From Resource, September 2003 
Copyright by LOMA

With the implementation of its computer telephone integration (CTI) system, Minnesota Life Insurance Co. has enabled its call center to optimize technology and provide superior service at lightning speed, whether they’re online or on the phone.

By Stephen Hall

"Welcome to [insert company name here]," says the automated phone system of the company you’re trying to reach. "If you’re calling from a touch-tone phone, press one." Then comes a menu of choices, and you select the option that seems to pertain to your situation. Instead, you get plenty of elevator music—and plenty of time to wonder if your call really is, as the automated message alleges, "important to us."

All too often, the above scenario bears an uncanny likeness to the experience many of us have as a customer when we’re calling a manufacturer or service provider with a question about a product of theirs that we’ve purchased. A Web site with self-help functions can cause similar frustration when those functions turn out to provide no help with your particular question or problem.

Recognizing this, Minnesota Life Insurance Co. decided to leverage the latest call-center technology in order to not only respond quickly to customers’ calls, e-mails and Web-based queries, but also to provide service that minimizes call transfers and maximizes the feeling of being treated like a VIP. Last September, the company began implementing its computer telephone integration (CTI) system, which, among other functions, combines e-mails and phone calls into one queue and prioritizes them in the order of urgency. It also provides Web-based help through live text messaging on Minnesota Life’s group life insurance enrollment and account management Web site, even going so far as to provide online customers with an image of the CSR they’re interacting with.  After giving its customer service representatives (CSRs) a few months to get accustomed to the new technology, Minnesota Life got them up to speed on the system’s features, which the company brought online in April. And according to Minnesota Life executives, the response thus far has been phenomenal.

"We started off by putting the system on one site and not advertising it, because we didn’t know what to expect," said Maria O’Phelan, second vice president of group customer service and technology at Minnesota Life. "But customers found it quickly, and on almost every online help session, they ended by typing comments to the effect of ‘This is a great feature.’ The other part of CTI that has been delighting our customers has been the integrated queueing. Previously, our standard was a 24-hour turnaround time on e-mails. Now that e-mails are queued in with phone calls, they’re being answered within minutes. Customers are astonished to get a response so quickly, because the industry standard is 24 to 48 hours."

Fittingly enough, the idea for implementing the CTI system came from Minnesota Life’s own customers. "We had some customers who were enrolling online with us, and they were getting somewhat frustrated when they had only one phone line," O’Phelan recalled. "They would have to log out, call our 800 number, and then log back in again to use our suggestion for what to do next. And so we asked ourselves, ‘What else could we do for customers in that situation?’"

Minnesota Life found the answer by researching how companies in other industries serviced customers in a similar situation. "We actually went exploring in the retail market, and we started experiencing for ourselves companies like Land’s End, who were using the online help feature. We asked ourselves, ‘What if we did that?’" O’Phelan said. "It was our primary driver: to allow our customers to contact us more easily when they’re in our Web site."

Once they decided to implement a CTI system, Minnesota Life chose Interactive Intelligence, Inc.—the same service provider used by Land’s End—as its technology partner. "Once we purchased the software, we looked at every feature it offered and thought about how we could use it to best improve our service," she said.

The CTI system has other noteworthy features as well. For example, when Minnesota Life’s call center receives a call, the system identifies the caller based on the 800 number they’re using and sends customized data on that customer to the CSR’s screen so they can immediately refer to the most up-to-date information on the caller’s policy—a feature known as "screen popping." This feature, as well as the online assistance, are the two newest additions to Minnesota Life’s CTI system.

But to make these features a reality, coordinating the efforts of various teams was absolutely critical, according to Diane Bartelt, call center supervisor for Minnesota Life. "When we first implemented CTI last fall, we had a team made up of members of our IS Web team and our telecom team, plus admin, which is my area," she said. "During the new phase, when we added screen popping and online assistance, I worked hand-in-hand with our telecom and Web teams to implement that change."

Also, the company’s skill-based routing of contacts ensures that the most qualified CSR handles each contact. "Each one of the media through which our customers communicate with us, such as e-mail queuing and online help, require their own skill set," Bartelt explained. "So all of our CSRs fall into one of three different skill groups: phone, writing, and online skills. I could have a dozen CSRs, and only five may be in the skill group that can provide online help and e-mail queuing to a customer. When they’re available, those CSRs will get an e-mail queue or an online queue first.

"Also, CTI has enhanced our ability to monitor phone calls," she continued. "We have a score sheet for each call, and we can score CSRs’ calls to help them improve their performance." She added that the Minnesota Life Web site includes a survey that customers are invited to complete so they can provide immediate feedback as to how helpful they think the site is.

Minnesota Life executives say the ultimate purpose of the CTI system’s full repertoire of features is to reduce the number of calls that are transferred to other parties or routed to a customer’s employer, thereby helping employers keep their human resources staffs leaner and more productive. In addition to receiving kudos from external customers, the CTI system has reportedly been warmly received by CSRs and other users within Minnesota Life.

"They like it," said Bartelt. "I think we did a good job on our change management, i.e., moving them from the old system to this one. And from the customer’s perspective, I think that today, people have come to expect that when you send an e-mail to someone, they’ll usually take a couple of days to respond, maybe one day if you’re lucky. When you can respond to their e-mail in a few minutes, they’re amazed by that. A lot of people have told us that our online assistance has been a great experience for them."

O’Phelan agreed: "I like that it’s actually showing our online customers a picture of who they’re talking to. We’re trying to keep the human touch in our technology. Internally, it’s allowed us to be very consistent with our answers to customers. It allows us to establish predetermined answers to frequently asked questions, and then drag-and-drop those answers into the e-mail. Our call center has responded to the fact that they’re able to provide better-than-expected service. That’s a very motivating thing to them."

But while the response time of Minnesota Life’s call center has been drastically reduced, O’Phelan said, the amount of time CSRs interact with customers has increased—a change that the company considers a non-issue. "We expected from the beginning that there would be more involvement on our end, but it’s resulting in better service," she said. "So the CTI system is more of a retention tool than a time-saving tool. But the level of excitement it’s creating in our sales presentations indicates that it will be a good sales tool for us as well." 

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