Proposal to Improve Efficiency and Customer Service

Proposal to Improve Efficiency and Customer Service

HCS/325

Proposal to Improve Efficiency and Customer Service

The Sunnyside Medical Call Center has been steadily increasing call volume, doubling incoming calls over the last year. As our customer service representatives have had to handle this increase, we have noticed that there are a few issues in our current routine and system, which has caused some customer discontent. We want to ensure customer satisfaction but do not have the funds to hire on additional staff. Our department was given a $20,000 budget to improve customer service and efficiency. The following proposal will outline the dispersal and usage of these funds.

Customer Frustrations

We realized that our customer representative team has been having some difficulty being able to handle the call volume and think that perhaps it’s time to update our automated system. This system is used to field customer calls in order to properly direct them to the appropriate department. When it was first implemented, the system was setup with a series of automated prompts that customers would follow in order to be redirected to a customer service representative that could help resolve their issues. As it has been many years since its implementation, many of the automated prompts are no longer valid and the system as a whole is missing vital prompts that relate the health care industry of today.

Recommendations

Our proposal includes the use of a portion of the budgeted funds to update this automated system so that it reflects both our company and the current health care industry. This will drastically ease customer frustrations stemming from unnecessary redirection and reduce wait time between the initial call and being able to speak directly to one of our representatives (Rob, 2015). Being able to make this one small change will also aid our representatives in being able to quickly resolve customer issues because the customer will have been redirected to the appropriate department where our employees can use their knowledge and skills to quickly help each customer.

Updated Team Training

Like many other industries, our company is comprised of a series of teams; each trained and tasked within a different area of the company. These teams come together efficiently to keep our company running smoothly. As Sunnyside moves into the future, it seems that our current teams need updated training in order to handle the increase they are experiencing. Throughout the last year, myself and the other members of the management team have been closely monitoring our respective departments and have pooled our observations together to create a plan to update our current training program for both our call representatives and our quality assurance team.

The management team and I have decided to follow the textbook steps of the management process (Buchbinder & Shanks, 2016, p. 108). Over the last year we have identified the strengths within the departments and have realized that our biggest strength lies within the satisfaction that customers receive when they work with Sunnyside. This is due to our employees taking extra time and care with each customer case and seeing it through to resolution with a cheerful attitude and knowledgeable skills. We have also identified some weaknesses within our staff such as customer satisfaction not being met due to poor training and a lack of incentives for employees to truly give their all while working with customers.

The management team has taken the time to observe and record opportunities for growth and advancement over the last year. As the call volume increases, there has risen the need for our representatives to gather feedback from our customers. This feedback will be able to tell us how we are doing and discover any areas that we can improve on. We propose using a portion of the budgeted funds for the addition of a survey at the end of call program, comprised of 4 questions. This would be a simple but effective way to assess the success of each call and the customer satisfaction. The representative will ask the customer if they would like to participate and then, upon agreement from the customer, proceed to ask the questions as they fill out the survey on their screen. These surveys will be recorded in each case file, being available to the quality assurance team. This will allow the Quality Assurance team to assess the success of the updated system and our performance with our customers overall.

As we are training our customer representatives to administer the survey, we will simultaneously be training our Quality Assurance team to accurately read the data given on each survey, so that we can track the success of the program and pinpoint any threats that might aright that could put the success of the company at risk. Once those threats are recognized, we will be able to come up with and implement a plan to fix them.

Incentive Program

We plan on implementing a simple incentive program, offering our customer representatives the opportunity to earn 15 minutes paid time off every week, if they meet a minimum of 60 calls and a 90% positivity rating. If these goals are met weekly for the period of one quarter, they will receive a $25.00 Visa gift card. The management team proposes that a small portion of the budgeted funds also be used to purchase these cash incentives when employees reach their goals. This plan benefits not only our employees but also our customers as it will promote a positive environment where customer needs are met while simultaneously giving our employees attainable goals to work towards (Neal, 2012).

CONCLUSION

The Sunnyside Medical Call Center has long prided itself on our ability to quickly resolve customer questions. This last year has seen monumental growth within our customer base. Updating our automated answering service, training our employees and quality assurance team to take advantage of the new survey and adding the incentive program are all ways that we can effectively use our budgeted funds to bring our company into the future. The management team is prepared to discuss options to move forward with this plan and are standing by for your answer.

REFERENCES

Buchbinder, S. B., & Shanks, N. H. (2016). Introduction to Health Care Management (3rd ed.).

Retrieved from https://phoenix.vitalsource.com/books/9781284119725.

Neal, A. (2012). Business 2 Community. Retrieved from

https://www.business2community.com/strategy/boost-morale-and-profits-with-an-employee-incentive-program-0195156

Rob, S. (2015). Connect First. Retrieved from

https://blog.connectfirst.com/how-long-hold-times-affect-your-customers-experience