Interview
The Gist
- AI meets empathy. Aflac balances AI and human empathy in customer service to support customers during difficult times.
- AI simple; humans complex. AI and automation improve agent experience by handling simple tasks, allowing agents to focus on complex, emotional interactions.
- Tracking claims. Innovative initiatives like specialized teams for sensitive calls and digital tools like the Claims Tracker enhance customer satisfaction and ease of service.
In this conversation, Dom Nicastro, editor-in-chief at CMSWire (aka me), talks with Keith Farley, SVP of Individual Voluntary Benefits at Aflac, on the latest edition of Beyond the Call by CMSWire TV.
We discuss how Aflac balances artificial intelligence and automation with human empathy in their customer service operations. Keith emphasizes the importance of authentic human interactions, especially since Aflac often deals with customers during some of the worst days of their lives.
We explore how AI is used to handle simple tasks and assist agents, allowing them to focus on complex and emotionally sensitive calls. The conversation also covers innovative initiatives like specialized teams for first-time cancer diagnosis calls and digital tools like the Claims Tracker, all aimed at improving customer experience and satisfaction.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Aflac's Customer Service Center
- Agent Experience and AI
- Specialized Teams for Sensitive Calls
- Managing Customer Data
- Emotional Intelligence in Customer Service
- Adapting to Different Generations
- Innovations Like the Claims Tracker
- Competing on Customer Experience
- Future Projects
Episode Transcript
Editor's note: This transcript was edited for clarity and brevity.
Introduction
Dom Nicastro: Hey everybody. Dom Nicastro, editor in chief at CMSWire, back for another round of CMSWire TV's Beyond the Call. Today we have the pleasure of being joined by Keith Farley, he's the SVP of Individual Voluntary Benefits at Aflac. Keith, thanks so much for taking the time with us today.
Keith Farley: Thanks for having me, Dom. Looking forward to it.
Dom Nicastro: Yeah, it's such a pleasure to have you on. You know, we were talking before we even got on this call about the passion you have for your organization. Your product is literally about being there for people in a time of need. That's what happens every day. The passion you had in that pre-call was super cool.
So I'm looking forward to diving into that—how do you do that? How do you connect with customers on that level, and how do you show great empathy in this big age of AI with automation and everything? Gotta kind of balance that all out. It's a challenge. So first, welcome to the show, and just tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, how you arrived in that role, and some of your past roles.
Aflac's Customer Service Center
Keith Farley: Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. So, first of all, I'm a proud graduate of Auburn University. Right after school, I started my career with Coca-Cola for a period of time, and then went over to Stanley Black & Decker, specifically on the DeWalt professional power tools brand. Did that for a few years before getting a call from a friend who had gone to work for Aflac. From there, the rest is history. I've been 15 years at Aflac. Started off in our marketing department, then worked on our innovation team, moved overseas to start Aflac Northern Ireland for us, lived there for a few years, and then most recently moved back to the States to lead our individual business, which for Aflac is our largest business, and it's the oldest business we've got in the U.S. It's been around since 1955.
Dom Nicastro: And tell me about that team you lead, Keith. Where exactly does it sit in the organization? Who do you report up to, and who's on that team?
Keith Farley: Yeah, happy to do so. I report to the U.S. President. On my team, I have P&L responsibility for everything from sales and marketing to finance and service parts. My direct reports include the service organization—everything from call center, claims, billing, new business—all those types of functions that keep the machine going.
Dom Nicastro: So that contact center—we like to call it. What do you call it, by the way? Contact Center, Call Center?
Keith Farley: Officially, it's our Customer Service Center.
Dom Nicastro: I like that.
Keith Farley: It's any kind of service you need. Sometimes it is calls and phone, sometimes it's email, sometimes it's chat. So it can be a whole host, so we just go with Customer Service Center.
Agent Experience and AI
Dom Nicastro: That's good. I like that title. I've seen a lot of organizations go with presumptuous titles like Resolution Center. Wait a minute, don't put too much pressure on us here! We're going to try our hardest to solve this.
But what are some of the—you know, let's lay the groundwork for balancing the advances we've seen in contact centers and customer service centers with artificial intelligence, with automation, with just being human beings. Because, like you told me earlier, we're dealing with people in a big time of need. They're going through health issues, other issues that require some great insurance. So what's the approach there at Aflac to balance that great human empathy that we all say we need with the AI automation?
