Healthcare Software Provider Deploys Q-assign to Replace an Outdated Case Assignment System

Amy Grenham · 06 July 2020 · 3 min read

This well-known software provider to the healthcare industry was growing rapidly and recognised that they needed to improve the customer service team’s manual assignment system in order to scale at the desired pace.

Assigning cases to specialist teams within the business, whilst at the same time maintaining customer-driven SLAs, was the key business challenge, and there were a number of pain points that needed to be addressed to achieve this.

The Challenges

1. Reliance on Manual Labour

The original structure of the business meant that their case distribution was reliant on two full-time agents that needed to manually assign cases using complex assignment rules to route SLA-bound Cases. This was an expensive and inefficient assignment system.

2. Case assignment process prone to errors

The manual process of looking at customer service agent availability across multiple systems was prone to error and led to regular re-assignments. This meant that when case volumes were high, assignments frequently went on hold,  and they were not able to meet the desired SLAs set out by the company and the customer. This ultimately led to an overall decrease in customer satisfaction ratings.

3. Inability to scale quickly

The company had the potential to scale quickly but their manual assignment system had limitations, which consequently held them back. The two agents were able to handle cases only up until a certain point, which meant that they couldn’t scale without hiring another full-time staff member.

Key Functional Requirements

To solve their key pain points, our team laid out key functional requirements that would build the foundations for a fully automated and easy-to-use system. These included: 

• Assignments to be based on the agent’s true availability. Rather than assuming that the agent was free to take on a new case, a solution was needed that took their scheduled breaks and workload into account.
• Ensuring cases from key accounts are assigned to the correct team and best available agent with the right skills to handle the assignment. 
• The ability to understand case weightings to optimize workload balancing. For example, the team needed a way to assign workloads based on the complexity, like a password request (simple) versus a security breach (complex) 
• Implementing a system that would automatically handle exceptions to the automation rules to avoid any unnecessary manual interventions.

The Solution: Q-assign

After taking the time to understand this business’s key challenges and requirements, it was clear that our intelligent lead and case assignment app, Q-assign, was the ideal solution. 

First and foremost, we programmed advanced availability options into their system, including individual agent business hours and scheduled breaks. This meant that cases were only assigned to a team member that was logged in and ready to take on a new assignment. It also took into account the complexity of the assignment to ensure that it was assigned to the right agent at the right time so that their SLAs could be met. 

Next, to make sure that exceptions to the regular automation rules were also taken into account, Ortoo applied a “catch-all” logic, configured to ensure no cases remain unassigned. This also allowed the team to create a standard automation rule from the exceptions, meaning that the “catch-all” logic became less needed over time. 

Finally, we configured intuitive attributes to maximize management flexibility to maintain key accounts and team structures. This meant that they didn’t need to rely on the IT team or a Salesforce admin to manage the system. Instead, they could easily add and manage attributes that they wanted themselves, such as location if they decided to implement a continuous remote working policy. 

Q-assign is a hugely powerful lead & case assignment app, 100% native to Salesforce, which is transforming the fortunes of high-volume Sales and Service teams all around the world. To explore how your assignment system might be improved or optimized, please contact us at ask@ortooapps.com.