It’s the time of year we affectionately call the “peak season.” This is when the vast majority of our Plans end one Plan Year and renew for another. In addition, it’s Transmittal season, when all of our AgriPlan and BizPlan Clients submit a record of their yearly healthcare expenses for adjudication. Thirty-five thousands Transmittals to be scanned, reviewed, and returned in less than 10 business days! Quite an undertaking.
Accordingly, during this busy time our Contact Center is equally busy taking calls. Some may think a large volume of calls might indicate a bigger problem. I certainly don’t look at it that way, and the numbers support my opinion.
On average, our Contact Center receives approximately 30,000 calls a month. That’s 360,000 calls per year. By adding all of our customers together (Providers, Clients and Participants), we come up with 400,000 or so individuals that we serve. This means we average less than one call a year from every customer. All of sudden, 360,000 calls a year doesn’t look so bad, does it? Let’s dig deeper into the numbers.
We track the nature of calls for quality control and follow-up reasons. In looking at this information, we can determine that at least 80 percent of our calls deal with pretty basic Plan information. These include Participants seeking account balances, Clients adding or terminating employees, Providers submitting address changes, and the like. That means only 20 percent of the calls deal with problems or concerns, and 20 percent of 360,000 equals 72,000 calls. When we divide our 400,000 customers by 72,000 you will see that on average, a customer calls TASC with a problem or concern only once every five years!
At TASC, we recognize that every problem is important. We will continue to diligently address all problems seriously and respectfully, and will continue to offer satisfactory resolutions as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, we acknowledge that some customers do encounter more problems than others, and we work hard every day to limit and resolve these instances.
TASC is always pushing innovations into the marketplace and we serve a sizeable volume of customers. We must be ever-diligent, because we deal with two aspects of life that are vital to everyone: healthcare and money, and because new laws, new regulations, and new products are inherent to our industry. Finally, we know some problems are inevitable, and we’re very pleased to know our average customer calls with a problem only once in five years. That’s the really big picture!
TASC CEO Blog 