Correctly running a call center is not quite as easy as some may believe. On the one hand, you want to employ agents who can think for themselves and deal with problems as they arise. At the same time, the proper call center script can help your service facility run as efficiently as possible, allowing agents to utilize call center software for quickly and easily directing customers to the proper source, addressing issues as quickly as possible.
In the case of one Affordable Care Act call center, however, the wrong script led to quite the mess when callers were told that they needed to reset their password on Healcare.gov, which was not the case, according to officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“A wrong script was provided to call center representatives,” one HHS official said. “It’s been corrected. The wrong script was read for only a short time – just this morning.”
Since launching on October 1, the federal site for the Affordable Care Act has had a number of technical glitches. Federal officials blamed the first day problem on higher-than-expected traffic. On that first day, 4.7 million people visited Healthcare.gov and 133,000 contacted the cell center at 1-800-318-2596.
Know What You’re Getting Yourself Into
Call center managers can learn a thing or no from this Healthcare.gov issue. The first lesson would be that while getting an account from the federal government is a great opportunity, the expectations will be quite high. It’s important to make sure that your call center software is up to whatever challenges may come up.
The lesson to be learned from this script mishap is that you never know what small problem can become a huge news story. Every call center manager should act as though a problem at their call center could become national news. By taking the extra steps to ensure that things run smoothly, you’ll be less likely to end up with such problems at all (hopefully).
