CVS Health expands its partnership with Salesforce to power call center personalization with Agentforce Health, powered by agent AI.
The companies announced Thursday morning that the platform will connect data across CVS, including Aetna and Caremark, making it easier for call center teams to address a member’s unique needs in a single interaction when possible.
Agentforce tools provide call center teams with important insights upfront to better prepare them for conversations. The goal, the partners say, is to improve the experience for both members and employees through more streamlined interactions.
Pushpendu Pal, CVS’ senior vice president and chief digital technology officer for pharmacy services, said in an interview that the initiative fits well with the company’s efforts to build technology that puts members at the center of the experience.
For example, he said, before the company is able to integrate data between Caremark and Aetna teams, members may inquire about issues related to both coverages. In that case, the call center employee will have to give you another number to contact the other party.
This then evolved into a phone transfer, with a warm handoff where the patient was placed on hold and the first employee stayed on the line and introduced the member to a colleague.
Pal said AI uncovering insights in the background simplifies the process and eliminates the need for handoffs and transfers.
Ultimately, Pal said, improving these day-to-day interactions will have a positive effect on member trust in the plan.
“They know that when they contact us, they will get accurate answers, and our call center agents are confident in providing answers to our members,” he said.
Ultimately, Pal said, the goal is for the AI agent to be able to answer questions and display data in real time by doing ambient listening, rather than relying on a call center agent to direct the tool.
Amit Khanna, senior vice president and general manager of Agentforce Health at Salesforce, told Fiers there is a huge opportunity for AI to truly innovate and drive positive change in this space.
First, this technology enables call center teams to be more informed by efficiently sifting through data to find critical information at the point of care. Streamlining processes also helps reduce the administrative effort required to maintain healthcare functionality.
For example, in the past, call center employees may not have been able to quickly sort through long documents to find the information a patient needed and may have had to call back, resulting in long call times and a bad experience for both parties.
“We’re not trying to create something that people will adopt,” Khanna said. “This is a real problem that we are solving together.”
Both Pal and Khanna said the ultimate form of this kind of work is for members to make the process as self-service as possible, with Pal calling it the team’s “north star.”
Khanna says this level of convenience is becoming the norm in other industries as well. Consumers looking for financial information rarely need to call their bank. Because they can get information right at their fingertips through mobile apps and websites.
And for large retailers like Amazon, users rarely need to call a 1-800 number to resolve an issue with an order or find the information they need.
“There are no friction points,” Pal says. “It’s efficient, you only need to do it once, and you get fast, accurate, and consistent information.”
