Customer service on a statewide level
Louisiana’s Health and Human Services programs include child support and other critical public assistance and self-sufficiency programs. To better support the wide variety of services their citizens require across the state, they decided to revamp their call center operations through a case management system that could integrate seamlessly with existing state systems. Microsoft partner, YoungWilliams, is now working with the state of Louisiana to deliver services through a cloud-supported statewide customer service center. I recently spoke to YoungWilliams’ John Tidwell, CTO, John Stapleton, VP of Contact Centers, and Mary Johnson, VP of Special Projects to learn more.
Congratulations on winning the Louisiana Statewide Customer Service Center contract. Please tell me about that project, what’s in scope, and how it helps the State and its citizens?
YoungWilliams will operate Louisiana’s statewide customer service call center, with the option for state departments, political subdivisions, and other government entities to procure services as well. The first new customer service center under this master contract launched successfully on March 11, 2019, replacing previous call center operations for the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). We are now providing services for DCFS from our contact center in Bossier City, Louisiana and have plans to open a second facility in Baton Rouge. Our team responds to inquiries and generates outreach on behalf of child support, Family Independence Temporary Assistance Program (FITAP), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and other programs under the umbrella of DCFS.
Please tell me more about YoungWilliams and what your team brings to this Louisiana project.
YoungWilliams is headquartered in Ridgeland, Mississippi. We have over 1,400 employees in 62 offices across 11 states and have provided services to state and local government agencies for over two decades. Our operations include statewide customer service centers, local child support offices, a payment processing center, and legal services for case management projects. Our primary focus is the needs of our state and local customers and their citizens, which has earned the company several awards for excellent customer care.
I understand part of YoungWilliams standard offering is Y-Trac, and that you’re moving that to the cloud. What does Y-Trac provide to Health and Human Services organizations, and what made you decide to move in the direction of the cloud?
The YoungWilliams Y-Trac™ application is a cloud-based dynamic case management solution designed for constituent case work. Y-Trac™ seamlessly integrates with state systems of record, our contact center solution, and Electronic Document Management Systems in order to bring all inbound and outbound channels of communications into a unified workflow, task, and workforce management application. Robust data analytics enable Y-Trac™ to recognize every action that is not automated and requires human intervention, then prioritizes and routes that task to the appropriate person/group who has the right skills to complete the work. All work can be reviewed for quality assurance and scored accordingly. Y-Trac™ provides an unprecedented view into current operations for supervisors, managers, and our state/local government clients to ensure actions are accurate, timely, and compliant with policy, service level agreements, and regulations.
Why did you select Microsoft and Azure as a partner for Y-Trac and the Louisiana project?
YoungWilliams has long been a customer of Microsoft and chose the .Net platform when building Y-Trac™. So, it was only fitting that when we decided to explore Cloud service providers, Microsoft’s Health and Human Services division approached us about partnering to offer state and local government Y-Trac™ and Microsoft Azure Government Cloud together. Because Y-Trac™ was built on Windows Server, Windows SQL Server, and the .Net platform, it proved to be an easy migration to Microsoft Azure Government Cloud. In addition, Azure Gov has the FedRAMP and IRS compliance that is required by our state and local government clients. Moving Y-Trac™ to Azure Gov allows our IT Team, developers, and management access to a wealth of tools, such as ChatBots, Robotic Process Automation, Data Lakes, and PowerBI to further enhance the power of our solutions for our government clients.
What are YoungWilliams’ plans for the future in terms of enhancing the Louisiana solution, Y-Trac, and beyond?
YoungWilliams is working with our partners, like Microsoft, to deliver personalized, proactive, and predictive experiences through advanced AI capabilities for customer service, employee engagement, and business optimization. Along with Robotic Process Automation in Y-Trac™, AI will further enhance our services, providing our clients and their constituents with better outcomes through timely, accurate, and personalized interactions. This will lower costs to state and local government while simultaneously improving performance. When combined with the scalability and security of Microsoft Azure Government Cloud, the sky really is the limit in terms of opportunities for government to transform their operations.
Get more information about Y-TracTM and YoungWilliams’ other solutions. You can also learn about the digital transformation of other Health and Human Services agencies.
