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Who We Support
This client is a regulatory organisation governed by the Department of Health, whose purpose is equally to protect public health as well as the reputation of the profession by assessing and managing nurse and midwife competency to practise. They are responsible for setting standards and ensuring compliance among nurses and midwives. Arema Connect was contracted in 2023 to provide telephone support to registrants, applicants, and the general public.
Requiring a Dedicated Telephone Support Solution
The client required a telephone support service to aid them in managing high call volumes associated with overseas and domestic registrations. These call volumes would be particularly high from October to February due to annual member renewals, new candidate registrations so students can go on placement, and 4th-year students moving from the candidate to the active register as qualified nurses. Not only were they facing high call volumes, but their queries often required specialised knowledge in order to provide proper support and limit the number of escalations to the client’s in-house team. The nature of the calls received under this contract varies, with queries regarding:
- Guidance on completing applications;
- Status updates on applications;
- Advice on any requested information, clarifications and documents that organisation may request;
- Troubleshooting for any payment issues or issues with the portal provided to registrant;
- General information queries, such as the procedure for issuing complaints, or information on relevant college courses;
- Overseas nurses looking to register with the organisation.
Each nurse looking to practice in Ireland is required to hold a pin issued to them by our client. As each year follows a similar trajectory for registrants and applicants, the main type of calls during a certain period of the year may be predicted. For instance, as students return to Third Level, the majority of calls are related to becoming a candidate. As students prepare to go on placement, they will apply to receive a Candidate Certification, which will become their pin upon completion of their education, thus allowing their history to be tracked.
Our team is also required to make outbound calls to nurses who fail to renew their membership and would like to be removed from the registry. To be removed from the registry, a letter must be sent out to the nurse’s address, so we coordinate these as well if someone’s address has been changed.
Tailoring Our Approach to Client’s Needs
Due to the sensitive and specialised nature of the services provided by the government body, we employ a dedicated team of customer support agents for this account. The number of agents differs by season, with 3 agents including the Team Leader during the quieter months (March to September), increasing to 5 agents during the busier months when members go through the renewal process (October to February). Our services are such that we are capable of providing a flexible and scalable solution to the organisation to monitor and manage the support needed during a given period. The Team Leader closely monitors call volumes to determine the number of agents required.
The majority of calls our team receives are from overseas nurses looking to register to practice in Ireland. These callers typically need more contact because of the additional steps they must take to register. These cases require a great deal of liaison between case officers and the nurses; we ease the strain on both parties by bringing these callers through the recognition and registration process. Once the process is completed and they have had their IDs and security checks done by case officers, they receive their PIN and are allowed to practice in the Republic of Ireland.
Developing the Knowledge Base of our Agents
Training for each agent takes place over 5 days. During this time all of the following is covered:
- All Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and theory;
- How to navigate the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system;
- Quality Assurance (QA) scorecards and the expectations around quality;
- Review call recordings of experienced agents;
- Call shadowing with other agents on the team;
Once new agents have completed the above, they will begin to take calls, and are monitored closely as all calls under the account are.
Our team uses Microsoft Dynamics to process and manage queries on behalf of the government body. This allows us to access information concerning registrant/applicant accounts as far back as 2021, including:
- Personal details (Name, address, email address, DOB etc.)
- Application details and status updates
- Any emails sent to/from the account holder's email address within the organisation
- Any notes left from the organisation regarding previous calls, emails, or updates.
This platform grants us the necessary access to check whether things seem correct, while final checks are conducted by case officers. Agents are trained as guides in the processes and to be sources of reassurance for those with queries. To do so we are additionally granted the following through Microsoft Dynamic 365:
- The ability to change email addresses and passwords
- The ability to add notes and log calls with information on calls between the agent and account holder
- View application status
- View documents that are connected to the account
- View registration status
This information allows our team to act as an extension of the client’s team, limiting the number of escalations to their in-house team for resolution.
All payments are made through their in-house portal, to which all nurses and applicants have access. If users run into any issues we have troubleshooting steps to run through with them over the phone. If issues with payments continue, we can escalate the issue to the client to investigate. The issue is noted in our dedicated query sheet, a document we have developed to track any escalations,which are sent off at the end of each day.
Reporting to the client
The Team Leader oversees all reporting on the account. The client is furnished with detailed reporting which includes:
- Daily activity reports (for the day previous) which include:some text
- Total inbound calls
- Total answered calls
- Average talk time
- Average speed of answer (wait time)
- Total unanswered calls
- Average wait time for unanswered calls
- Service Level Agreement %
- Total staff count
- Total agent hours
- Details of each call received (contact number, talk time, wait time, date and time)
- Daily end-of-day queries sent to each individual department:some text
- Name of agent who took the call
- Caller’s name
- Caller’s PIN number/Email address
- Callers query/issue
- Monthly Breakdown Report:some text
- Key performance indicators
- Monthly call volume statistics
- Quality
- Charts on specific call information such as call category, caller type, call drivers for Irish and overseas queries/applications, number of calls from each EU/Non-EU country
- List of all escalations raised.
- Commentary on most points within the report
Benefits of a tailored telephone support solution
If any issues/queries arise that need to be addressed with the client's organisation internally, we send an end-of-day report to each department with any new or ongoing queries. Anything that requires escalation is reported via email by the Team Leader to the Head of Registration who is our main point-of-contact in the organisation, as well as any department heads that the issue is related to.
Our detailed reporting gives the client a clearer idea of what is not being conveyed most effectively to applicants. Identifying these pressure points enables them to streamline any processes that are proving difficult or unclear for applicants and registrants. Our ability to identify these issues is evidenced when the call volumes pertaining to a certain issue decrease as a result of our escalation. An example of this occurred when our agents identified a specific form required from applicants that was difficult to obtain for nurses from a certain country. Upon identification of the issue, the Board met and was able to resolve the issue.
Additionally, because we are only contacted when concerns or queries arise for applicants or registrants, it is important that we provide reassurance and ensure that each step is completed correctly.
Our detailed reporting to the in-house team, as well as the specialised knowledge of our agents allow for Arema Connect to be seamlessly integrated with the government body’s team. With the support of our agents, the government body is able to address pressing issues in a timely manner without being burdened by high volumes of queries.
Easing the burden on the client’s in-house team
To date we have handled over 20,000 transactions on behalf of the government body.
For the outbound services we provide, this is primarily related to the failure to renew on the part of past registrants. If a registration is not renewed, that nurse is removed from the active register due to non-payment and cannot work (as a nurse) again unless they complete a restoration process. The final step of removing a nurse from the active register requires an official notice from Revenue to be delivered by post informing the nurse of this. Some nurses who may have moved abroad or left practice for other reasons did not keep up-to-date contact information on their registration accounts resulting in these letters being returned. We then make the outbound calls to the accounts affected with the aim of the nurse updating their details themselves or making contact with the organisation through writing to provide updated details so these letters could be delivered.
Our targeted Satisfaction Level Agreement (SLA) is 80% of calls answered under 20 seconds. Arema Connect currently averages an SLA of 99%, a testament to the quality and efficiency of our dedicated agents.
Conclusion
With Arema Connect’s telephone support services, the number of queries the client’s in-house team is responsible for is greatly reduced. Our in-depth training and dedicated agent model allowed us to seamlessly act as an extension of the government body’s team. This meant that their in-house team could focus their efforts toward the more complex queries.