Keith Farley: Yeah, I think you said it exactly—it is a balance. We have to remember that when people reach out to us, it's often one of the worst days of their life. They've been diagnosed with a disease, maybe they've lost a loved one, maybe they've been in an accident. They could be in physical pain. So it's not like reaching out to someone to order a pizza or to book a flight or to buy a shirt.
It is a much deeper emotional experience. One of the things we try to remember when we balance technology and empathy—and AI is a buzzword, as well it should be, because it's exciting—but the first word in AI is artificial, and sometimes what you want is authentic, not artificial.
So we try to remember, let's be authentic. Let's remember where people are coming from when they reach out to us, where their mindset is. They might be calling us from a hospital or a doctor's office or at home if they've been dealt some bad news. So we want to make sure that we've got a human-first approach. Now, we do use AI and automation to handle more of the simple things.
So if you need to change your address, that's a job for AI. You want to update some billing information or add a dependent, remove a dependent—that can be handled through self-service tools, digital tools, or AI. But when you need to talk through a diagnosis and understand your coverages, that's when we think it's probably right for most people to have a human. Some people still want to do it all digital, but we want to make sure that it's omnichannel—however you want to have it, we can do it, whether it's with a human or if you want to work with one of the automations.
Related Article: From Robo to Relatable: Make AI in Customer Service More Human
Specialized Teams for Sensitive Calls
Dom Nicastro: Yeah. So the use cases right now for your teams are really at that bottom level of, let's solve this quick problem using automation, using AI, and save the real complex stuff for this human-to-human interaction if we can.
Keith Farley: That's exactly right. It's basically automate the easy and service the complex. And what we get is a lot of complex because we're dealing with—insurance is not straightforward for many folks, neither is healthcare, and neither is financials. And we're kind of at this perfect moment of financial impact and healthcare.
And for a lot of people, that's pretty complex, myself included. So I want to talk through my options and understand with a human. Now, there might be a time and a place when the AI gets up to a speed where it can fake empathy enough that makes it okay for that person. But we still find, myself included, you just want to talk it over with a human and just say, "Hey, can we talk through this?" And we think that's a strategic advantage by keeping humans available.
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Dom Nicastro: Yeah, you know, I've been to some industry conferences lately, Keith, and just listening to contact center leaders like you, the number one thing they talk to me about is agent experience. You know, I ask them, what do you want in your contact center? What do you want to improve? And it's that agent experience because it's a thankless job. I mean, these are people that, again, like you said, are trying to solve complex issues for people who are in a great time of need.
So in terms of agent experience, has AI really fueled that, improved the agent experience because they can focus their brains and their minds on these complex tasks?
Keith Farley: Yeah, I think what AI has done is we look at almost a bionic agent. So it's part human, part machine, right? If we're having a conversation, the machine can be listening in and feeding up information. So let's say that you have a question about your policy and coverages. While I'm talking to you and keeping the conversation going, AI in the background could be pulling up—because it was listening in to us—all of your coverages and what you're most likely to ask us about next.
So instead of me having to shuffle on my computer and find your policy information, the AI had already found it and brought it right to the forefront for me so that I can continue the conversation, keep the empathy, and make sure that you're getting the service you need while the facts are now being presented to me right here.
Or you say, "Hey, while I'm at it, I also want to update this." The AI can say, "Keith, as the agent, do you want to update this?" And I click, "Yes, go ahead and make that update that we just talked about." So I think it makes people more efficient, allows them to focus on the conversation versus, you know, what we're all used to in contact centers is, "Well, hey, give me a few minutes to research that. I'll get back to you." The AI can make that time almost seamless and just go away where we can stay in the conversation.
Managing Customer Data
Dom Nicastro: Yeah. And what are some of those top-level KPIs, metrics you use to measure the agent? Because there's a lot of metrics out there you can use—resolution time, how quick everything takes, what was the survey that came back after the call. What are some of those metrics that really matter to you in terms of measuring agent performance and, at the end of the day, making them better?
Keith Farley: Yeah, I would say the number one that we look for is ease. In today's world, if it's not easy, you're not going to do it. You have choices; you have selections. You're going to go with the one that was easy to do.
So we have e-scores that are measured via post-call surveys. That's the number one metric for our contact centers to say, was this easy? On a scale of one to ten, how easy was this? We do look at things like average handle time, speed to answer—you know, if you're running a contact center, you need those metrics to keep the engine going.
But the one that really matters at the end—it doesn't matter how quickly you answer my call or, from a metric standpoint internally, how short the call was. For the policyholder that doesn't want to spend a lot of time, was I able to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish, and was it easy? So that's the main thing for us.
