How to move account managers from reactive to proactive: service request tracking for benefits agencies.

Why do the same service requests keep coming in?

The same service requests keep coming in because clients ask when they need something, not when you told them about it. ID cards are, by a country mile, the number one thing account managers get emailed about. That holds even when employees got instructions for finding the digital copy, and a heads up on when hard copies are coming through snail mail, in plenty of time.

Then there’s the crossfire. In a self funded plan, if the TPA isn’t on the ball with reimbursement, clients start getting balance bills or notices that a service wasn’t paid. You had nothing to do with it, nobody from the TPA is calling you back, and your inbox is where the complaints land.

What do most agencies try first?

Most agencies handle service requests out of a shared inbox, with each account manager answering whatever lands on them. Account managers are a well oiled machine when they’re being proactive. Most of the day is reactive, and a shared inbox keeps it that way.

Some agencies add a ticketing tool. That tracks the requests, but the account manager still writes the same ID card answer over and over.

Wanna fix it?

Repeat service requests get fixed with inbox triage that sorts incoming email by topic, a template for each of the top five topics, a tracker for anything waiting on a third party, and an account manager who approves every reply.

1. Find your top five. Pull a few months of account manager email and count the topics. ID cards will be one of them.
2. Write one template for each. Where to get the digital card, when the hard copy ships, who to call if it’s wrong. Same for the other four.
3. Sort both sides of the house. The front of the house (sales) and the back of the house (service) each get their own triage, so a prospect’s question doesn’t sit behind a claims complaint.
4. Draft, then approve. The system matches each email to a template and drafts the reply. The account manager approves it, edits it, or writes their own. My CRM already works this way for my own email: drafts land in a queue, and nothing sends until I approve it.
5. Track what’s waiting on someone else. A TPA reimbursement or a carrier fix gets a status and a date to check back, so the client hears from you before they email again.

What would it look like once it’s running?

Once it’s running, an ID card email arrives with a drafted answer attached and takes one click to send. The requests that need a person, like the TPA crossfire, sit on a short list with a status and a date. The time that used to go to the top five goes to calling clients to see if they need help.

Since I haven’t built it for a client, I can’t tell you how many hours it frees up. I’d count from day one: requests by topic, time to reply, and how many needed a person.

Can you do this yourself?

Yes. Start with the count: one week of email, tallied by topic. Then write the five templates and save them where everyone can paste them. Most email programs let you save reply templates.

It stops working when finding the right template takes longer than writing the reply, or when requests waiting on a TPA get lost in a thread. A few requests a day, use templates. A steady stream across a book of groups, use triage that drafts and tracks for you.

Quick answers

What is service request management?

Receiving, sorting, answering, and tracking client requests until each one is closed.

What’s the most common benefits service request?

ID cards, by a wide margin, even when instructions went out early.

What is service request tracking?

Keeping a status on every open request, especially ones waiting on a carrier or a TPA.

What’s a TPA?

A third party administrator, the company that processes claims for a self funded plan.

Should replies send automatically?

No. The system drafts, and an account manager approves.

Has DoBetter built this?

Not yet. Chris Cordon would start with inbox triage and templates for the top five requests.