20 Innovative Lessons from Simplyhealth’s Contact Centre

Our Editor, Megan Jones, recently visited healthcare company Simplyhealth in Andover (Hampshire, UK) to hear how Director of Customer Service, Dan Eddie, and his team have successfully scaled up their contact centre operation to support their growing base of over 2.5 million customers. All whilst leaning into the latest AI capabilities and maintaining a happy and engaged workforce.

Lessons From Simplyhealth

Here are just some of the top lessons we learnt from Simplyhealth on how to engage your workforce and scale your contact centre operations.

1. Display Work Anniversaries – Not Just Birthdays

Don’t just display your team’s birthdays on your walls. Celebrate their work anniversaries and tenure too!

This is a great way to consistently recognize everyone month by month and make sure no one gets missed. It also helps team leaders and managers to keep track of any big milestones coming up – such as 10-year anniversaries.

2. Try Voice Assistants to Help Manage High Call Volumes

The Simplyhealth team have successfully deployed voice assistants in their contact centre, which now resolve approximately 30% of their total call volumes without human intervention.

As Amy Elliott, Salesforce & Digital Service Manager, explains, “We’re now using intent-led digital assistants, complete with a voice actor – not a generated voice.

We currently have three voice assistants in place speaking directly to customers – all trained on a specific set of FAQs to handle and resolve different types of queries.

Deploying this technology has been one of the most transformative things we’ve ever done – particularly as we initially rolled it out in a part of the business that experienced the highest volume of calls.”

3. …But Keep It as Human as Possible

Based on PolyAI’s recommendation, Simplyhealth made the decision not to immediately announce to customers that they are talking to a voice assistant as this can reduce the likelihood of positive engagement. Therefore, as soon as a customer gets through to a voice assistant, it just welcomes them with a friendly “how can I help you?”

Steps have also been taken to make the call feel as human-like as possible, such as signing off with “Thanks and enjoy the rest of your day” and added typing noises being heard in the background. However, if customers do ask “Are you a human?” it does give an honest response.

The only exception to this is for vulnerable customers, as Dan Eddie, Director of Customer Service, adds, “It’s about knowing who your customers are! We have an integration between our voice assistants and our CRM system, so we can flag customers who are vulnerable and direct them straight through to an expert human.”

4. Celebrate Significant Company Milestones With a New Mural on the Wall

Celebrate key milestones with new murals on the contact centre floor. For example, Simplyhealth had a mural painted to recognize 150 years in business – as a colourful reminder of the company’s success so far.

“We’re very proud to say that Simplyhealth started in 1872 and has been serving customers for over 150 years – funding access to healthcare services. This has never been more important, particularly with the long waiting lists for treatment now being experienced across the NHS, resulting in many people leaning into a mix of public and private services to get access to the healthcare they need.” – Marc Singh-Jones, Head of Commercial Products & Partnerships

5. Give Your Coaches Access to the Schedules in Your WFM System, So They Can Self-Select the Best Times to Take People Off the Phones

Reduce silos and nurture positive relationships across the contact centre by giving coaches visibility of the schedules in your WFM, so they can self-select the best times to take people off the phones – with minimal impact on service levels.

As Marie-Clare Longmuir, Performance Readiness Coach, says, “It’s great to have access to Calabrio to explore the best possible times for coaching sessions. This ensures we can book valuable time with agents while minimizing disruption to customer interactions”.

This approach has helped support longer-term positive working relationships too, as Rhian Smith, Resource Business Partner, adds, “We don’t experience that negativity towards resource planning any more. We meet in the middle – with operations, resource planning and coaching working together.”

6. Focus More Attention on WHY Calls Are Coming in (Instead of Always Looking at HOW Individuals Are Handling Them)

By shifting from traditional QA to conversational analytics, the Simplyhealth team have spent more time looking at broader trends – instead of focusing all their energy on individual performance.

This has allowed them to work more efficiently and drive significant improvements, not only by addressing broader performance issues (instead of one-offs) but also using this insight to spot opportunities to improve the customer journey and stop calls coming into the contact centre in the first place.

As a result of this the team has delivered a reduction of over 100k contacts when comparing 2023 contacts against 2024.

If you are looking for advice on improving your customer journey maps, read our article: How to Improve Your Customer Journey Mapping

7. Sit Side-by-Side With Agents to See How Training Has Landed

Training should never be a one and done exercise, as Alice Owen, Sales & Retention Process Trainer, explains, “It’s not just about the training sessions themselves, it’s about following up and making sure people are as happy and confident as they can be when the initial training is over, so get out there and sit with people side by side as much as possible.”

Not only this but run feedback surveys to see what could have been done better. It’s about continuous improvement – not surveys for survey’s sake.

8. Use “Speed to Happiness” to Track the Success of Your Change Management Initiatives

This approach helps you to benchmark and quantify the success of any changes, so you can learn and improve for next time.

9. Set Up a “Feel-Good Friday” Teams Channel

To help end each week on a high, Simplyhealth have set up a “Feel Good Friday” Teams channel – as a platform for colleagues to share success and recognize the highlights of the week.

Not only does this boost morale, but it allows for some internal PR too, by sharing these positive updates across the wider organization.

10. Nurture a Culture of Psychological Safety to Get the Best Out of Your Teams

The leadership team at Simplyhealth also focus on nurturing a workspace of psychological safety, where agents feel safe to express their thoughts, take risks, and make mistakes without fear of humiliation.

As Marie-Clare continues, “Psychological safety is also a key element of great coaching. It allows individuals to explore their professional development and to voice concerns. Coaching sessions contribute to this by providing communication and goal strategies that help individuals share their ideas effectively, ensuring they feel listened to and respected”.

