It’s live! Access exclusive 2024 live chat benchmark data & see how well your team is performing.

Get the data
ASEBP logo

Industry
Health Insurance

Headquarters
Alberta, Canada

Solution
Comm100 Live Chat & Chatbot (On-premise)

Comm100 Customer
Since 2016

Download this story in PDF
Talk to Us

The Organization

ASEBP (Alberta School Employee Benefit Plan) provides sustainable, holistic health benefits and services for Alberta’s public education sector. Founded in 1968, ASEBP has since grown to hire around 170 employees with over 63,000 members plus their dependents.

The Numbers

    –  14 second wait time (down from 24 seconds)
    –  4.85/5 chatbot CSAT
    –  94% chatbot high confidence answers

The Challenge

ASEBP has two core customer support audiences – educational workers within their member base, and clients within their employer groups.

For many years, ASEBP relied heavily on phone support to assist their front-line staff, tasked with answering queries from these two audiences. While it had long been effective for them, ASEBP recognized that in today’s digital-first world, there were many opportunities for improvement with the system.

Firstly, with a phone system in place, members were frequently being placed on hold while staff tried to connect with other internal departments. As a result, time to resolution and wait times were high, creating a poor customer experience and using agent time inefficiently.

ASEBP also needed to streamline how agents found the information they needed to support their members. Many questions from members required staff to access detailed information which had to be found by manually searching through a vast spreadsheet. This was time-consuming, slow, and prone to error. By improving the access to and navigation of this information, ASEBP knew they could speed up support which would improve the members experience, while also giving staff more time to spend on other responsibilities.

On top of this, ASEBP needed to find a solution that was deployed on-premise to satisfy their security and compliance requirements.

Over the course of the last five decades, ASEBP has built a reputation for providing exceptional customer service. However, we knew that our reliance on the phone for internal communications was hindering that, as well as impacting the pride that our agents have in their job. As an organization that values innovation, we knew that there had to be a better way of providing customer support and enhance staff efficiency.

Katherine Gaetz, Manager, Member Experience

The Solution

ASEBP recognized that the real-time accessibility of live chat would make it the perfect tool to improve the efficiency and speed of their support, so they began searching for the software that would best fit their needs. Top of their requirements was software that could be deployed on-premise, which led them to Comm100. Comm100’s full platform, including live chat and chatbot, can be set up on-premise to allow for self-hosted deployment. 

It was also important for ASEBP to work with a company in a similar time zone so they could feel confident that they’d receive quick support when needed. Comm100 is based just one hour behind in Vancouver, Canada, so this was a perfect fit. Following helpful and fast responses to their questions by Comm100’s support team and impressed by their live chat’s tools and capabilities, ASEBP chose Comm100 Live Chat.

Comm100 Live Chat was initially set up in 2016 to answer questions from clients in their employer groups, typically regarding benefit eligibility and policy interpretation. This enables ASEBP to provide an on-demand experience for their clients, giving them real-time answers to questions that come up throughout the day.

Our clients have responded so well to Comm100 Live Chat – we've got an almost 5 out of 5 rating. It’s the perfect channel for them because they often have several questions a day, and so the accessibility of live chat means they can easily and quickly get the answer they need - and get on with their day.

Katherine Gaetz, Manager, Member Experience

Following the success of this roll-out, ASEBP launched Comm100 Live Chat for their internal staff too. This is set up across many departments to make sure that their front line staff have immediate access to the most appropriate agent, avoiding the inefficiency and frustration of multiple transfers that often plague phone support.

Looking for ways to continually improve their customer service operations, ASEBP became interested in Comm100’s AI Chatbot capabilities. In late 2020, they implemented their first Comm100 Chatbot as an internal agent-facing tool. Rather than forcing the agent to spend long amounts of time manually searching through a spreadsheet to find the answers to client questions, the agent can type the question into the chatbot interface hosted on an internal web page. Connected with their internal system, as well as the external Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) database, the chatbot automatically pulls the relevant information and provides it to the agent. The agent can then confidently and quickly pass this answer on to the client, improving the experience for both.

The Key Results

Comm100 Live Chat

Since implementing Comm100 Live Chat over five years ago, ASEBP has seen measurable improvements across their customer service operations for both end user and agent.

Firstly, ASEBP has sped up their support. Since moving their focus from phone to live chat, ASEBP has cut down wait time to only 14 seconds, down from 24 seconds. The industry average for teams of their size is 36 seconds. ASEBP’s members and clients now receive a fast and smooth experience, receiving quick responses and resolutions to their queries.

As well as improving efficiency, Comm100 Live Chat has also helped ASEBP to build and strengthen relationships with their members and clients. The nature of live chat enables personal and genuine conversations, which is key to ASEBP’s strategy and values. On top of this, every chat is stored within the Comm100 platform, so agents can look back at previous conversations, as well as visitor information, to provide personalized support.

Live chat has been incredibly beneficial to our whole team. It doesn’t just speed up support, but it also makes communication more accessible for our members and clients. This encourages more communication and gives us the opportunity to build relationships. The better customer service we can provide, the more confidence our members and clients will have in our staff and in our organization.

Katherine Gaetz, Manager, Member Experience

Comm100 AI Chatbot 

Following the success of Comm100 Live Chat, ASEBP launched their first chatbot as an internal agent-facing tool to improve efficiency even further. By functioning as a centralized and automated access point, the chatbot has shortened response and resolution time. As well as improving the overall customer experience, this also now allows agents to spend more time on difficult or important chats, as well as other daily responsibilities. This has resulted in an impressive CSAT score of 4.8 out of 5. 

Comm100 AI Chatbot has also lessened the chance of client and agent error. As both parties know that they can easily and quickly get the answer to their query – from the agent and the chatbot respectively – they are less likely to rely on their memory, guess the answer, and pass on wrong information to the members and clients respectively. The agents are also more confident in the accuracy of information, and this confidence is transferred to the client.

In 2021, 94% of the chatbot’s responses are classified as ‘High Confidence answers’ – the top bracket and indicating an extremely high level of accuracy. 

We have been so impressed with the positive impact that Comm100’s tools have had for our staff. Our staff love it – it's really easy to use and makes them feel so much more confident in their role, with far less chance of error. This then trickles down onto our members who receive quicker and more accurate support and trust in us - I’m not sure what we would do without it now!

Katherine Gaetz, Manager, Member Experience

Wrap-up

With fewer and fewer points of differentiation in the insurance industry, AESBP recognized that providing superior customer service is key. Investing in Comm100 Live Chat and AI Chatbot, AESBP is well positioned to continue delivering excellent customer satisfaction.

We are so pleased with our partnership with Comm100. We’ve been working with them for more than five years, and we really couldn’t be happier with both the support we’ve constantly received over the years, as well as the improvements it’s made to our customer service operations. We are always looking to expand our partnership with Comm100 to add more of their tools and features so we can keep improving our customer service alongside them.

Katherine Gaetz, Manager, Member Experience

Want to see how you can benefit from Comm100 Live Chat?

Take a Product Tour

More stories from our customers

Comm100 Customer Stories Phenomenex CT
Phenomenex
Manufacturing

Serving a global audience through phenomenal customer experiences

Comm100 Customer Stories - Fitbit
Fitbit
Health/Fitness Wearable Electronics

Fitbit generated $6M in pipeline with help from Comm100 Live Chat

Comm100 CustomerStories Stata CT
StataCorp
Technology

How live chat helped StataCorp have more personalized conversations