HealthGuard Increases Call Center Efficiency and Capacity by Consolidating Inbound and Outbound Operations

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Improving Health to Reduce Insurance Costs

HealthGuard Solutions provides lifestyle management programs to its parent company, MegaHealth Insurance, and to other clients. Participants in these programs learn to eat better, exercise more, lose weight, and quit smoking. By improving health and mitigating risk factors, HealthGuard’s programs enhance the well-being of its clients’ employees and also reduce the cost of their insurance coverage and healthcare. Since these programs generate over a 300% ROI for clients, they represent a major growth opportunity for HealthGuard.

HealthGuard’s operation reaches out to its clients’ employees, enrolls them in lifestyle management programs, and follows up continuously to keep them enrolled and healthy. In addition to MegaHealth, HealthGuard provides this service to large regional organizations including the State of Ohio, and corporations like Dollar General. HealthGuard’s compensation is based on performance -- the number of prospects reached by phone and the number of clients enrolled and managed.

Growing Outbound Call Volume
Requires Improved Efficiency

Until recently, HealthGuard’s lifestyle management programs used a call center system designed primarily for inbound calling. The system did not have advanced outbound calling features such as progressive or predictive dialing, and it was not integrated with HealthGuard’s CRM database. As a result, call lists for outbound campaigns were compiled by hand, and all calls were dialed manually by the agents. The inefficiency of these outbound campaign procedures became a major issue as they grew to encompass over 70% of HealthGuard’s call center activity.

HealthGuard was dedicating 20 engagement managers to continuous manual outbound campaigns. Once connected, engagement managers referred candidates for HealthGuard programs to one of 138 lifestyle coaches for recruitment and management. To take on more clients in this mode of operation, HealthGuard would have had to hire many more engagement managers. Another limitation of manual dialing without database integration was that the system could not automatically capture performance data and create reports needed for billing. These, too, had to be compiled manually.

To make outreach campaigns more efficient and cost effective, HealthGuard had to make better use of its resources and improve its performance reporting. While recognizing the necessity of replacing its contact center, HealthGuard wanted to preserve as much of its current phone and inbound call center system as possible, because they were relatively recent investments.

Consolidation on a Full-Function Platform Improves Operations

HealthGuard’s solution was to implement a CosmoCall Universe™ contact center, a single platform that delivered all the advanced inbound and outbound calling features HealthGuard needed while preserving its substantial investment in the existing Nortel PBX and desk phone sets.

With the new capabilities of CosmoCall Universe, HealthGuard can now accommodate its growing outbound and inbound call volume with fewer resources. Integration of the call center with HealthGuard’s CRM has automated previously manual operations, such as generating call lists for outbound campaigns and looking up client and patient records, which now display automatically on lifestyle coaches’ desktops for both inbound and outbound calls. Engagement managers no longer have to dial outbound calls manually, so they are now available for other activities such as taking inbound calls. CosmoCall Universe eliminates another previously manual task by automatically collecting activity and performance data and generating the service level reports needed for billing, staffing, and agent management.

CosmoCall Universe’s ability to handle voice, e-mail, and web chat seamlessly in the same queue was important to HealthGuard. Although they initially used only voice, HealthGuard is moving quickly to implement email and web chat, so that clients and lifestyle coaches can stay in contact using the media that works best for them. Another CosmoCall Universe feature lets HealthGuard customize the caller ID number left by an outbound call to ensure that the return call goes directly to the right lifestyle management coaches or to representatives of the client company itself.

Efficient Call Center Infrastructure Enables Business Growth

HealthGuard’s new CosmoCall Universe contact center has improved productivity and eliminated major obstacles to growth. Using CosmoCall Universe, lifestyle management coaches have increased the time they’re able to spend talking with and coaching clients dramatically, from 400 to 1,500 minutes per month. And those 1,500 minutes are more efficient because of the instant screen pop with every call. When anticipated business growth requires HealthGuard to add call center personnel, CosmoCall Universe is ready. Adding agent licenses is the only change HealthGuard has to make to its existing CosmoCall Universe platform to expand the staff beyond its current site, to start up a new call center, or to add home-based agents. The end result for HealthGuard is enhanced competitiveness in a rapidly growing area of healthcare management.