The dread is familiar: You have a question or a problem, and you need to call a service center to get the matter cleared up. Will the issue be fixed quickly? Or will the call be transferred from one person to the next—to the next—to the next?

As the second open enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act approached, Kaiser Permanente’s Customer & Member Services team knew that it didn’t want the thousands of new members joining KP to have that sort of frustrating experience. Just the year before, C&MS’ Member Service Contact Centers (MSCC) had been swamped by three times as many calls as expected. That had led to many handoffs to Membership Administration, which works with the MSCC customer service representatives to get questions answered.

因此，第一支“超级单位团队”在2014年9月开始行动。它的使命是:克服漫长的等待时间，更好地应对开放登记带来的预期电话激增。

它的“超级”之处在于它超越了地点和时区，将来自全国各地的代表聚集在一个团队中——从科罗拉多州丹佛的mscc;富尔顿,马里兰州;以及加利福尼亚的科罗娜，以及丹佛和圣地亚哥的会员管理中心。在过去，某一中心的单个UBT可能会发展出良好的做法，但这在很大程度上取决于其他中心是否会学习并效仿。但在2015年开放注册准备计划的伞下，29个一线和管理者在地区和国家领导人的支持下，采取了一种新的方法来测试计划和传播最佳实践。

Unifying approach

The combined team helps everyone operate as one team instead of separate entities, says Deashimikia Williams, a customer service representative at MSCC-Fulton and an OPEIU Local 2 member.

The collaborative effort was important because members don’t distinguish between different centers or different divisions. “They see us as One KP,” says Marie Monrad, vice president of strategy and operations for the Office of Labor Management Partnership, “and with this, we are doing performance improvement as One KP.”

到目前为止，超级UBT最大的成功被称为“一了百了”——这意味着会员的问题由拿起电话的代表解决。例如，以前，一个会员要求停止在线支付，可能需要打六个电话。But with the introduction of the one and done process, the MSCCs were able to reduce the number of handoffs by 60 percent from January 2014 to January 2015.

The secret to success was looking to the customer service representatives for answers, says Jerry Coy, senior vice president of Customer & Member Services. “We asked the people who actually take the calls, ‘What questions are members asking?’ and ‘What would make your job easier?’” he says. “We are the front door to KP. We welcome the members and want them to be a member for life.”

“All of this work is in line with the Labor Management Partnership’s commitment to grow and maintain membership for KP,” notes Janelle Williams, consultant specialist for frontline engagement and growth.

Answering calls from all over

The call centers that participate in the Super UBT answer the majority of KP member calls from the entire organization, fielding questions on a range of topics from billing to details of the health plan to helping members who haven’t received their membership cards.

Super UBT members received additional education and created a rapid resolution team within Membership Administration. While the representative stays on the phone with the member, he or she can consult with specialists via Lotus Notes SameTime chats or by opening another line. From mid-January through early March, the MSCCS handled nearly 5,400 calls—and more than 5,000 of them were successful rapid resolution calls, with the members helped in a single interaction. In addition, through staffing changes, operational improvements, and the implementation of the rapid resolution team, Membership Administration has reduced mean processing time for member issues from 26 days in January 2014 to three days in January 2015.

While Kaiser Permanente members benefit from the work, the frontline staff members benefit, too.

“我们对不同地区的变化有了更好的了解，”富尔顿UBT工党联合领导人德阿希米基亚·威廉姆斯(Deashimikia Williams)说。“在超级UBT之前，很难让每个人都参与进来。投身于这项工作激励着我们。”

LaDondra Hancock, senior account administration representative for Membership Administration in San Diego, also says the initiatives started by the Super UBT have improved the way she and her teammates work. “It has lessened the calls we get in from the different Member Services Contact Centers,” says Hancock, who serves as her local team’s labor co-lead and is a member of OPEIU Local 30.

Model practices

这种集体努力的成功为其他团队和部门提供了一个模型，它们希望分享和传播最佳实践，并强调了接触其他做相同或类似工作的团队的重要性。

“Not only is this work of the Super UBT critically important for improving the member experience,” Monrad says, “but it also shows that it is critically important to test, model and explore new ways to bring improvement through our partnership that cuts across not only multiple regions, but multiple unions and multiple functions.”