[Music] hi everyone welcome to glidefast on air i'm lauren jankowski the marketing manager here at glidefast and i'll be moderating today's webinar streamlining citizen processes with servicenow csm state of delaware success story before we get started i'd like to give you some background information on glidefast glidefast consulting is a consulting firm that is dedicated exclusively to servicenow as an elite servicenow partner our expert team of developers and architects have worked on both sides of the table the customer side and the consulting side our company was founded by servicenow architects and we're proud to have a team of over 150 experienced consultants an average csat score of 4.8 out of 5 and many more accolades as you can see here before we get started i'd like to share about glidefast's goal of raising 50 000 for the joe and drizzy foundation this foundation provides financial assistance to families battling cancer and the unexpected costs that come with treatment as a cancer survivor himself glidefast's very own ceo michael lombardo has committed to matching up to 25 thousand dollars and glide fast as a company will also match up to twenty five thousand dollars for a total donation of a hundred thousand dollars to help pediatric and adult cancer patients if you or your company would like to contribute to helping us reach this goal we will send a link with more information following this webinar i'm excited to hand things over to our presenters for today ethan schultz an account manager at glidefast consulting josh brostoff a service delivery director at glidefast and daryl scott the director of division of unemployment insurance at state of delaware department of labor i'll be monitoring the q a throughout today's session so please send in any questions as they arise and we'll do our best to answer them josh you can take it from here awesome thank you very much lauren and thank you everyone for joining today really looking forward to talking with you about some of the work that we did with the state of delaware and their unemployment division particularly around you know when the pandemic hit and i'm going to be handing it off to darrell scott here shortly to talk a little bit about that in in the background so just a quick overview of the agenda today and kind of what we're going to be covering first you know the client who is state of delaware in the team that we were working with the second piece that we'll be talking about is is the challenge that we were presented last march uh when the pandemic hit in in the huge wave of unemployment um that came about as a result of the pandemic in a really short amount of time then we'll transition to talking about the solution that we put in place using customer service management and several other tools within servicenow to you know really help in take this huge volume of cases that was in inquiries that were coming in from the claimants of the state of delaware and really where this you know how this all resulted right so the really positive results that we saw from implementing customer service management and state of delaware and the positive impact that it's had on the state overall in the unemployment division so that being said i'm going to go ahead and hand it over to daryl scott to talk a little bit about the state of delaware department of labor thanks josh i'm glad to be here today just to give you a little bit of background on the department of labor it's comprised of five operating divisions the unemployment division being one about 400 employees and just to give you a sense a ui group prior to the pandemic had about 88 people and one of the things i started with the division in march of 2019 so when the pandemic hit in march of 20 i had about a year under my belt um and um we were just beginning you know sort of planning and earnest about continuity of operations and and our efforts to scale our systems and operations and we had some identified gaps that i just shared with you we had no crm we had few workflow management tools within the division we had one application for our field audit team that was very specifically designed for that function other than that uh no real workflow or or customer uh engagement uh tools and our systems really were untested with respect to scaling to volume uh and i'll touch base uh here in just a second and give you a sense of the this the size of the uh the issue and the challenge that we were faced so one of the things to give you a sense of is in 2020 we received 175 000 uh initial claims which was five times more than we received in 2019 which is about 32 000. in the weeks preceding the pandemic we were averaging about 500 claims a week in the first four weeks after the governor declared the state of emergency we received 60 over 62 000 claims in the first four weeks and um again nothing i'll tell you our continuity planning and our scaling we were looking at three four five times volume to try and plan nothing uh in our planning gave us any indication that we were gonna have to scale to that particular level the other thing to think about and we looked at our comparison against the 2001 and 2009 recessions at no time in those prior recessions did our weekly volume of claims exceed 4 000. we had ten consecutive weeks um in excess of four thousand with two weeks approaching nineteen thousand claims so just trying to give people a sense of you know listeners a sense of the scale of the problem and challenges that we faced the other thing is when you have that number of initial claims your continuous week's claims uh come and with old systems mainframe and and uh you know our systems were challenging for people to navigate um to give you a sense we were paying 5500 to 6 000 people per week we peaked at nearly 65 000 in may and in 2020 we paid 1.4 million continuous week weekly benefit payments from a monetary perspective just gives sense in 2019 we paid 62 million dollars in benefits and in 2020 we uh we disbursed more than a billion dollars in benefits as well so again when you think about the challenge of the number of customer inquiries it scaled um tremendously with the with the volume we went from several thousand phone calls a week we peaked at 190 000 phone calls