The Challenge
A high-growth direct-to-consumer (DTC) startup that makes and delivers medical-grade personal care products found itself with a good problem: A rapidly growing backlog of patient support inquiries and requests for medical consultations that the company struggled to keep up with. The company lacked enough qualified staff to manage and respond to the inquiries in a timely manner. Customers were increasingly frustrated, resulting in canceled consultations. The company needed a partner that could not only recruit and train associates to handle highly sensitive customer information, but also provide a solution to quickly eliminate queues and efficiently manage inbound customer volume.
Our Solution
TTEC’s first move was to work with the client’s internal staff to identify pain points and build a collaborative strategy to address the most pressing issues in line with regulatory requirements and the company’s culture. One of the problems, for example, was that frustrated customers typically created duplicate contacts on multiple channels, which further increased the queues. It was also important to ensure that no personally identifiable information (PII/PHI) was exposed on any channels.
Utilising our training best practices, we collaborated with the client on training a group of 10 associates to help clear the backlog with an emphasis on data and channel sensitivity. We recommended using EMR tooling, a safe, secure and HIPAA-compliant method of housing customer prescription information alongside PII/PHI. We also provided workforce management assistance to establish an organised system for working on the backlog and managing incoming volume more quickly.
The Results
The client quickly saw meaningful results. Within 36 hours, TTEC associates were caught up and managing the backlog, and eliminated it completely in 3 weeks. Additionally, average handle time beat its target by 29% (5 minutes actual compared to a target of 7 minutes).
After the initial training had been completed, the client also handed TTEC the reins for running internal EMR training requirements as it hired more agents. Through our partnership, the client also gained insights into accurately capturing and reporting inbound volume to more accurately assess AHT and staffing requirements—lessons that it incorporated into its own best practices.
More importantly, customer feedback quickly shifted from a large amount of frustration regarding delays to positive feedback in response to the fast turnaround times.