Nudge-tech case study: Centene (call centers)

Learn how Centene, a Fortune 100 health insurance company, eased its growing pains by delivering better outcomes from their employee training and change management efforts.

Growth is supposed to be a good thing, right?

Imagine the pressure of maintaining high quality training standards while your company scales from 13,000 to over 31,000 employees in just three years!

That’s what happened to Centene Corporation, a leading multi-line healthcare enterprise. Centene grew from $15.7 billion in 2014 to over $45 billion in 2017 while doubling its healthcare solutions membership to over 12 million beneficiaries. With the company’s expansion, its customer service and claims agent population also grew to manage separate health plans in 28 states and two international markets.

Status quo training tactics became inadequate as training needs of these customer-facing employees are complex, time-sensitive and different for every health plan. Centene had to find a new way to continuously train agents, without interrupting quality service delivery to its valuable members and providers. Classroom instruction, its Learning Management System, online reference systems and knowledge portals were insufficient on their own to keep pace with growth and with the ever-changing healthcare market.

Enter q.MINDshare

q.MINDshare is a form of nudge-tech that pushes targeted learning content directly to the customer service representative desktops (CSRs) at scheduled times of the week. Each learning delivery is bite-sized, allowing CSRs to easily consume the content at their workstation without impacting productive on-the-job time. Q‘s built-in assessment engine diagnoses each CSR’s learning gaps, then prescribes reinforcement and repetition to quickly close the gaps. Q‘s unique delivery system (via desktop alerts and scrolling banners) drives CSR engagement because it is above the noise of email and other cluttered channels. This makes important learning top-of-mind, leading to more predictable performance outcomes.

Q Use Case #1: Augmenting Instructor-Led Training (ILT) for New Hires

During training classes Q is used after each topic is introduced, allowing instructors to assess how well each CSR is absorbing the information. At the end of each week, agents complete a Q quiz that covers all the subjects taught during the week. While CSRs are not expected to memorize every detail, they must demonstrate an understanding of the material and how to find answers to member and provider questions.

“Because of Q’s reporting capability, instructors immediately see how each student is doing based on his or her performance completing the worksheets and assessments. Q measures learning gaps, so instructors know exactly what information needs further explanation. We onboard new hires much more quickly than we did before, which is especially important during high-growth periods.”
Denise Woods, Senior Business Process Analyst

Q Use Case #2: Reinforcement of Learning

Most learning departments struggle with what’s known as “The Forgetting Curve”. People quickly forget over 50 percent of what they learned in training without post-training support. Centene uses Q to reinforce what CSRs learned in the classroom in the form of tips, videos, quizzes and polls. Once or twice each week, CSRs receive a desktop alert that says, “You’ve been Q’d!” This notification cues the CSR that it is time to review bite-sized content. Q documents each CSRs completion and learning gaps, then adapts to schedule additional review, feedback and repetition until the CSR masters each concept.

Managers see how CSRs are performing on their Q’s, alerting them to coaching opportunities to ensure high quality, consistent customer service. Before Q, Centene trainers held learning reinforcement classes 30, 60 and 90 days after training. This required trainers to frequently travel between headquarters and the various service centers and it took CSRs away from their phones. Now, things are more efficient with curriculum designers creating Q content from existing training materials and delivering it directly to CSR desktops.

Q Use Case #3: Validating Understanding of Time-Sensitive Changes

Change is constant at Centene. CSRs need to understand when and how to apply important changes during customer interactions. “Q communicates policy and procedure changes to agents throughout the year, when formal, in-depth training is not warranted,” said Woods. “This allows agents to incorporate new information into their jobs without leaving their seats. CSRs take their Q between customer service calls. This keeps service levels high when changes are introduced without incurring the cost of backfill staffing.”

Q replaces Centene’s over-reliance on email for change management while providing real-time validation that CSRs understand the changes, then Q automatically reinforces it when CSRs don’t.

Q Use Case #4: HEDIS Compliance and Quality Improvement

HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) is the most widely used set of health care performance measures in the United States. Failing a HEDIS measure would potentially cost Centene millions of dollars. Centene’s Quality Improvement (QI) department adopted q.MINDshare to better train 200 geographically dispersed corporate and state health plan HEDIS coordinators. These coordinators extract data from member charts to ensure Centene health plans maintain National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) healthcare accreditation specific to HEDIS.

Director of Process Improvement, Suzanne Szepanski, realized there was room for improvement in how Centene extracted data for HEDIS hybrid measures. Seeing how effective Q worked for other departments and state healthcare plans, Szepanski incorporated it into the Quality Improvement (QI) department for HEDIS certification and learning reinforcement.

Prior to Q, Centene relied on email to notify coordinators of new training modules available in its Learning Management System. Then LMS reports only documented course completions without any additional analysis.

“We had no way of knowing who started training or if they were struggling with important concepts. With Q, we know where each person is in the training cycle and exactly what they don’t understand, giving us more control over the process and an opportunity to improve learning comprehension proactively.”
Suzanne Szepanski, Director of Process Improvement

Manage What You Measure

Q provides learning gap analysis by CSR, by role and by skill where such reporting was unavailable with their LMS. Q shows initial CSR learning retention and subsequent retention improvement. Woods adds, “Q lets us manage what we measure. This helps improve service delivery to members and that’s our bottom line. We want to make sure our members have the best information and the best customer service we can give them.”

The Bottom Line

• q.MINDshare fills critical gaps in traditional training models, establishing a weekly cadence of continuous improvement without pulling CSRs away from their workstations.
• Q replaces hope with real-time measurement so learning gaps can be addressed proactively.
• Q also provides individualized knowledge support at the CSR level, which is required to accelerate CSR confidence and, ultimately, a more consistent customer care experience.

The above capabilities are too resource-intensive using 20th century learning tactics, but Q delivers them with ease.

Centene demonstrates it is not only the leader in providing Better Health Outcomes at Lower Costs, it is also the leader in driving better training outcomes for its employees.

ABOUT CENTENE
Centene Corporation, a Fortune 100 company, is a diversified, multi-national healthcare enterprise that provides a portfolio of services to government sponsored and commercial healthcare programs, focusing on under-insured and uninsured individuals.

ABOUT COUNT5
count5 helps enterprises connect the dots between important training delivery and better business outcomes. Since 2006, count5 has partnered with Fortune 500 leaders like Centene, Verizon, American Express, Harland Clarke, Georgia Power & Coca Cola to improve their top and bottom lines. count5 combines its flagship microlearning and micro-assessment platform, q.MINDshare, with its proven E.S.P.™ methodology to help enterprises fill training delivery gaps in a systemic, measurable and scalable way to accelerate better outcomes for their critical programs.