It’s human nature, especially for self-declared perfectionists, to pore over an email draft to ensure clarity, accuracy, and proper tone — to make sure it checks all the boxes to score an A+ before clicking “Send.” Healthcare advocates working in a contact center don’t enjoy that luxury, however.

Challenge

A major regional health plan recognized it needed to streamline processes, including automation of some manual tasks, in the contact center. Both non-licensed healthcare advocates and licensed associates selling coverage struggled with the email channel. Communication with other departments within the organization was inconsistent, manual, error-prone, and time-consuming.

Weak email practices hindered telesales associates’ ability to follow up with prospective members, proactively address questions, and offer enrollment in the company’s plans. Sales opportunities were lost, the experience suffered, and associates’ confidence drooped.

Our solution

TTEC’s analysis pinpointed the factors undermining effectiveness, accuracy, and speed of email communications. Poorly worded email subject lines created ambiguity, for example, while incomplete information created bottlenecks and delays.

We created a widget in the knowledgebase that gave associates access to a set of pre-defined email templates. Each email template was designed for a specific process the associate needed to complete. For example, the email templates standardized these processes:

• Generate hot lead forms
• Enrollment applications

• Do not contact requests

Associates selected an email task objective and the widget dynamically displayed only the relevant data fields required for that process. Once associates provided information — whether by free-form data entry or pull-down menus — the widget generated an Outlook email draft populated with recipient name, subject line, and other details specific to the task.

The standardized email templates brought clarity and consistency to all emails, ensuring information was complete and compliant. After review and refinement, we curated the offering to 13 essential email templates covering all key processes.

Results

The email template generator widget streamlined email communications, improved consistency, reduced errors, and enhanced associates’ proficiency using the knowledgebase. An impressive 86% of associates reported they felt “very confident” sending emails using the widget versus only 48% who felt that confident sending emails prior to the widget’s launch.

Before adding the widget to the knowledgebase, only 62% of associates could compose an email in fewer than five minutes; using the widget, 95% of associates drafted an email at that speed and its content was more complete, accurate, and consistent.

Average handle time (AHT) was reduced by 10.4% (about 1 minute) per call, resulting in a savings of $2.33 per call. Shorter handle time meant the team could take more calls and reduce queues. Overall call volume rose from about 9,000 calls to 11,000 calls, yielding savings of $26,000 in the first three months of deployment.

Efficiency gains not only freed up time for team leads, who no longer needed to manually review emails for accuracy, but also facilitated greater call volume using fewer associates. The average number of calls handled by each associate jumped from 319 to 429 (a 34.5% increase) while the number of associates dropped back from 28 to 26.

Our client’s operations team had glowing reviews:

“Due to reduced email errors, the team can confidently use the widget to send emails for different processes, which alleviates the need for team leads to spend time vetting each email. This increases coaching time for TLs.”