Related Article: 29 Call Center Metrics That Drive Customer Satisfaction
Emotional Intelligence in Customer Service
Dom Nicastro: Yeah, I don't envy the contact center agents, you know, because if someone measured my calls with people—like I had a call before this call—like, geez, someone has to measure how easy that was? That would be a lot of pressure on me. Do you feel like a lot of these agents have a lot of pressure on them?
It's, again, a thankless job. No one ever calls to say, "Hey, just letting you know you're doing a great job. See you later." It just doesn't happen. So how do you, as a manager, as a leader, and your leaders that you manage—how do you empower them to balance agent experience with hard metrics but also just having cool conversations like, "Hey, you know what? I listened to that call. That was great, man. Like, you did a great job."
Keith Farley: You're right. No one calls up just to say, "I just want to thank you for being awesome," right? That's a rare call if you get it.
I think what we find really encourages our agents is the satisfaction they get from helping someone in their time of need. They have gotten nothing but bad news oftentimes before calling us. And so for us, this is an opportunity to sort of be that one beacon of light and hope—"Man, at least that was easy. You know, Aflac cares. That was simple.
And the coverage is great that I got." So we look at it as, in a world of a lot of bad news coming at someone, you have the opportunity to be there for them, right? And they'll never forget that. They'll never forget who was there to help them and also, in many cases, to give them good news of the support we're going to give them. You know, we want to support you financially so that you can get back to getting well. You can focus on the disease; we'll help you focus on the finances.
You know, we have a special line that we set up here where it's a first-time cancer diagnosis line. And so when you call into our contact center, and you're listening to the virtual responses, it says, "We understand that if this is a first-time cancer diagnosis, it can be particularly difficult. Press one for special assistance."
When you press one, you're going to go to a specialized team that all they do every day is talk to first-time cancer diagnosis patients. Well, when we created this, Dom, we thought, we'll put you on this line for a week, and then you'd be so burnt out and tired because it's such a difficult call and emotionally straining call that we'll rotate you onto something else, like a dental call or a billing call or a website reset password call. We'll put you on something else, and then we might rotate you back.
But we didn't want people to emotionally burn out. Well, once we put that team on there, they said they never want to leave that line. They said these are the most precious calls that we get. We can show the value. They left home every day feeling that they made a difference. They didn't want to take a password reset call. I mean, those are important too; if people can't get in, they can't file their claim. But they said, "No, no, these are the calls we want to do." So we actually have not rotated that team off, and we thought for sure that we'd have to let someone else carry that torch for a while, and that hasn't happened.
Adapting to Different Generations
Dom Nicastro: Yeah, and what constitutes having a person—how do you get to that specialized team? Like, what characteristics—how have you earned the right as an agent to be on that specialized team that can graciously handle those calls?
Keith Farley: Yeah, so we asked for volunteers. We said we're going to create a special line, you know, who wants to do it? And that's a pretty good sign. Whoever stepped forward, you can tell that they've got emotional intelligence. This is something that they want to do. So we asked for volunteers for it, and again, we planned on having three teams that we would rotate throughout.
And once we got team number one started, they said, "We don't want to rotate off this. Anything else just seems, you know, secondary to what we're doing right now. There's nothing more important than those calls." Now, we also have calls for people that have heart attack, stroke, and accidents—all kinds of things like that.
And so there's plenty of other ways that people can feel their value of really helping folks. But that first-time cancer diagnosis, just because of the intricacies of it, you know, we wanted to have a specialized team—that's all they did. They know exactly what information they're going to need from you, but they'll also, when they're talking with you, they'll say, "Listen, we're going to get through this. You're going to beat this thing. You hear me? You're going to get better. I talk to people every day; they get better, and you're going to be one of them."
You know, so there's this almost pastoral aspect that we have with our team. And again, you can't have that with a machine. You know, for all the automation in the world, you can't have that with a machine. So we've kept in mind that authenticity in a digital age, to make sure that you still have that human experience.
Innovations Like the Claims Tracker
Dom Nicastro: Now Keith, with that specialized team, is AI and automation still infused in those calls to the contact center?
Keith Farley: Absolutely, and that's where it helps out with things like next best action—you know, what the customer might ask, don't forget to remind them about this. So that's where the AI can come in and sort of be your virtual assistant as an agent—not as a policyholder—as an agent, to help me to make sure that I'm asking all the information and getting all the information that I need.
