Strengthening our service center’s culture of care during trying times

By Ben Miller
Managing Director, Customer Care

We just completed our 15th annual enrollment season. In a normal year, this is an anxious time for retirees, but we knew the pressure was on to provide extraordinary customer service because of the pandemic. So we took a deep breath, got our bearings and leaned into our X factor: Our employees work here because they love what they do.

For many of our service team members, serving retirees isn’t so much a job as it is a calling. When asked how they feel about their role, our employees say things like, “I love the fact that I can sit back and know that I’ve made a difference” and “I want to be a light to seniors…I fell in love with this business because I can continue to serve seniors every day.”

Our X factor — combined with the belief that if we take care of our employees, they’ll go above and beyond for our retirees — set the foundation for achieving our customer service goals during this unprecedented time.

In March and April, we seamlessly pivoted to working from home without losing the service center culture and high morale fostered by working together to meet a worthy goal. We accomplished this mission by ensuring every employee had the technology and support necessary to continue helping retirees find and enroll in perfect-fit plans. To ensure our service team members could continue to meet “in person” with each other, each was provided with a webcam and Zoom license. The goal was to make sure the team felt connected, despite not being in proximity.

We also instituted an extensive program to help newly remote workers feel supported and to keep collaboration robust. We scheduled virtual team lunches where the focus was on getting to know each other, with team trivia games and raffles to keep morale high. Outstanding customer service, as indicated by excellent customer feedback, was rewarded with team recognition. As an added perk, service representatives received a credit to spend on meal delivery on days that were busier than usual. And for customer service supervisors, often viewed as the most critical role in our organization, monthly grocery store gift certificates were provided during the open enrollment period as a small token of appreciation for all of their hard work. When we launched the program, dozens of messages were received from team members, each epitomizing the service culture that defines our organization.

“Thank you very much! Please know that I am giving 100% effort to making sure my team is prepared for every call. Thank you for everything you’ve done for the customer service representatives; they are working harder than anyone; they are the true heroes!!!”

—    M.G., Customer Service Supervisor

When the pandemic hit, we worried about how the changes we were forced to make would affect our retirees. But our X factor, combined with our focus on taking care of our employees, paid off, and we’ve just completed one of our most successful open enrollment seasons. The changes brought about by the pandemic have taught us about resiliency and proven our ability to weather a crisis. The pandemic's impact also left us feeling more passionate than ever about our mission to help retirees find health care coverage perfectly suited to them.

Learn more about our customer service team here.