in may of last year i i made a note we really had an unknown number of emails one of the challenges as a division we were using outlook as our email communication tool and so the ability to sort of keep track and manage and and here's another challenge with the pandemic you have people coming in and out of the office either dealing with illness themselves or with a family member and outlook really doesn't lend itself to managing sort of the transfer of that that communication or that conversation between workers so just a number of of issues from a volume from systems then you add in the complexity of the multiple cares act programs so it wasn't just ui we're managing but you know fpuc and peuc and pua and then you layer on lwa and now meuc which brings a challenge for communicating with uh with our customers as well as our staff and then when you think about staffing we went from 88 to more than 225 people uh supporting the business and uh trying to find a you know a tool that would help us um you know manage those engagements and also extend access to some of our systems so josh i hope that gives a uh sort of a good setup of some of the challenges that we faced in uh in 2020 yeah absolutely and thank you for for kind of providing that overview darryl of kind of the transition of how things were unfolding and really where state of delaware was from a solution standpoint and kind of what we put into place to deal with this so like general was saying i mean you know before the pandemic right there was significantly less unemployment claims coming in and also in addition to that the amount of inquiries that claimants from the state of delaware may have right so is whether it's how do i set up my direct deposit where do i go to file my weekly claim where do i go to reset my ping code right so there was all kinds of inquiries and issues that people may have had around their unemployment and what they really needed is to take all of those inquiries that were coming out through email and provide an organized way of dealing with all those inquiries that was coming from claimants obviously when you have something like a hundred thousand people reaching out through outlook right it's just not scalable there's no way to track all of those individual inquiries and make sure that people are getting those issues resolved especially when you talk about scaling from you know 20 people dealing with unemployment inquiries to having you know 80 to 100 different agents actually dealing with these so what we did is we implemented customer service management uh knowledge management and virtual agent to really help tackle this problem um and one thing that's really significant to note about this is typically you know we would have estimated that um an engagement like this to you know would have taken anywhere from from 90 days on right to really from start to finish but just kind of knowing you know the situation which the state of delaware unemployment division was in and really everything going on with coven and the pandemic we actually were able to implement this in under 30 days and get this live and running so we knew that speed and efficiency was going to be something that was really important so you know we worked really closely with daryl and his team to decide what was going to be what we considered mvp 1.0 and really kind of use a lot of the out of the box elements as much as we could to help implement customer service management and immediately deliver value using customer service so really the main piece that we were using for csm was claimants being able to reach out about whatever it may be right and having assignment groups allowing people to track these giving all these different inquiries and organize ways be able to have people you know get their issues addressed and get those issues resolved right because the most important thing is is getting claimants uh you know in individuals the money that they need to be able to do basic things right especially in a scenario where you just have tons of people unemployed um in a really quick manner the other thing too in you know complement that we also implemented virtual agent and knowledge management so one of the big things about this is we saw a lot of people reaching out with common issues right like i was mentioning before how do i set up my direct deposit um using virtual agent and knowledge management we gave people an easy way to get those answers and help drive a lot of case deflection coming in from claimants so that was a big piece as well because obviously you know when you have a hundred thousand people reaching out and you only have you know x amount of people to deal with these inquiries you need ways to deflect those cases and what we saw was you know tremendous use of virtual agent and knowledge management we'll be talking about some of the numbers behind that and another big piece is we gave people a way to use live chat as well so if they were not able to get their issue resolved if they weren't able to call in because the you know whatever reason or they weren't able to walk in because of covid we gave them another channel to be able to resolve their issues through live chat so this was another significant way which people were able to to get their issues resolved without having to pick up the phone they could just use you know combination of these things to really get their issues resolved josh if i can one of the things you touched on with regard to giving people multiple channels in which to engage we shot our buildings right in march and so um before chat it was phone or email and and again everybody understands the challenges associated with email you know you send it um you reply and they think you're you know you're going to reply immediately soon as they they respond and with the backlog that we had it was just uh difficult so chad gave us an ability to you know to get engaged in a different channel the other thing to note about the assignment groups and some of the things that we did is with new workers coming on board it allowed us to segregate the work right so you had certain tasks that you could be assigned to people with specific skills and knowledge and also manage escalations from from sort of new