Time ran out at the call center
by Paul Turner
I started at the insurance company in the Queen City, on July 5, 2017. After much training on Medicare special elections and in salesmanship, I started dialing mostly old Humana sales leads in early September 2017.
That month, I sold 6 Humana Medicare plans, and some number of business days before Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) started, a team supervisor, not mine, said that all of us on the sales floor could take inbound calls.
Keep in mind that I brought twenty-four state license combinations (Life and Accident & Health) to the table. Since my starting date, the insurance company purchased seven more.
Selling Medicare Advantage plans by phone is not easy. You establish rapport, hope that the monthly premium and copays are considered reasonable to pleasing, worry that the prescriptions are affordable in the tier pricing, and, in many cases, find that the prospects’ doctors are not in the plan’s network.
In the first half of AEP, I received many calls from Minnesota residents who watched our television commercials from couches, in bathrobes or less. I reckon that I walked through the sales process with twelve Minnesotans who would not buy the available plans, because the monthly premiums and copays were too high in their estimation, and certainly compared poorly with metropolitan areas in other states and to other carriers instate.
In this first half of AEP, I sold mostly to people I dialed, via the Salesforce Power Dialer. These included some people who recently signed on to the web site that the insurance company built with Humana’s blessing and remuneration. As the AEP season progressed, I worked additional hours, in order to maximize my sales potential. In October, my prorated total was about 35 sales. In November, I sold 47 plans.
I noticed that many of my sales came from overflow inbound queues, whose calls I presumed that salespeople in a favored office could not answer in time. That rust belt office brought the Humana Medicare Advantage business to the Queen City office. There are also sales teams in Michigan and in two Florida offices.
As of December 25th, I sold 38 Humana Medicare Advantage plans. However, in the preceding week or so, I had been put back on a recycled sales list, one of the Hurricane lists, along with twenty or more agents (among the four sales offices). People with Medicare Parts A and B who resided in parts of Texas, Georgia, and Louisiana, and all of Alabama and Florida, enjoyed a Special Election to enroll in a Medicare Advantage Plan through the end of the year, with a proposed starting date of January 1, 2018.
Many of these folks had been called many times during the Annual Enrollment Period, so we were flogging many dead horses. This momentous decision was glossed over by Sales Manager at a recent company meeting, despite the pointed question of a top producer on her team.
I continued to put numbers on the board, mostly because coworkers who were not licensed in the states where I was licensed gave me leads from state residents they could not legally help. That is to say, my coworkers helped me out, and by extension, the company we work for.
During the AEP sales season in Charlotte, there have been two or three agents who have racked up over 160 sales. How is that possible? Moreover, many coworkers around me are still getting calls that produce sales while I hit the Next Record button repeatedly toward few conversions.
So, why am I being squeezed out? Clearly, my numbers are in the top third of the rankings. It strikes me that what’s at a play are favoritism and draconian measures. How did one Charlotte agent get 15 sales on the final day of Annual Enrollment Period? Also, how do you no sooner come back from a bathroom break that your phone has a eager inbound call waiting for you? We are all imbued children of the universe, so come on.
Epilogue: December 29, 2017
My last day at the insurance company was December 29, 2017. Around 11:00 am, the site manager, hands akimbo, asked if I was on a call, and then shepherded me to the HR Associate’s office in the late morning.
The company is expanding its life insurance sales team. But alas, no other sales opportunity was awarded me. Several other Humana Medicare Advantage agents were also sacked, including one who was informed by phone on December 29th during her vacation.
Well, my December 2017 sales total was forty-one -- one sale shy of Bonus Level III, which would have increased my December compensation by $$.
Still, I am proud to have helped people, especially those who have both Medicare and a qualifying level (status) of Medicaid that enables them to get a Special Needs, Dual-Eligible plan.
But the in-progress work of a Reno Nevada lady for whom I intoned sotto voce the benefits of a Humana Medicare Advantage Plan back in a September phone call, fills my soul. In late December, she called to get the plan with a February 2018 effective date – that’s when her Medicare Part B would become effective.
Near the end of the inbound enrollment call, she told me, over the din of street traffic, that she was feeding the homeless while listening to my recitation of required Humana voice signature recordings.
“My life goes on in endless song, above earth’s lamentation
Robert Wadsworth Lowry