Dom Nicastro: Yeah, that must be a wonderful opportunity internally to review some of those calls and make them kind of like a pedestal of customer service excellence. Like, I'm sure there must have been some opportunities to show other folks—or is there? Maybe that's a question. Have you been able to take these—and they're personal calls, right? But still shining examples. To me, it seems like if you can say, "You got this, you're doing great," and the person on the other end can feel a little better about what they're going through initially, that seems like a teaching moment.
Keith Farley: Absolutely it is. I mean, it's really about meeting people where they are. And I think that, you know, everybody in the contact center at a company like Aflac has that opportunity. I mean, if I think about in the past, you know, when I was working with DeWalt power tools, if someone were to call our contact center, they might be trying to figure out how to change the blade on a miter saw because they can't figure out how to loosen the blade. That's an important call because that might be someone that is trying to earn a living with this miter saw, and they need that blade changed, and they're having an issue, and they want to understand.
But it's not the same closeness as someone that's, you know, being diagnosed with a disease or has been in an accident. My company before that, Coca-Cola, someone—you know, you might get a call from a retailer that's having trouble with their fountain machine, and that could impact their revenue; they're not selling as many soft drinks as they wanted. It's important that they get that resolved.
Again, it's not as personal a level as someone's health. So I think that just by working in a contact center at a company like Aflac, you're already dealing with a closer level of human connection, and we recruit for that. When we're recruiting and hiring, we want to make sure—this—we're not booking flights. We're not ordering pizzas. You know, this is not selling shoes. You have to have a special skill set and also an empathy and a mental toughness to get through conversations with people that are going through some difficult things. And we see that as our opportunity.
You know, they were sold a policy, you know, years ago, months ago, that when they need someone will be there. And so this is—for us, this is closing the loop. The promise that we made when they bought the policy, today is the day that the promise gets delivered.
Competing on Customer Experience
Dom Nicastro: Yeah, absolutely. In terms of all these anecdotal conversations you're hearing from agents, you're listening to the recordings, there's email, there's chat—this is a massive amount of data for a company like Aflac. How do you centralize or manage all of this data to inform agents, inform customer service teams, maybe even inform marketing to make better decisions on behalf of the customers? Is there like a central data repository? Is it a lot of siloed data systems that you have to kind of bring together?
Keith Farley: Yeah, we've got a pretty good system that our agents use that kind of brings in all of the data. I mean, we receive between 18,000 and 20,000 calls a day, so it's a massive amount of calls coming through. And so we have a central system that everybody uses that logs the calls. There's some auto logging that it does, and there's some things that the agent does.
But that way we can start to see trends, we can start to see best practices, and start to manage. It's a homegrown system that we made that we call Customer 360, but it gives you that whole view of exactly what the customers called about in the past, likely what they're calling about now. You can do all the logs of information that you're doing so that if they need us again, we can pull that up quickly and know exactly what they might be looking for.
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Future Projects for Aflac
Dom Nicastro: Keith, I want to wrap up by asking you, you know, in the next year or so, is there some kind of big project that you're excited about at Aflac as it relates to anything—whether it's customer service, whether it's AI, agent experience, something that you are eyeing to either complete, grow, keep innovating on? What would that be? What's the big fish right now?
Keith Farley: Yeah, I would say for us, it's all about claims automation. It's leveraging AI—you know, AI can read all of the paperwork, including the doctor's handwriting, which is amazing because humans can't read doctor's handwriting. But you know, the ability to automate claims right now, where over 55% of our claims are automated, where the computer can literally read your policy and read the hospital notes of what happened and match up exactly what the payment should be.
And that means that we're going to have faster payments, higher quality payments, you know, in many cases, that are straight-through processed. So for us, you know, when you go back to ease and customer experience, you know, when folks have something happen, they just want to be paid, and they want to be paid quickly. And so I would say claims automation and some of the things that we're doing there with AI is probably our next new frontier.
Dom Nicastro: Looking forward to that. We'll have another conversation when it fully rolls out, you've recognized it, and you have some success stories. We'd love to have you back to listen to that story. So Keith Farley, SVP of Individual Voluntary Benefits at Aflac, great to catch up with you. We love catching up with contact center leaders, customer service leaders, see what's going on in that world. So can't thank you enough for joining us on Beyond the Call.
Keith Farley: Thanks, Dom. Appreciate it.
Dom Nicastro: All right, have a good one, Keith.
Keith Farley: You too now.
