Challenge...
Date:
February 2, 2014.
Skills:
Due to a growing client base, telephone enrollment had become a more utilized process within the enrollment process during the year. New and Existing customers needed to utilize telephone assistance while accessing investment plans offered by their respected places of employment. The process required finding and vetting the customer, locating available plans based on employer provided code, walking through plan options, and confirming plan choices. The process did not allow for alteration of current plan information or updating of current customer information. Additionally, the user was required to toggle between (up to) 5 different interfaces/systems, write notes on paper to be entered later, access pieces of data one at a time regardless of the customers input. This process took on average 70 minutes per customer.
Solution...
After reviewing the desired end result, the process was mapped in reverse. Areas of overlapping process were identified, and desired processes and situations were grouped. Working with the programmers to understand the data stores and limitations of what could be accessed and updated seamlessly, a new process was devised using a combination of heuristics and user input. All primary functions were moved to a single access page with secondary functions located in an easy to navigate access panel. The interface allowed for customer vetting and updating on the fly. Entering the plan code and locating all offered plans became a primary function, and allowed the user to see and indicate what was available almost instantly. Additionally, a multi-state set of actions (button) was added, indicating to the user in what state of enrollment the customer was in – thus negating the need to “start over” for any reason.
Finally, in consideration of the (+/- 65%) existing customers that called in, current plan information was integrated to the interface, allowing questions to be answered with ease, as well as allowing the user to make any desired changes to facilitate the customer’s needs.
Final process was estimated to take 25 minutes (based on QA, UAT, and Live World Testing) with an estimated time allotted for training of 3 weeks. The process was reduced to a single page from a primary system with additional “detail pages” implemented as needed, and the use of a secondary legacy system was minimal.
Outcome:
The interface was implemented and yielded better results than originally expected. Internal efforts had been underway to update some of the back end data structures, thus allowing a faster response time from the solution. Additionally, page additions were made to improve the interaction further, allowing for integration of the “Open Enrollment” experience, allowing a single user to accomplish a multitude of tasks that previously took (up to) three different users. The final average was further reduced to 17 minutes per successful call.
