published 03-5-2019

CX Best Practice Award Winnerfor CSR Coaching Program

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Nebraska

CX Best Practice Success Story – CSR Coaching Program

Blue Cross and Blue Shield Nebraska

Company Description For over 75 years, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Nebraska has been an important part of Nebraskans’ lives. We are the only health insurer exclusively serving Nebraskans and employees of Nebraska-based companies. We are the largest tax-paying non-profit in Nebraska and provide health insurance coverage or benefits administration to over 730,000 members. Blue Cross and Blue Shield Nebraska Customer Service Description The changes in healthcare over the last several years have created many challenges for our members. Customers need to be able to manage their health care costs and understand their insurance coverage to make the best decisions for themselves and their families. Blue Cross and Blue Shield Nebraska is helping to control costs by leading the way in supporting patient-focused value-based partnerships that deliver quality care in the most cost-effective manner. We have also vowed to make every customer experience world-class by empowering our Customer Service Representatives to creatively resolve issues by providing compassionate, practical solutions. Our goal is to inform and educate our members and help them navigate the complexities of the healthcare system. Location Omaha Nebraska Call Types Benefits, eligibility and claims for medical, dental and pharmacy coverage Customer Types Group and Individual members and their dependents Medical and Dental providers Group Leaders/Benefit Administrators Headcount 156 Contact Channels Inbound Call Center, Email, web Hours of Operation Monday through Friday 7:30 am to 6:00 pm Contact Volume On average 4200 contacts per day for all inquiry types

Opportunity and Objective With nearly 10 metrics on the representative scorecard, and additional support data being captured in

different logs, and through different areas throughout training and beyond (described below), supervisors

have difficulty compiling, prioritizing, and analyzing root cause areas for their representative’s

improvement. In order to enable leadership, and all of the contributing support function roles (training,

quality, resource center and learning lab) to discuss (rep’s) areas of strength, we created the “Alliance

Team” which results in a quarterly collaborative development plan designed by the representative and

supervisor that focuses on continuous coaching to drive improvement and world class performance.

Best Practice: (Learning Lab) Directly following our training program, the official coaching begins. The new hires are welcomed into a

learning lab environment where they spend the next four weeks getting their feet wet. We know this is a

crucial time for both development, success, and reinforcement of the training received.

Within the learning lab, a dedicated supervisor supports the development of this new team. During

learning lab, individuals can expect one on one coaching, group coaching and crucial in the moment

coaching. The supervisor will spend a full day or more sitting side by side with each trainee. During this

time, development trends, customer experience nuances, and any knowledge gaps are easily identified

and addressed. In addition to the support from the learning lab supervisor, the supervisor of the team will

also spend time listening and coaching the individual. The class can expect a 30-minute daily huddle to

discuss common questions, trends noticed during the coaching sessions, and to celebrate the day

successes.

(On the Floor) Upon graduating from training and learning lab, the representative transitions to their team and is

introduced to their performance goals, report card usage, and team dynamics. Once transitioned, it is the

supervisor’s main focus to coach, develop, and support them to success. In order to do this successfully

they use an integrated approach – a monthly scheduled one on one session combined with in the

moment floor coaching. At the core of this integrated approach is an understanding of each

representatives’ personality style, communication and learning preferences, their reaction to stress, and

what motivates them.

In the past, we found that it was very easy for a supervisor to rely on scorecard-based coaching – simply

identifying points within the representative’s performance metrics and telling them to improve the

problem. We recognized that sticking with this type of approach led to slow progress (if any) in

representative performance, a lack of buy-in (engagement) from the individuals to coaching plans and

also negative impacts to the culture – a feeling of lack of empowerment to improve their situations. We

also found there was no real focus, as an office, on the big drivers of key performance indicators.

Today, we are focused on sitting down with the representative and talking with them about their

opportunities in a collaborative way to ensure engagement, and ownership. By increasing the quality of

the conversations in this way it has allowed the representatives to uncover their challenges, and the

supervisors to spend less time in the one on one sessions and more time in the moment on the floor.

This approach has led to better performance results, impressive coaching surveys, and an undeniabl

improved culture.

(SOAR)

When a little extra support is needed to boost performance, individuals are supported in our SOAR

environment. SOAR, Supplying Opportunities to Achieve Results, is a centralized 2 - 4week program

focused on a specific area of opportunity. To get ready for the SOAR session, the supervisor responsible

creates an overview of the representative. This overview includes KPIs, FAQs, coaching completed, and

ways to best support the individual. The representative also shares their personal goals for SOAR and

where they would like support. After being created, their personalized development plan is coached and

monitored while the individual is in SOAR. The SOAR environment is kept small, 5 participants maximum,

and includes individuals with the same area/s of opportunity for ease in development and peer support.

This environment allows plenty of time for increased call observation, listening to SQM calls, double

jacking, and sharing best practices to improve performance.

Alliance Quarterly Game Plan/ Development Plan:

Phase 1. (Pre-work) Prior to Quarterly Meeting

• Data gathering takes place (Supervisor, Quality, Training, RC, Learning Lab)

Awareness of the following;

• Reps metrics

• View any coaching logs (pull calls & utilize SQM feedback) prior to meeting to have

data ready-trends-consistency)

• Rep strengths and opportunities

• Any coaching that has taken place

• Tools and resources being used properly/needs additional help

• Rep goals

• Listen to an additional 10 trending calls. This will provide a recent snapshot of

performance/trends

Phase 2. Quarterly Meeting

• Invite sent by Manager to supervisor and support function leads

• Session Agenda:

• Go thru team norms

• Examine rep’s data and trends by specific area and opportunity – learning lab and

training if applicable – resource center-quality- floor

o Information to be shared:

▪ Rep strengths and opportunities

▪ Past coaching (high level overview)

▪ How the rep has responded to prior coaching/feedback

▪ What motivates the rep

▪ Any observations on learning styles (what works/doesn’t work)

▪ Stick to the facts/what we know

• Through collaboration we may find specific trends on the floor that we can address as

a group

Phase 3. Reinforcement/Measurement

• Manager meets with supervisor after to develop an actionable dev plan

• Supervisor and rep collaborate to develop the tailored coaching plan:

o Explain rep’s specific area and their standing in the office

o Show them report card and how they can utilize this to keep track of their own

performance and goals

o Talk through the area of opportunity that was discovered in the quarterly

meeting

o Ask for buy-in on how they are going to come up with a plan along with their

sup to improve performance

o Write plan together along with specific actionable responsibilities for the reps

and leaders, and a specific way to measure to the goal.

o With the rep on board, send the copy of the plan to them, their sup, and quality

RCS to ensure reinforcement

• Supervisors conduct weekly sessions with their reps during their dev time to talk

through plan specifics

• Reps attend specific SOAR sessions geared towards their individual improvement

• Dev plans are updated in Alliance file on SharePoint

o Tracking of specific dev plans

o Identify measurement (specific metric) to see improvement

Conclusion:

By having all the key players – quality, training, resource center, and supervisory team on board and

reinforcing the “in the moment” as well as “side by side coaching”, we have seen some exciting

improvements in our FCR results this year. We feel that this is due in large part to the engagement and

empowerment that our Alliance development plans and united leadership team have created.