How Next Insurance routes 300+ calls/hr to the right customer service agents

Shlomi Shpilman, Business Applications Manager at Next Insurance, wanted to operationalize Next Insurance’s call center, which receives 300+ calls/hr. Each call must be routed properly, matching the state of the caller with the right agent who can advise on insurance practices in that state.

The stakes of seamless customer service were high—Next Insurance prides itself on customer service that is available “anytime, anywhere, 365 days of the year.” Any misinformation or delays could give their customers the wrong impression and cost them business.

While this was the most pressing goal for Shlomi, he made note of other areas of improvement across the company. Processes like employee onboarding or claims evaluation required the back-and-forth handling of several different systems, which cost the company many hours in employee time.

Manual processes also increased the possibility of human error and further delays. A new employee that wasn’t added to all necessary applications, for example, wouldn’t be productive as fast as possible. Shlomi knew that there was an opportunity to develop smarter, more scalable processes.

Shlomi and his team first opted to build out an in-house solution. However, they quickly realized that the upfront investment and routine maintenance involved would be inefficient and costly—it simply didn’t make sense from an ROI perspective.

Next, they surveyed the market, but found many of the tools on the market too technical. Shlomi didn’t want to adopt a tool that would require a developer to manage; instead, he prioritized easy-to-use technologies that, one day, end-users could operate themselves. Workato fit the bill.

Workato not only passed technology requirements with flying colors—in particular, the ability to scale as Next increased operations—but it was cost-efficient. Its recipe-based pricing model allowed Next Insurance to build out as many integrations as needed without upping licensing fees.

It took just a week for Shlomi to go live with Workato. Since then, the biggest marker of success is that call center operations are running smoothly—calls get routed to the right agent, and there’s no need for manual checks or re-routing. But Workato has also gained huge traction in other areas.

What started as a solution for a singular use case has evolved into widespread automation usage across the company. For example, Workato has transformed employee onboarding by automating the process of creating new employee profiles and giving employees access to applications, among other tasks.

Workato has also accelerated claims processing. When a customer files a claim, Workato pulls relevant customer information from Zendesk and packages it into a PDF so that the claims agent can easily reference it, as opposed to digging through Zendesk. The result is faster, more comprehensive claims service.

Even simple use cases, such as ensuring that Expensify updates automatically when an employee changes managers, contributes to time savings. All of this has happened in just two months, which has pleasantly surprised both Shlomi and his team, and made them even more excited for the future ahead.