Medical aid administrator Newmed`s expansion from being a solely Cape-based company to having a regional presence in Johannesburg necessitated that a stable, reliable contact zone be installed in a very short time.
Newmed, previously called Bankmed Admin Division and now a member of the Metropolitan Health Group, is a medical aid administrator for key blue chip clients such as Wooltru, Rembrandt and southern Africa`s large banks.
Ronell Boshoff from Newmed says the company set itself a target of two months to install its IT systems, train staff and implement a contact zone to service the Johannesburg branch.
Atio has had a long-standing relationship with Newmed in Cape Town so the technology company was an obvious choice for the Gauteng project. With only a month to achieve a facility which had to service an extra 100 000 members, the Atio team had to ensure a reliable all-media routing solution.
The infrastructure that Atio assisted in implementing consisted of a Siemens Hicom 300E with TCP/IP interface and LRS Interaction Manager software on Windows NT. Atio acted as prime contractor and was responsible for co-ordinating the computer telephony integration in addition to ensuring delivery by other suppliers.
"With a national member base of over 400 000 families, we rely heavily on the innovative and bespoke qualities of Atio`s team and its products," she continues. "Our decision to use Atio was vindicated on the first day the system went live, as we took more than 5 000 calls that day and the system remained up and stable."
"Our interactive website (www.newmed.co.za) has received international recognition so we place much emphasis on remaining the industry benchmark for seamless electronic service to our clients. As part of this, our partnership with Atio is an important factor to ensure the use of our integrated workflow in attaining CRM spin-offs in our contact zone," Boshoff says.
According to Henk Tredoux, Atio regional managing director (Cape Town), over the last year, the Newmed-Atio partnership has seen the launch of an electronic confirmation service for medical professionals via IVR, as well as a successful self-direct facility for its medical aid clients.
"The automation of member-tailored SMS services and web-initiated callbacks will form the next phase of the project and the technology that we implemented will ensure rapid expansion with maximum uptime as well as easy integration into Newmed`s existing systems," Tredoux adds.
"Our goal is to channel low-content calls away from the traditional contact zone to various self-direct facilities," Newmed`s Boshoff continues. "In line with this approach to handling only quality calls, we have spearheaded the tendency towards multi-skilled call centre agents, thus eliminating the need for a back office. This is a powerful motivator for ensuring that only complex enquiries should be addressed by our call centre agents."
Future enhancements to the system in Johannesburg will include services such as fax/e-mail and callback capabilities, which are planned for later this year. Further down the line, Newmed will look at creating a Virtual Country-Wide Call Centre with multiple sites, as well as video phone capabilities.
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