Strategic Solutions, Metrics, Tools to Drive Open Enrollment Success With Convoso

Every year the preparedness of insurance sales teams is put to the test over the course of both Open Enrollment Period (OEP) and the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period (AEP). During these high-pressure weeks, success rides on how efficiently you run your operation among other factors. To squeeze the most value from your marketing, your leads, and your agents, you need proven technology and the strategies.

Find out about streamlining your dialing ecosystem in this webinar with Convoso VP of Customer Success Ron Griguts and Manager of Customer Success Dan Steinman, dive into the strategies and tools that can make all the difference.

Learn how Convoso’s powerful platform helps health insurance teams reach and close more policyholders by managing high call volumes, scaling both agents and DIDs, and optimizing lead management. The Q&A covers metrics and the number of DIDs to purchase. Finally, Ron and Dan talk about the tools that will optimize your campaigns for open enrollment success. Watch the video and read the recap below.

Open enrollment is a hectic time with numerous challenges. Our industry experts share strategies to optimize your operations during open enrollment and explain how Convoso can make it simpler.

While other platforms may struggle with overload, Convoso thrives on volume. The system can handle thousands of simultaneous calls without compromising quality. This ensures that your operations remain smooth and efficient even during peak times.

“Convoso truly is built for volume,” Griguts says. “The more you put into this machine…the better it performs.”

This means that as you scale up—adding more agents and increasing your lead volume—Convoso not only handles the load but actually enhances your performance. High call volumes lead to improved contact rates and success metrics with Convoso.

As you prepare for open enrollment, it’s crucial to add agents preemptively and ensure that your DIDs are scaled appropriately.

You need time to train your new agents properly so they can handle the workload effectively from day one. “It's [also] really important to have a strategy for how you're going to train these agents because you don't want to have a bunch of green new hires during the most important time of your entire year,” Steinman says.

How early should you start getting more DIDs?

“I'd really recommend bolstering up on DIDs at least 30 days before open enrollment starts,” Steinman says. “The last thing you want to do is order a bunch of DIDs the week it starts” because it can take several days or even weeks to register them. This could leave you scrambling just as call volumes skyrocket.

Beyond scaling your DIDs, maintaining a strong balance between new leads and agents is critical. For instance, adding 50 agents but only bringing in 1,000 new leads per week will likely result in a quick decline in your contact and success rates. Ensuring that your lead volume grows in proportion to your agent count helps maintain stability in your performance metrics.

Performance reports are one of the keys to better lead management. “One of my favorite [reports] is just looking at call count versus calls made. That'll help you really understand if you are buying enough new leads,” Steinman says.

Another essential aspect is consistently adding fresh leads into your system. When agents are stuck working old leads, it negatively affects their morale and can lead to high turnover—something you do not want during an already high-stress time.

To illustrate the issue, Griguts says, “Imagine eight to 10 or 12 hour days as an agent trying to make these sales, trying to close these deals...and it's just not working because all of these leads are so old. They're wondering, ‘Am I the problem? What's going on? Why can't I close a deal?’”

By maintaining good lead hygiene—keeping your lead pool fresh by consistently introducing new leads—you can drive higher contact and success rates, reduce agent burnout, and keep your team motivated. This approach ensures that your dialing operations run smoothly and efficiently.

The webinar addressed key questions, offering valuable insights into using Convoso's tools effectively. Here are the main takeaways:

More is better, especially during open enrollment. Aim for DID saturation—ideally, keep calls per DID no higher than 80 per day to avoid burnout and maintain effectiveness. Balancing call volume across all DIDs is crucial. Use Convoso's area code coverage report to determine the optimal number based on your dialing history.

Avoid over-dialing and scrub call lists against the Do Not Call (DNC) registry to stay compliant. Monitor DNC numbers that may have changed hands, as you might no longer have consent to contact those leads. Convoso’s in-house compliance team is available to help navigate regulations and minimize risks. Automated tools like ClearCallerID Pro™️, StateTracker™️, and call time restrictions help support your compliance efforts. Businesses wanting to take a more conservative approach to dialing should consider Convoso's highly productive manual dialer CallCatalyst™️.

