Alight Retiree Health Solutions, Lincolnshire, Illinois, United States: Alight - Employer Access Leadership Team Excels

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It is my sincere pleasure to nominate the Employer Access Sales & Service Center leadership team for the esteemed Achievement in Management Award.  Senior Managers Susan Bailey (TX), Paden Olmsted (GA), Timberly Merritt (SC), and Gene Steinken (IL), have worked tirelessly alongside me (Paul Palmer, NC) as their director to take the business to new heights of performance with creative solutions to real life problems presented in a cohesive team manner.  Working virtually and having had only one face-to-face meeting in the last 3 years, this team has been the tremendous example of five things that we like to say our foundation is built on – integrity, responsibility, discipline, quality, and teamwork. 

Not only do they lead virtually, but our entire staff is virtual as well.  [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION].  The ability to meet and exceed KPIs with a frontline staff that you’re not looking at daily is no simple task.  It requires senior managers to drive engagement, build connections, and hold everyone accountable for delivery.  It requires a commitment to ensuring the right behaviors are in place and that when they aren’t, there’s a specific plan to get sales and service agents, plus their managers, back on track.  I believe that this has been the most significant reason why they have achieved such a great measure of success.  They don’t just focus on the what, they focus on the why. 

Anyone who has worked in a call center environment will always tell you that the one constant is change.  This team has continued to forge ahead to not only embrace change but push for it to deliver better business results.  They locked arms with the charge to manage by fact and made significant changes to the resources their sales and service managers had at their disposal.  For example, on the sales side, they worked with the Data & Analytics team to create a new dashboard to provide managers a better snapshot of what an agent did with their opportunities.  This opened the door for more effective coaching where the manager could speak specifically to appointment type and resulting enrollments.  It also allowed for a clearer picture of why there was no follow-up if a sale wasn’t made.  On the service side, they helped design a new dashboard which gave service managers critical insight into agent productivity by managing handle times and identifying short calls quicker.  Service also was tasked with new revenue generating work for carriers which they had never done before, exceeded target, and were recognized by one of the carriers for their exceptional work.

They’ve also been an integral part of associate development initiatives.  Whether involving agents in podcasts to share best practices with peers, having managers lead sales meetings for the entire sales team, or helping unlicensed agents chart a path to their own career growth by helping them to get into a sales role, this team has a collective focus on championing people. 

In closing, early in 2023, it was announced that we were losing our largest client.  Such a change affected sales in 2023 [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION].  Despite this challenge, the sales team hit their medical goal 11 out of 12 months!  [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION]  In addition, for 2023, our NPS score for inbound calls was 17 pts above target, 131% to goal!  Lastly, during AEP the team puts in a significant number of extra hours.  I asked them for their closing rotation and was told they’d all be here.  [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] Exceptional!

1. Created BA Coaching Dashboard – Report view that highlighted agent level performance over a set time.

1. Provides insight as to what an agent is doing with appointments/opportunities.
2. View of total sales by appointment type.
3. Identifies whether there is a follow up scheduled or if the sale was a one call close.
4. Facilitates coaching of agents who have less opportunities in part due to long talk times.
5. Trends how agents manage their appointments daily for the last 13 months.
6. Created the Agent Coaching for Success Form – Helps maintain line of sight on coaching topics and consistency.
   1. Provides a detail of coaching needs for an agent as identified by the sales manager.
   2. Provides an easy follow up email for the manager to utilize with their agent.
   3. Identify agent trends whether positive or negative.
7. Created the Call Listening Form – Maintain line of sight on call listening frequency, opportunities, growth.
8. Gives line of sight as to what the managers are doing to understand how agents are handling their calls.
9. Gives a manager structure to their coaching sessions based on what they hear on the calls.
10. Provides an insight on how to help an agent to improve their sales and service skills.
11. Achieved 9-point improvement in NPS in 2023 from 2022.
12. Designed CSA Manager Dashboard – Helped highlight opportunities in CSA performance.
    1. Dashboard cuts down the time needed to pull reports and uses that time instead for coaching.
    2. Allowed data from multiple sources to populate in one place.
    3. Locate trends or issues a CSA might have like short calls, call times so managers can address quickly.
    4. Separates inbound, outbound and the chat teams to assist manager for each type of performance.
    5. Report was new for AEP 2023 - quality improved by 2% from 2022.
13. Introduced Podcasts – Allowed for widespread information dissemination at the agent’s own speed.
14. This has been a huge success for the agents to not only listen to so they can improve their skills, but also deliver a POD cast and share knowledge.
15. This is a great resource for our vendor partners to understand our process of selling a product, from identifying the need, introducing the product, and closing the sale.
16. We have a library of various subject for agents to review:
    1. How to be successful with renewal Medicare supplement customers
    2. Selling [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION]
    3. Approaching your day/role
    4. Increasing sales part one and two
    5. Wrapping calls, dispositioning correctly, and creating future sales calls
    6. Team development
    7. Maximizing inbound sales[REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION]
17. Implemented Weekly Leadership Sales Call with all Managers – Leadership and frontline management call to broaden SWOT awareness and improve business acumen and insight.
    1. Manager presents their teams performance data and field questions from leadership and their peers.
    2. Opportunity to share best business practices.
    3. Created competition.
    4. Held managers accountable to review their book of business weekly.
    5. Pushed managers to determine root cause and focus on which behavior to change and how.
    6. Helped improve the managers' presentation skills.
    7. Gave managers the opportunity to lead the call.
18. Changed performance measurement to a monthly sales goal from benchmark weighting based on customer type.|
19. Gave us true conversion based on opportunity.
20. Monthly goals changed agent behavior to close business within the same month.
21. Generated sales on inbound calls.
22. During AEP agent approached renewal appointments differently trying to locate medical opportunities to achieve their AEP Goals.
23. Improved one call close percentage.
24. Partnered on the Sales Contest Dashboard for AEP – Agent visible dashboard to promote sales contests.
25. Provided easy visibility for contest participants to visually compare performance.
26. Drove friendly competition with the agents to increase revenue.
27. Provided daily updates for the contest winner at the end of the contest period.
28. Allowed variety of contest with specific criteria to meet business need.
29. Highlighted top three performers and shared what agents needed to achieve to improve standing.
30. Gave 12 unlicensed agents the opportunity to get licensed and grow in their career.
    1. Communicated agent growth pathway.
    2. Encouraged CSAs to perform at or above expectations to earn the opportunity.
    3. Held a “graduation” upon successful completion of licensing to change to new role
31. Completed Insurance Carrier Risk Assessments – New revenue opportunity assigned to unlicensed agents.
    1. Completed by a select group of customer service agents able to engage customers in the assessment.
    2. Generated over $200k in additional revenue [REDACTED FOR PUBLICATION] in 2023.
    3. Received recognition from one of the largest insurance carriers in the country for the completed assessments.