Ms. Juanell Hefner
Sr. VP of Customer & Technology
Services
Health Net, Inc.
21650 Oxnard Street
Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Dear Ms. Hefner,
Yesterday I had the misfortune to call
your contact center because I received an email indicating that your accounting department seems to have misplaced
the payment made through my Health Net web portal for my April premium. The entire
experience was a classic example of poor customer processes and poor service on
any number of levels. Having been
director of customer support for a large, popular software offering, I am well
aware of the challenges of providing phone support. I am also well aware of how
policies, processes and people can either support or undermine your
relationship with your customers, and yours are frankly awful. Specifically:
·
I was on hold for
over 90 minutes. I head the same segment of a Mozart piano concerto several
dozen times, interrupted at frequent intervals by a recording that assured me
that “We know your time is valuable...” and “…we will be with you shortly.”
o
Even before I
retired in 2009, IVR technology had wide-spread, affordable capabilities of
informing customers how long the wait time is…to within a couple of minutes.
Implementing this feature would have allowed me to make a sane choice to call
back at another time.
o
I don’t know what
your operational definition of “shortly” is, but 90 minutes is completely
outside mine. And if you really think my time is valuable, may I please bill Health
Net at my current hourly consulting rate
for my hold time?
o
Unless April 11
is your peak day of the year and you are purposely understaffing to a specific volume peak, you really need to
examine the system you are using to align staffing with arrival patterns. A 90
minute hold time in the middle of a normal month would have had my Sr.
Operations Manager’s job on the line.
·
When I finally
reached an agent…
o
First she did not
apologize for the wait, although it was one of the first things I mentioned to
her, and continued to mention throughout our conversation hoping for an
acknowledgement and an apology. That’s basic customer service and it’s taught in
agent training …or not (obviously).
o
Next I explained
my issue and she tried to tell me that the fault was with my bank for failure
to forward the payment I made through my bank’s website, and it would likely
just take more time. I explained to her
a second time that I did not make the payment through the bank’s website but
through Health Net’s, and frankly 10 business days should be more than adequate
time to post a payment made with either method. She questioned my payment
method yet again, at which point I logged into my bank account and read her the
line showing an electronic funds transfer to Health Net on March 26, and into my
Health Net account and read her the screen saying that I had made a payment on
March 25. She asked me for a
confirmation number. But guess what? The
Health Net screen had no confirmation number on it, and no ability to link to
any more detail. These days every
two-bit web interface I purchase from can provide a confirmation number and
self-service tracking. As a technology executive you should be ashamed of a
system so inadequate that customer activity disappears into the ether. You
could save yourself a bunch of inbound phone volume by adding that feature.
o
When the agent finally understood the issue, her
solution was to send an e-mail to “accounting” asking them to research the
problem. She informed me that if they
could not find out what happened to my payment they would contact me, otherwise
they would just reply to her letting her know that the issue was resolved. I
requested that she then contact me either via phone or email to let me know
that the issue had been resolved. She
told me she was unable to do either of those things, and recommended that I…wait
for it…call back next week to find out whether you had found my payment. Really?
Empower your agents to do so little that their only option is to suggest
that I contribute to your inbound call volume issues? C’mon….
·
And then, of
course there is the basic underlying issue – that your accounting system
interface with your customer portal system is so crappity-dappity that you can
lose an electronic funds transfer that was initiated through your own system.
What’s up with that, anyway?
I purchased my insurance through the ACA
website, and your offering, although it was obviously good enough to be my choice
at the time, is now surfacing some basic flaws. I would be most interested to
hear whether or not your organization cares enough about customers to keep them
once you get them, as unless this experience is a total aberration I’ll be
shopping for an alternative next year when open enrollment comes around.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Bader
