The Mission
CHRISTUS Health’s mission is to extend the healing ministry of Jesus Christ. The Health Plan division of the organization offers Medicare Advantage and Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) plans. The goal of the CHRISTUS health plan is to always put the patient first by providing access to the best providers, hospitals, and clinics. Above all, they are committed to offering a unique healing experience that embodies their values and respects the dignity and worth of each life.
The Challenge
In the health plans division of CHRISTUS Health, phone calls play an important role in the patient journey. Enrolling in a health plan can be complex and overwhelming, and enrollees often place several calls trying to choose the best healthcare plan. The call center team strives to meet all consumer needs and guide them through the process.
To evaluate how well call center agents were assisting customers, the CHRISTUS Health Plan team had to “ride along” on phone calls with agents and listen to them talk to patients in real time. This created inaccuracies in the call-scoring process because managers were only able to listen to a small sample of calls from each agent — they could have caught their best agents on their worst days, or vice versa. In addition, the process was time-consuming, and it was often difficult to identify coaching opportunities when it was time for evaluations.
The CHRISTUS Health Plan team wanted to find a more efficient way to evaluate agent calls, so they could scale their process and deliver more accurate scores.
The Resolution
Automating Call Center Quality Assurance
To improve the quality assurance process in their call center, the CHRISTUS Health Plan team turned to Invoca. Invoca enables them to define automated scoring criteria and let AI do the work. CHRISTUS uses Invoca to automatically score phone calls according to these standards:
- The agent used a proper greeting
- The agent read the CMS disclaimer
- The agent notified the caller that they’re a licensed agent
- The agent verified the provider network status
- The agent confirmed the medications on their formulary
- The agent used the correct language to describe CHRISTUS Health Plans
This new process ensures every phone call is scored, not just a small sample. This has improved accuracy and removed bias from the process. It also enables managers to spend more time coaching agents by reducing the time they spend manually listening to calls.
Invoca has removed the heavy lifting from quality assurance. I now spend 50% less time scoring phone calls — it’s been a tremendous help. I can’t imagine going back to the way we were doing things before.
Sherita Vance, broker support specialist at CHRISTUS Health Plan
This improved quality assurance process also has cross-departmental benefits. The CHRISTUS Health Plan marketing team uses Invoca to drive phone leads, and the new QA process has made their ad dollars more efficient, as more callers convert to patients.
Improving the Coaching Process
Invoca has also helped CHRISTUS Health Plan improve its coaching process. Now, managers have a clear picture of exactly which areas each agent needs to improve on, which has made preparing for coaching sessions easier, and improved the quality of feedback. And, with all of the time savings from automating call scoring, managers now have more bandwidth to help agents gain the skills they need to better serve patients.
In the past, CHRISTUS Health Plan didn’t have a system to record and transcribe phone calls, which made it difficult for managers to find teachable moments — they had to rely on coaching based on the few calls they listened to live. But Invoca automatically records and transcribes every phone call and gives managers access to scorecards and recordings immediately after calls end. In addition, managers can use Invoca to search every transcript for keywords and phrases. This has helped managers identify teachable moments more easily and, in some cases, adjust scripts to help agents better describe their products.
When first implementing Invoca, Vance was unsure how her team would respond to the new technology. Many of her agents were tenured for three to four years, nearly double the industry average, and had become accustomed to the existing processes. But it wasn’t hard to get agents on board with Invoca, because it helped managers give more meaningful feedback during reviews.
Our agents embraced Invoca from the beginning. They love the detailed feedback that we can give them now, and how we can pull up specific transcripts and recordings to assist with coaching. It’s really helped them learn faster and become better agents. We’ve had good retention in our call center over the past few years, and Invoca has helped us maintain that and keep our agents engaged.
Sherita Vance, broker support specialist at CHRISTUS Health Plan
Invoca also gives agents an extra layer of insurance — if someone complains to CMS that an agent didn’t read the disclaimer, the agent can point to Invoca’s transcripts to show that they indeed followed the proper guidelines.
The Results
- 50% time savings on call quality assurance
- Improved agent coaching process
The Invoca team has been totally awesome. They walked me through the whole setup process and made sure everything met company guidelines. If I ever have an issue, I can count on them to respond quickly with a solution.