people into the more seasoned team as josh alluded we we had i think seven claims processors prior to the pandemic we had eight or nine claims deputies that managed the adjudication process and the bulk of resources we added you know more than 100 were to support those functions so you had a lot of new people and a very sort of core set of knowledge to uh to try and manage some of those escalations so a little bit about the results of what we saw um so you know one of the biggest things about this is just the volume that was coming in and really needing a way to manage this since that time you know within the first six weeks we had over 475 000 virtual agent interactions over 150 000 cases 8 000 live chats we were also integrated faxes as well so after someone submitted their inquiry if they needed to send additional information um you know as a follow-up whether it be paperwork they would fax that in and we would actually take those faxes in through servicenow create what's called an interaction record and attach that to cases so we also gave another you know also implemented another way to take in things like facet faxes and attach them to cases that already exist for claimants and since this time as well you know something to note is these numbers have significantly increased and really allowed for a scalable model you know i know daryl we were talking the other day around the types of numbers that we're seeing now you know over 350 000 cases over 2 million virtual agent interactions so we're really starting to see the continued use of this and just from a scalability model is definitely making an impact it does every day i mean one um and josh i don't know if you were going to touch on this but um with regard to some of the solutions but you know around tax time we mailed more than a hundred thousand 1099s right and um as with mail one delays and also address changes we dealt with i think it was more than 8 000 requests for you know questions and or requests for 1099s and the servicenow gave us the ability to manage you know won those cases to a specific team and also manage toward the deadline of the of the may 17 tax deadline right so it's um again we we continue to find ways to apply the the platform to address emerging business issues as as we've identified and i don't think you touched on this enough josh and when you're talking about the solution is but the collaborative you know relationship that was established and the approach right to the business our needs as i shared with the cliff fast team time and again there's more work to be done than there is time and resource and sometimes we're heading down a path on you know this is the urgent issue and something you know something happens significantly you know or significant that requires to change direction and again understanding the impact to the long-term project but we continue to work together to try and address sort of the long-term needs of deploying the platform throughout the entire division but also addressing emergent needs that as they as they present themselves yeah absolutely and i think that's kind of a great segue to what you were saying daryl just around you know the other plans that we have in the roadmap for using servicenow and customer service management to assist other parts um of the unemployment division right so something that we've you know that we're currently having progress right now is being able to manage like fraud inquiries so let's say something that's really big right now that we're seeing across the country that we've discussed is you know all the fraud that's being committed related to unemployment right so people hijacking benefits or lying and collecting unemployment and being able to manage things like identity theft all through customer service management and servicenow that's something that we're also planning to implement as part of customer service management is underway as well you know several other pieces that we've done is employee work refusal so allowing people um if an employee is refusing to come back to work allowing uh servicenow and customer service management to manage those inquiries from employers and leverage things like accounts and contacts and also cases related to the paycheck protection program as well so as we've started to use customer service carol i mean you know we've definitely expanded this out and i think it's it's provided a lot of value in other parts of the business it does and as josh and ethan know very well i intend to you know sort of remove outlook as an external communication tool for all the again it's great for internal communication but you know when an employee leaves or or is out and we still continue to deal with that today the ability to continue that relationship with our with our claimants uh is very you know it's challenging right so we're you know we're looking to deploy the platform on the you know the enterprise as a whole um josh just put a little context and again i sort of like to provide the context you know in prior years we had hundreds of you know fraud cases and and very few identity theft right in the uh in the sense of what we're seeing today we've already had over 11 000 reported cases of identity theft where people are claiming that you know somebody is using their identity to file a claim so again we continue to face these uh these business challenges on a scale un unseen in in prior years so um and again the platform provides us you know one visibility to the issue and the ability to identify emerging issues based on um you know call types and or reasons people are contacting us but to visibility to that work so we can see it through its completion right and make sure that it has uh again what's what's measured is managed right so we have the ability to measure and manage um you know issues to uh to to their completion awesome well let's definitely dive into some of the q a that have been coming in um okay here's one for you um what made you choose servicenow as the platform so we um it's interesting as i indicated we didn't have a crm in our in our um in our division and it was identified need and it really uh was born out of a partnership with our technology organization dave bennett in our technology group