Report 2020-128/628.1 Recommendation 13 Responses

Report 2020-128/628.1: Employment Development Department: EDD's Poor Planning and Ineffective Management Left It Unprepared to Assist Californians Unemployed by COVID‑19 Shutdowns (Release Date: January 2021)

Recommendation #13 To: Employment Development Department

To ensure that it is able to take informed steps to provide better customer service through improved call center performance, EDD should implement a formal policy by no later than May 2021 that establishes a process for tracking and periodically analyzing the reasons why UI claimants call for assistance. By no later than October 2021, and every six months thereafter, EDD should analyze these data to improve its call center by doing the following:

-Developing specialized training modules to quickly train its call-center staff on the most commonly requested items with which callers want assistance.

In March 2022, the Employment Development Department's Unemployment Insurance (UI) Branch's UI Command Center Division (UICCD) completed its quarterly analysis of disposition codes used by contact center agents from October 29, 2021, through January 29, 2022. Based on the completed analysis, the top reasons why customers are calling the contact center were identified to provide contact center agents with targeted training modules using the Knowledge Management System (KMS). On April 1, 2022, the KMS was updated to communicate that each week, the KMS will be updated to highlight a new disposition code and provide existing and new resources so staff can quickly access the reference materials to assist customers who are calling the contact center. Within the KMS, agents are provided with "articles" which provide a self-service option to guide a customer if they would like to continue on their own, or an assisted process to assist a customer. Additionally, the EDD continues to partner with the vendor, Emplifi, to continuously update the responses provided by the EDD Chatbot based on a customer's intent to provide a non-contact center channel to answer questions they may have on their benefit claim. After assessing the top reasons customers are calling the contact, the EDD is currently exploring "live" chat with customers as an additional non-contact center option to minimize the number of calls entering the contact center and improve the customer experience.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Fully Implemented

We reviewed the knowledge management system documentation EDD provided, including the example article that agents can access to provide additional information to callers. We found the documentation includes information about the most common reasons people call the call center. It appears that the knowledge management system provides the information necessary to quickly train call center agents on the most commonly requested items with which callers want assistance. If call center agents use the information from the knowledge management system, they should be able to quickly respond to callers' questions.

In May 2021, the Employment Development Department's Unemployment Insurance (UI) Branch's UI Command Center Division (UICCD) developed a formal policy for tracking and analyzing the reasons why customers call the contact center. In accordance with the policy developed, the UICCD has reviewed the disposition code data used by contact center agents from June 1, 2021 through October 27, 2021 to identify improvements of the contact center, identify self-service and non-call center options, and provide contact center agents with targeted training modules.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Partially Implemented

We reviewed EDD's policy and the recent status update and found that EDD has established and followed a process to track and analyze reasons why claimants call for assistance. It has analyzed these data and determined that some of the disposition codes it was using were too high-level and did not truly determine the reason for a claimant's call. EDD modified some disposition codes to more meaningful codes. We believe that in its next quarterly review EDD should analyze the reasons for calls based on its new disposition codes and develop specialized training modules based on these more meaningful disposition codes.

The Employment Development Department's Unemployment Insurance Command Center Division (UICCD) has formed a workgroup to review and analyze the current disposition codes used by contact center agents. The workgroup completed their initial analysis and the newly proposed disposition codes are in final review before deploying to contact center agents. In addition to updating the current disposition codes utilized by contact center agents, the UICCD will be collaborating with the Branch Training Section to develop and deliver a training module to advise contact center agents of the importance of correctly dispositioning a call after service is provided to a customer. The UICCD continues to review and analyze the disposition codes used by contact center agents to leverage opportunities to assist customers through self-service and non-call center options.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Partially Implemented

We look forward to reviewing the disposition code training module once EDD develops it. In addition, we look forward to seeing how the disposition codes assist EDD in developing additional trainings for its call center staff that could assist them in providing help to claimants who call EDD.

In May 2021, the EDD's UI Command Center Division developed and implemented a policy that will track, analyze, and address the reasons why UI claimants call the contact center. The policy developed is comprised of the following elements:

-Disposition Code Analysis to ensure the intent is correct.

-Root Cause Analysis for a Customer's Inquiry

-Determine Operations Goals

-Determine Implementation Strategies (e.g., self-service options)

-Implementation Plan

By October 2021, the EDD's UI Command Center Division will begin analyzing the resulting data to improve the customer experience with specific focus on enhancements to self-service and non-call center options that assists customers, and identification of specialized training for staff to better assist callers.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Partially Implemented

We reviewed the policy that EDD developed and found that it establishes a process for tracking and periodically analyzing the reasons why UI claimants call for assistance. We look forward to reviewing in October the analysis EDD conducts and any resulting adjustments or revisions to the training it provides to its call-center staff.

The EDD plans to use the established policy for the top reasons why UI claimants contact the UI Customer Service Center to develop effective training modules. The data collected from the disposition codes provided by contact center agents will be utilized to inform and train contact center agents to quickly assist UI customers as new emerging trends and issues present themselves. The UI Branch Training Section will develop a policy to analyze the training for those issues to ensure current and clear training. In addition, the UI Branch Training Section will collaborate with the UI Command Center Division regarding the training-related materials most commonly used by staff to compare the accuracy of the disposition code data.

California State Auditor's Assessment of Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2020-128/628.1

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.