Built on a legacy of developing long-term relationships with customers and vendors, Group & Pension Administrators (GPA) considers its delivery of superior service to clients one of its biggest differentiators in the market. Headquartered in Dallas, GPA is one of the Southwest’s largest managers of health insurance and benefits pension programs, serving some 200 clients–ranging from large multinational corporations to a myriad of small businesses–by overseeing a comprehensive array of programs for more than 150,000 beneficiaries.

Mac McIntyre, vice president of technology for Group & Pension Administrators, sought the right technology to improve the company’s customer service focus.

Businesses, patients and beneficiaries rely on GPA to pay claims, handle necessary paperwork, answer questions and provide comprehensive information as quickly as possible. Customer service underpins all its efforts, illustrated by a set of performance metrics that define how it assists customers, including:

All incoming calls are to be answered in less than one minute.
All customer e-mails are to be answered the same business day.
Interactive voice response is used to provide fax-back claim verification to providers.
Bilingual representatives are always available.
Agents can be reached by pager during business hours for “patient waiting” calls.

GPA maintains a contact center in Dallas, as well as offices in both Houston and San Antonio. Approximately 100 agents are employed full time, with half of them working from home at any given time. In addition, GPA relies on several teams of mobile employees, including sales professionals and IT staff, who must remain in constant touch with both internal and external contacts.

“Our entire company is focused on only one thing–are we meeting our customers’ expectations?” says Mac McIntyre, vice president of technology for GPA. “This philosophy is shared by those in executive management, our front-line managers and by our associates. We know that if we do well by our customers, we do well as a company.”

To achieve its goals, GPA knew it would need the right technology to produce tangible results. It also knew that choosing, integrating and training its staff and servicing the right solutions could be an expensive and cumbersome undertaking, which is one of the primary reasons GPA sought outside assistance to manage its communications needs.

Outsourcing’s cost benefits

“We rely on many different communications technologies, ranging from PBX systems and contact center software, to unified communications software and fax technology,” explains McIntyre. “One of our biggest challenges was bringing in the right systems and solutions to improve our business processes without disrupting day-to-day activity.

“While purchasing all of these products and applications outright would be a significant financial undertaking, the greater cost would be in the time spent trying to integrate and manage all of these diverse tools,” he adds. “Just in terms of keeping pace with software releases and new product versions, and ensuring that everything works together, would be a massive undertaking for our organization. We thought it would be prudent–as well as cost-effective–to identify and work with an outsourcing partner who would be responsible for implementing and managing all of these elements.”

After evaluating the products, applications and service offerings from numerous premise-based and hosted telephony providers, GPA opted for Inter-Tel’s managed services program, based on a number of key factors.

“The program not only gave us the opportunity to leverage a wide range of advanced IP products and solutions, but what really struck us was the ability to provide a complete array of carrier services, including T-1, long distance and local loop services, as part of the package,” reports McIntyre.

“Their managed services program allows us to work with a single provider who is responsible for the entire system, so we can avoid the finger pointing that is common in multivendor environments. If we have a question or encounter a problem, we know exactly where to turn.”

With the managed services program, GPA estimates it saves in excess of $100,000 each year just in terms of labor costs.

Inter-Tel’s managed services program includes a PBX system, phones and software to operate the system. In addition, Inter-Tel bundles in business-specific applications that address the unique needs of individual customers, such as unified communications, contact center applications, mobility tools, and conferencing and collaboration capabilities. It also maintains a fully certified data communications organization, DataNet, to help customers plan and build network security, network management optimization, storage and virtualization solutions, along with both WAN and LAN products.

Assistance with carriers

Inter-Tel’s NetSolutions division delivers and manages various voice and data carrier services, including T-1s, local loop, long distance and toll-free connectivity. As a switchless reseller, NetSolutions can offer customers competitive rates with a number of tier 1 communications providers.

In addition, Inter-Tel is responsible for servicing and maintaining all the equipment provided under the managed services plan, so GPA is protected from theft, equipment failure and natural occurrences like lightning strikes or flooding. In every instance, Inter-Tel is contractually obligated to replace damaged equipment and get GPA back online as quickly as possible. The managed services program provides each of these elements for a fixed monthly fee.

In planning GPA’s communications system, Inter-Tel took into account numerous factors, including the company’s geographic footprint, its reliance on a large number of remote-based agents, the requirements of mobile professionals, and its mandate to provide superior service while controlling costs. As the backbone of the system, a converged communications platform was deployed, combined with a mix of IP and digital endpoints, that seamlessly handles voice over Internet protocol traffic between GPA’s corporate sites and its home-based customer sales representatives.

The IP-based communications system also enables workgroups, such as the IT staff and sales teams, to utilize Inter-Tel’s Unified Communicator as a means to manage their presence and ensure that each call is routed to the appropriate party for proper handling. To manage GPA’s immense volume of voice traffic, the solution also includes contact center and call-recording software, as well as fax solutions to allow agents to initiate and receive fax communications at remote locations.

GPA relies on NetSolutions to provide and manage the company’s long-distance and local services, as well as enterprise data transport. Inter-Tel directly manages and maintains the entire solution, eliminating the need for GPA to administer or service any of the hardware, software or services.

With the managed services program, GPA estimates it saves in excess of $100,000 each year just in terms of labor costs. Costly moves, adds and changes also have been eliminated.

“Inter-Tel’s managed services program has lifted a huge burden off of our shoulders,” says McIntyre. “We don’t have to worry about keeping current with certifications, upgrades, enhancements, or the confusion of dealing with multiple vendors. Inter-Tel takes care of everything for us, and we save a lot of money in the process.”

For more information from Inter-Tel (click here)