One comment I have about this article is this quote from it:
"However, Mr. Hawkins acknowledged that during one week last month, callers seeking benefits for needy adults had to wait more than 20 minutes each to speak to an operator, with more than half hanging up.
He said that was unacceptable and that he has asked the Texas Access Alliance, the contractor, to give operators more training, create a cadre of highly trained operators who can handle complex cases and transfer to operator's computer screens more information from paperwork.
David McCurley of Accenture, who heads the alliance's operations, said the wait times and high "call abandonment rates" occurred because of an unexpected spike in calls. He said last week that wait times were back down to two minutes on average, with only 3 percent of callers hanging up."
Funny to me how everytime there is a story about wait times and hold times, and call abandonment- Accenture ALWAYS has an excuse. Always. It is ALWAYS because of a spike of calls, or overwhelming calls. Could it be- just maybe- that many of these calls are from those people who have called CONTINUOUSLY since January trying to get their benefits? Could it be-just maybe- that the system is overwhelmed with REPEAT callers who are bounced around and given NO information.
I've said it before- I don't care if Accenture has a 99%-100% 'call answer rate'. It does NOT MATTER how quick they answer if the clients are not given the information they need. Period. If Client A has to call TAA 30 times to get her case situated, then even if they answer Client A's call on Ring #1- it does NOT MATTER.
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3 comments:
AMEN!
The walls are tumbling down at HHSC State Office. Word is that FNS has denied retroactive funding for this call center fiasco to the tune of $24 million. Sorry state taxpayers but this ill-conceived experiment is on your dime! Did I miss the part about how this is supposed to be saving money? As we all know, it was never about saving money but about profiteering! A former HHSC employee
It's funny how HHSC says that the operators weren't trained well -- when HHSC did the training. It sounds like HHSC underestimated what exactly an operator needed to know to help customers.
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