Doculabs

Elsewhere I’ve written a lot on “selling” ECM to folks at the organization beyond records management and IT: how important it is, some of the toughest challenges it presents, and the business benefits to be gained by doing so. In this post, I want to look at this issue in relation to a core business process–customer service–to show how tightly coupled content management is with business operations…and ultimately with customer experience and the bottom line.

Here’s an example I ran across recently in the call center of a healthcare payer:

An insured received a letter from the payer that he didn’t understand. He poked around a bit on their web site and then on the internet generally to figure out what he needed to do. When that didn’t work, he contacted the call center.

When the call reached the CSR, the reason code the insured had typed in (“For questions about your benefits, press 4″) didn’t come through, so she had to spend the first few minutes of the call figuring out the reason for his call. Once she determined that he was confused about a Medicare benefits letter he had received, she began tracking the actual letter down in their claims system and then, when that failed, she looked for the letter template in one of their many CSR knowledge bases. Unable to find it, she put him on hold to reach out to her help desk.

After spending a few minutes to get up to speed on the call, the help desk expert directs the CSR to a few other locations for the letter and eventually finds a template close to what the insured said they received. They discuss the letter and its implications for the insured’s coverage, and the CSR drops off with the help desk to return to the call.

Once back on the call, she explains the letter to the insured: “This was just a letter informing you that we will remain your primary carrier–no need to worry that you’ll be switched to Medicare or anything like that.” Relieved, he thanks her and hangs up the phone. Problem solved…after 15 minutes spent by tier one and tier two resources to solve a non-issue: the confusion was caused by the poorly written letter the payer sent out.

It’s obvious that this was a less-than-ideal call resolution, but it’s one that happens routinely, day in and day out, hundreds of times a day at the average healthcare payer. And every time it happens, the payer loses money: administrative costs go up, customer satisfaction goes down, and compliance risk increases.

The good news for folks looking to “sell” ECM at an organization is that ECM capabilities intersect this scenario from beginning to end:

• Confusing letter – customer communication management (CCM)
• Web site user experience - web content management (WCM)
• Missing actual letter - image management, enterprise search
• Missing template - document management, enterprise search
• Context/implications of letter - knowledge management

The goal of the ECM team is to forget about these capabilities, however, and focus on the changes to the business process they can drive: How would this call have gone differently if the insured had received a clearer letter? Or if they could have found an answer to their question on the payer’s web site before calling? Or if the rep could have found the letter without putting them on hold? Or if she could have found a job aid that provided the explanation currently found only in the help desk expert’s head?

Answering these questions will allow you to show the direct benefits ECM capabilities could have on a core business process. And if the organization measures the current performance of that process, you can bet you’ll be able to find metrics directly affected by how the process is executed before and after the application of improved ECM–precisely the business value you need to find in order to “sell” ECM to the organization.

I’d love to hear from folks about other kinds of specific business value they’ve seen ECM create…or fail to create. No doubt there are lots of great stories out there the community would find helpful.