11. Turn the Phones Off for a Full Department Get Together

Be brave! Sometimes you have to close the phone lines (even if just for an hour) and bring everyone together for maximum impact – making sure everyone is hearing the same message at the same time. For end-of-year celebrations, for example.

Support from voice assistants can help take some of the pressure off too, as Paul Cuglietta, Head of Contact, Claims & Operations, adds, “We’re able to turn off the phone lines with more confidence now when required, due to the support we have in place with our voice assistants. So when we need to engage with our teams, we are reassured that our customers will be signposted to the right place and able to self-serve.”

12. Use Chat {Einstein} GPT to Speed Up Email Response Times

Using Einstein GPT to support agents in writing emails has led to massive time savings, as Amy Elliott, Salesforce & Digital Service Manager, explains:

Quite simply, this consumption of AI has helped the Simplyhealth team move faster and achieve more with less, as Dan Eddie adds:

“Our productivity has improved massively {it’s doubled} since using AI to help and enable our expert team members.

Not only this, but our customers are telling us we’re doing a great job. Our Trustpilot scores have gone up from an average of 4.2 to 4.5 and our CSAT currently sits at 86%.”

13. Put Dedicated ‘Digital Readiness Leads’ in Place to Better Support Change Management

To better support change management, Simplyhealth created a ‘Digital Readiness’ function. These roles are there to focus on everything from the training and communications needed, as well as assessing how and where additional support is required when key changes happen across the contact centre – particularly around AI.

As Gina Pennick, Digital Readiness Lead, explains, “While some people find change exciting, others find it a bit daunting and can put up some resistance. That’s why my role is all about thinking ahead about what our agents need and when, as well as helping managers to better support their teams.”

It’s had a big impact on the contact centre, as Dan Eddie adds, “Putting these dedicated roles in place was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.”

Managing change in the contact centre can be tricky. For expert advice on this, read our article: 20 Tips for Managing Change in the Contact Centre

14. Gift Agents the Games Machines Taken to Conferences and Events

Don’t let games machines and gimmicks from conferences and events go to waste.

Instead, when the sales team are finished with them, bring them back to the contact centre for agents to enjoy in the breakout room.

15. Complete a Skill/Will Assessment to See How Change Is Going to Impact Individuals

A good way to make sure agents move with the times is to conduct a skill/will assessment across all employees. This comes down to assessing will (“I don’t want to work in a digital environment”) and skill (“What skills do I need to be part of the change?”).

It’s about checking in and having honest conversations on an annual or bi-annual basis, as Gina Pennick explains, “When looking at a skill/will matrix, it’s about offering people different support based on what they need. It’s about resource management too and being able to move people around to help support their career aspirations.”

It’s also about identifying those who may not be a good fit for the contact centre moving forward, as Paul Cuglietta, Head of Contact, Claims & Operations, adds, “We have a clear purpose and vision that we are focused on achieving.

This does mean that the way we operate and evolve may not be to everyone’s liking, such as working in a variety of channels as opposed to purely back-office administration.

If our future ambitions aren’t aligned to someone’s personal aspirations, we will support them as much as we can in pursuing opportunities elsewhere.”

For tips and advice on how to conduct a skills audit and put together a coaching plan, read our article: How to Conduct a Skills Audit and Coaching Plan

16. Have Fun Introducing Your Voice Assistant Actors to Your Agents as Their “Newest Team Member”

If you are deploying voice assistants in your contact centre, why not take a creative approach to introducing the new assistant to your frontline agents?

At Simplyhealth, they asked the voice actor to record a message for the team that said “Hi, I’m Tom! Really looking forward to joining the team!” to set the scene for a positive collaboration.

17. Name Your Meeting Rooms After Your Company Values

A great way to reinforce your company values is to name your meeting rooms after each value.

You could also add fun signposts to your contact centre floor to direct people to meeting rooms, which is both a useful and bright addition.

18. Multiskill Your Agents to Stop Customers From Being Passed Around

To help scale up their operation and better handle periods of peak demand, Simplyhealth have multiskilled their agents across their various channels and processes – with great results, as Sadie Wallis, Service Centre Manager, says, “The feedback from our agents has been good. They like that they can resolve any queries completely by themselves.”

As Lara Towerton, Customer Advisor, reiterates, “I like the variety and that I no longer have to pass over a complaint to the complaints team or a claim to the claims team. I can resolve everything myself.” It’s better for the customers too, as Norma McKenzie, Customer Advisor, adds, “It reassures customers you are taking care of them.”

If you are not sure if multiskilled agents are right for your contact centre, read our article: Multi-Skilling Agents – Is It Really Best?

19. …And Don’t Forget to Increase Your Agents’ Salaries as They Upskill

With AI handling the simpler queries and frontline teams levelling up their skill set to handle more variety and complexity, Simplyhealth have made sure to properly remunerate agents for their work, as Dan Eddie explains:

20. Set Up an Internal AI Forum to Manage AI in a Customer-Centric and Responsible Manner

Above all, it’s critical to deploy AI in an ethical way, so Simplyhealth have set up their own internal AI Forum to manage this.

Co-chaired by the Customer Services Director and Chief Technology Officer, their AI Forum meets monthly – bringing Heads of Department, Data Protection Leads and more together to make sure all use of AI is rolled out in both a responsible, ethical, and customer-centric way.

How to Do More With Less

During the visit we also interviewed Dan Eddie for advice on how contact centres can do more with less:

For more best practices and other fun tips from other contact centres that we have visited, read our articles:

• Behind the Scenes at Ocado – 21 Simply Soup-erb Ideas
• 15 Ideas You Can Use From Bupa’s Contact Centre
• Take Your Employee Experience to the Next Level – Lessons From Leeds Building Society
• 15 Ideas We Picked Up at WeAnswer’s Contact Centre

Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Xander Freeman