UPMC Health Plan Service Recovery-Chat
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 185 words used.
A PowerPoint is attached that further demonstrates our accomplishments at improving the chat experience for our members. Slides 1-4 will give you more background on our company with slide 5 featuring our mission, vision, and values for Member Services. On slide 6 there is detail about how we formed our chat teams. Slides 7 and 8 outline how we have significantly improved the timeliness of responding to and answering our members. Most importantly though is the Voice of the Customer information that you find on slides 9-12 with the outstanding results that we have achieved. Slide 13 covers detail on the innovative chat bot that we deployed to further improve the chat experience. Our team members on the chat teams are dedicated and proud to be providing such a high level of service to our members and you will be able to see their stories on slides 14-16. Due to the level of service our Health Care Concierge program provides, it is how we differentiate and advertise our business. On slide 17 is one of the billboards that is currently being displayed in the market.
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the achievements since July 1, 2020 of the nominated team, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the spaces below.
- Briefly describe the nominated team: its history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 181 words used.
Prior to the launch of the Member Services Chat Team in December 2021, chats needing answered were placed in queue alongside all other callers across numerous lines of business. Our contact center has 500+ Health Care Concierges skilled to support our members, but servicing calls often trumped servicing members who prefer to chat.
Chat was identified in the 2021 J.D. Power Syndicated Study as needing improvement. Chat service levels averaged 50-60%, well below our benchmark of 80%, and average speed to answer (ASA) chat of 3-5 minutes, not our goal of 30-seconds. In Member Services, when we see an opportunity to improve the member experience, we take action.
The Commercial Chat Team launched in December 2021 with eight Health Care Concierges, servicing Commercial, Marketplace, and Ancillary product chats. In February 2022, the Government Chat Team was created with six Health Care Concierges servicing the products of Medicare, Community Health Choices, Medicaid, SNP, and CHIP. Since inception, the chat teams have serviced over 61K chats with an ASA of 26 seconds, while sharing additional ideas for improvement to increase member satisfaction
- Outline the team's achievements since July 1 2020 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 248 words used.
The Member Services Chat Teams were created with the expectation that Concierges must be tech-savvy, efficient, and able to think outside of the box to provide World Class Service via Chat. Not only are we proud of the improvement made to the service level and ASA, but we are also proud of the numerous improvements made to the overall Chat experience. With dedicated Concierges servicing Chats, trends and areas of opportunity are more quickly identified. Some improvements / accomplishments are:
- Added a message “You are number __ in line. Thank you for your patience” to provide a transparent Chat experience when we are busy.
- Added verbiage at the beginning of chats to inform Members of our Chat Satisfaction Survey to boost Member survey participation and encourage valuable Member feedback.
- Created chat transfer queues for Marketplace and Employer Group to ensure all members can be serviced via Chat.
- Implemented “double-chats” for team members to continually receive chat interactions to keep ASA low.
- Chat sessions automatically close after 5 seconds of the member disconnecting. This helps to keep Concierges productive and ready for the next interaction.
- Created Chat quality-score and expectations and implemented Chat coaching sessions to review interactions.
- Enhanced the experience by allowing Concierges and members to share documents via Chat attachment to eliminate the need for additional follow-up after the chat.
- Implemented Persistent Chat to eliminate members having more than one chat window open.
Member Service Chat Teams have made outstanding improvements to the Chat experience in just one-year.
- Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the team's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 248 words used.
The Member Services Chat Team has significantly improved the overall member experience on chat in just one year. On our after-chat survey the results are outstanding with a 94% satisfaction rating, 96% ease of use, 96% timeliness, and 92.3% first chat resolution (FCR). This far exceeds the health insurance industry average of 72% for FCR as quoted by the SQM Group.
Since December 2021, service levels across commercial product lines have increased by 15-25% and have remained consistent since inception. Health Care Concierges are happy to be a part of this new team in the contact center as it allows them to quickly and efficiently service chats back-to-back. Chat team members support each other, report trends / issues, and suggest ideas for process improvement. With this laser focus on chat, identifying key questions on this channel, we built an automated chat bot in August of 2022 and over 21K members have been serviced this way.
Given the success we have had with the Member Services Chat Team, all written member correspondence such as web messages and emails are also handled by this high-performing team. Having a dedicated team is not only beneficial for the member experience, but also the employee experience.
The UPMC Health Plan Member Services Team is dedicated to delivering world-class service on all interactions – we are happy to report this also includes chat, message, and email. We look forward to continued success for this team, and other improvements we can make for our members
| Attachments/Videos/Links: |
|---|
|