Get a summary of key regulations to understand by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS): Medicare Call Center Requirements: Support Compliance and Accelerate Sales

Streamline internal processes, ensure sufficient DIDs and leads, and consult your CSM for a dialer tune-up. If you're struggling to get new leads, Convoso's partnerships with trusted data providers can help you secure fresh leads.

Balancing drop rates and wait times may require fine-tuning dialing settings, adjusting lead prioritization, or tweaking dial levels. Regularly review these metrics with your CSM to identify and address issues promptly.

KEY METRICS include:

• Contact & Success Rates: Primary indicators of performance.

• Abandonment Rate: Keep below 3%.

• Average Wait Time: Target under 30 seconds, ideally 20 seconds or less.

• Lead Hygiene: Ensure fresh leads and avoid over-contacting.

• DID Management: Maintain sufficient DIDs for your call volume.

• Staffing Levels: Fully staff your team, especially during peak times.

Tracking these metrics will help you maintain efficient operations and meet performance goals. Regular CSM check-ins are essential for making necessary adjustments.

Convoso’s sales platform offers everything you need to optimize your dialing operations, especially during critical times like open enrollment.

Convoso’s impact is evident in real-world success stories. For example, Senior Healthcare Advisors saw a 2x increase in contact rates after switching to Convoso. It also reduced the number of answering machines reached from 50,000 to 500 per day and agents’ average wait times dropped from 17 minutes to three minutes. Operations Manager Ariel Ayalon said the company saw “an astronomical difference since we switched to Convoso—between 50-80% difference in productivity. It’s that big of a number.”

Steinman and Griguts covered some of the Convoso tools that helped drive these results and explained how they can help your call center during open enrollment.

Getting to leads first is critical for conversion. Convoso’s platform is built for speed, targeting high-value leads with precision to keep you ahead of the competition. “Speed to lead is our bread and butter over here at Convoso,” says Steinman. We deliver fast, reliable results that improve conversion rates and drive revenue.

ClearCallerID Pro manages flagged or blocked DIDs automatically and helps prevent spam labeling in the first place. Managing your DID numbers is key to keeping your dialing operations running smoothly, and Convoso’s ClearCallerID Pro makes this process much easier.

Instead of manually moving these DIDs to different lists, CCID Pro automatically rests them until they’re ready to be used again. This helps you avoid dialing with flagged numbers and ending up with lower contact rates.

This tool goes beyond DID monitoring and remediation. “It also has some really cool, insightful metrics. I really like showing success rates in correlation with your contact rate, as well as the number of flagged DIDs,” Steinman says.

Reach out to your Customer Success Manager to learn how ClearCallerID Pro can help your team connect with more leads.

In the busy open enrollment period you’re expecting to make the most of every day’s potential by connecting with as many people as possible who may be interested in buying a health insurance policy. But what happens when call after call, you encounter voicemails. You and your team are wasting time that could have been spent converting a lead.

You need a reliable tool that streamlines your outbound dialing by ensuring agents connect with live leads rather than getting stuck on voicemails. Convoso’s Answering Machine Detection (AMD) is highly fast at catching voicemails with 97% accuracy. As Steinman says,

“Our answering machine detection is a top-of-the-line feature. It really beats all the others.”

Senior Health Advisors, a Medicare sales agency that understands the high stakes of open enrollment, reached 100x fewer voicemails after switching to Convoso’s AMD. By reducing time wasted on unproductive calls, our answering machine detection helps your agents connect with more leads and close more deals when it matters most.

Monitoring key performance metrics is essential for maintaining and improving your dialing operations during open enrollment. Convoso has powerful reporting tools that allow you to customize reports based on any metrics you want to monitor.

When it comes to open enrollment and optimizing your dialing, Griguts says, “It's important to monitor your contact rate because that is really the North Star of your performance.” You also want to track your agents in terms of who’s being productive, managing their time well, and closing the most sales so you can send them your best leads.

Regular check-ins with your CSM will help you continuously improve your results.