Protiviti assists state government with unemployment claims processing and contact center support

In direct response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the citizens of the State of Missouri, our Client had an urgent need for a managed solution to support efforts to process unemployment insurance (UI) claims, provide inbound contact center support to claimants, and gather facts to support claim integrity verification. Our client had a backlog of tens of thousands of claims work items for which fact gathering was necessary to make official adjudication determinations. Claimant also had unprecedented inbound call center volume from claimants seeking support filing claims or inquiring on the status of existing claims.

Our client needed a partner that could recruit, hire, onboard, and train over 200 team members in a span of 2-3 weeks. Once integrated, our Client needed Protiviti to manage day-to-day contact center and claims operations for our team, collaborating closely with our client on training, quality control, production efficiency, and process improvements.

Solution Strategy

Our combined Protiviti and Robert Half team rapidly assembled an initial team of 125 call center agents (scaled up to 165) and 60 claims processors (scaled up to 80) into pods of roughly 15 individuals, all supported by a dedicated pod lead and engagement leadership. We collaborated with our client to deploy training and in parallel developed policies, processes, technology, and reporting to support our 100% virtual operation.

• Custom-developed automation, analytics, and reporting solutions that integrated directly with data from Client systems to enable our team to operate efficiently and effectively, especially in a remote environment.
• Created a tech enablement team and tech support team to assist our agents experiencing technical difficulties and serving as an efficient means of communicating with Client technical support to resolve issues.
• Cross-trained multiple agents and pod leads to allow our team to dynamically flex across call center and claims workstreams, depending on needs.

Value Delivered

​Our managed solution quickly delivered the fast and reliable work product the client sought while minimizing the burden on agency stakeholders related to onboarding, training, oversight, quality assurance and metrics reporting. The model included a single point of contact for the client to simplify communication for all items related to the engagement. In 16 months of ongoing support, the impact of this effort has been extraordinary:

• Completed fact gathering for over 305,000 claims. Our fact gathering production allowed our Client adjudicators and claims integrity reviewers to exponentially increase the number of determinations made per day, resulting in more timely and accurate benefits payments to claimants.
• Managed over 870,000 claimant calls or inquiries. Our production has resulted in lower wait times for claimants, faster call handle times, reduced abandoned calls, and overall improved customer service. A Deputy Director remarked: “Our partnership with Protiviti/Robert Half is what success looks like!”