was able to very quickly put together a proof of concept um and demonstrate the the power of the platform and um then with an engagement with glidefast we were able to sort of take that vision and make it a reality so one it's an internally supported enterprise application in existence within the state and uh and again the demonstration of capability really sold it as an ability for us to quickly deploy the platform and extend access to the systems that we and information we needed to uh our contractual resources awesome and how quick were you able to go live josh how many days was it i mean it's uh yeah i think we did so many things in like 30 days or less but it was it truly was extremely fast yeah so i think it was roughly i want to say 28 days so we really expedited this timeline like i was referring to earlier um pretty much the the day that you know we we started um we were doing workshops right and something that we really tried to do is split these up so everyone could we had to do everything through zoom because of the pandemic which was a unique scenario typically you know we come on site and all get to collaborate but we really tried to split these up into into short sessions and and you know tackle these as quickly as possible but we really expedited everything and we're able to front load a lot of resources and you know luckily for us the everyone from the state of delaware team was was great to work with and just allowed us to to give you know to give the requirements that we needed to be able to bring this life on a very expedited timeline so i think definitely you know being able to implement this in 30 days was was really valuable to the team and getting you know claimants the help that they needed you're kind to say that i define the requirements josh because i'm not known for uh defining requirements very tightly so sorry no that was good here's a couple more um how did you guys i know we've been getting this question a lot on a bunch of webinars how did the team approach training so josh i'll just say there was a combination one um we were supported directly by the glyfest team and putting together sort of an initial training and with the call center sort of a train the trainer methodology so that they were able to continue uh to support and we've continued to be supported by the glfest team as we've identified sort of uh and or deployed new capability to uh uh to make sure we were uh able to effectively use the platform yeah and definitely you know i think um diana riveros and various others from the glidefast team did a great job um you know they custom built multiple training sessions and held multiple zoom recording sessions um with everyone all the agents from the team who are going to be leveraging the tool um in combination with that they also put together several one-pagers to help agents as they were onboarded and started using the tool in quick reference guides uh then we distributed those materials to everyone and as people come on and join the state of delaware you know they also are take that training as well and kind of go through that so definitely um you know having those having those sessions i think was really valuable prior to go live absolutely great and then one last question for you and i think you both may have um different answers one being from the client side one being from the architect side so what made this deployment different than any other so josh what i'll say is and and the time with which we had to deploy was i mean we were just faced with unprecedented volume and challenges and workload um and then you couple that with the ability again i think josh you touched on this you know in most cases you'd be on site you'd be you sort of lock yourself in a room you define the requirements and you know you'd be working away and we had to do this all virtually right so i think time lauren was one of the challenges and then the other is that the the constraint of being able to do it or having to do the work virtually yeah you know i think for me one of the one of the coolest things about doing this project um is is you know more conventionally in csm i've really leveraged it for other data models for for private sector companies but i think one of the most rewarding things is getting to see the value of servicenow and helping people helping public citizens get the help that they need right i think that's you know one of the biggest things and the most rewarding part of this project is when a really bad situation came up servicenow was really able to help with providing that value and delivering for the citizens so i think that was one of the biggest pieces for me awesome well those were all the questions that had come in so thank you guys both for an awesome session today and for getting all those questions answered um actually we did just get one more um do you see any trends on the quantity of inbound interactions or cases as things seem to be getting back to normal so the short answer is their less than during peak but we still are are receiving um at this time six to eight times the initial claim volume that we saw prior to the pandemic and we're still paying five time five to six times as many people so supporting those number of individuals is just sort of lends itself to higher numbers of inquiries and then changes in programs you know we're we're putting new changes in new uh new systems and processes in place which cause questions uh and then you drive issues like the 1099 and and other related issues that are that are driving volume and as a shared fraud is one that is driving volume both from the employer side of the house and and from individuals so it's getting better just not back to normal well thank you daryl for joining us in today's session and thank you to josh and ethan from the glide fast team for helping us present this case study great job you guys um and if anyone has any more questions don't hesitate to reach out to us at info glidefast.com this session will be recorded posted on our website and our youtube page so you can definitely re-watch it there um and to see any more sessions just check us out at glidefest.com thank you everyone for joining today's session and enjoy the rest of your day [Applause] you