Delivering exceptional service is crucial for any public sector institution. Many companies in the public sector are responsible for supporting vulnerable people, communities, and citizens looking for support in maintaining a high quality of life.
To ensure the ongoing trust of their users and support the community’s growth in general, public sector organisations must remain on the cutting edge of the CX environment. Accessing scalable, agile, and transformative tools could be the difference between success and failure for any group.
When faced with a new demand to ensure support staff could continue to guide ageing adults, individuals with disabilities and those with chronic ailments, Public Partnerships (PPL) decided it was time to work with CX innovators, Five9.
Here’s what happened when Five9 and PPL joined forces.
Creating a Flexible, Forward-Thinking CX Solution
PPL (Public Partnerships Limited) supports individuals throughout the US with disabilities and chronic illnesses and ageing adults eligible for public Medicaid support. The public sector group allows users to remain independent and live within their own homes while giving them the freedom to self-direct their long-term care.
For many citizens, the service offered by PPL allows for an appealing alternative to being admitted into restrictive long-term care homes and agencies. PPL also helps healthcare organizations facing rising costs, growing populations, and administrative inefficiencies in serving more Medicaid eligible residents requiring long-term support.
As the world evolves and the way we communicate changes, PPL found its existing on-premises solution for communications and customer care growing increasingly less suitable. Increases in call volume made it difficult to stay on top of CX with the legacy service. The group needed to find a solution capable of quickly adapting to rapid growth.
While agents were doing their best to offer support to customers across various channels, disparate systems made it hard to transform at speed. The company decided it was time to implement a single, unified system capable of improving productivity and delivering greater visibility at the same time. With the previous on-premises system, Public Partnerships encountered significant challenges with data visibility. A new solution is needed to solve this problem.
According to the Director of the Customer Service Workforce for Public Partnerships, Shane Moodyman, the company wanted a new contact center capable of evolving with the business and unifying systems as new needs arose. They needed a contact center equipped to scale without compromising the integrity of the group’s existing customer service policies.
Accessing the Five9 Intelligent Cloud
As a provider of innovative cloud-first solutions for customer experience and support, Five9 was perfectly equipped to support PPL. The team chose the Five9 Intelligent contact centre in the cloud as it’s an all-in-one solution for evolving business operations. The solution’s flexibility and scalability helped the company scale to support a customer base that has scaled more than 200% in the last 10 years.
At the same time, the cloud environment means Public Partnerships can work seamlessly with over 160,000 providers distributed across 23 states while meeting service level agreements. According to Moodyman, the previous on-premises contact center solution didn’t offer the visibility or simplicity required to integrate with other systems. Now, with Five9, there’s an excellent level of reporting for call volumes in real-time. This scalability also comes with integration capabilities, allowing for connections with important tools like Dynamics 365.
The PPL team can pull information about customers from other ecosystems into the Five9 environment without jumping between apps. According to the Public Partnerships leaders, post-call surveys indicate a significant increase in customer satisfaction, as the team has been able to answer calls quicker, decreasing speed to answer times.
Five9 has allowed PPL to exceed previous measurements for customer satisfaction, as the Five9 solution has enabled the team to understand customer service goals better.
According to Moodyman, a scalable contact centre offered by Five9 transformed the company’s ability to increase customer satisfaction. Public partnerships have also benefited from working closely with Five9’s technical account manager, who helped build the IVR, run reports, answer questions, and assist with other projects.
According to PPL, the TAM has been like an “extension” of their internal team, helping to ensure the transition goes smoothly.
Navigating Unpredictable Circumstances
When COVID-19 forced Public Partnerships to transition its contact centers into a remote working model, the Five9 cloud technology meant the company was already equipped to handle the remote landscape. Public Partnerships integrated with Verint within the Five9 contact centre, allowing the group access to unique tools for reporting.
PPL used the integration to turn data into practical forecasts and reports, capable of empowering supervisors with actionable insights. Supervisors at Public Partnerships were also able to leverage these reports to guide agent performance and deliver better decision-making, resulting in a smoother process for communication.
Integrating Verint WFM into the Five9 contact centre has delivered fantastic results for Public Partnerships, according to Moodyman. The team has enhanced staff decisions, increased efficiency, and ensured better agent productivity, delivering a great customer experience every step of the way.
Before the pandemic, the team had contact centres within Washington and Phoenix. The agents at these locations successfully transitioned to working remotely while maintaining strong customer support and service. The organisation has been thrilled with the success of having agents working from home to the point where it has begun to abandon its leases on physical offices.
Looking Ahead to the Future
According to the team, an effective remote contact centre means the leadership is no longer limited by where they can pull talent, enabling Public Partnerships to hire from anywhere to empower agent successes and continue exceeding customer expectations.
Looking ahead, Public Partnerships hopes to use its new ecosystem to offer more choice to customers through the expansion of customer profiles and increased services through a multitude of digital channels. The partnership the team already has with Five9 has been exceptional so far. From technical account managers to the support staff and customer success management, Five9 has delivered a phenomenal level of service to PPL.
