Case study: nib Health Funds

How we provided a new network model to help a growing health insurance business to expand without disruption.

Overview

Rapid growth in its business and customer base resulted in great success for nib, however it posed a challenge for handling increased call and data volumes as well as collaboration across the business.

nib Health Funds

  • Industry: Insurance
  • Solution: IP WAN and SIP Voice

Challenge

  • Improve intra-business collaboration
  • Physical separation of their offices and workforce

Outcome

  • Vocus' solution has allowed nib to continue expanding its operations without disruption

The challenge: rapid growth.

With more than 1.2 million customers across ANZ, nib is one of Australia's fastest-growing health insurers. The company aims to offer world-class products and services and pioneer innovation in the health insurance industry.

A rapid growth of their business and customer base has seen nib expand across the ANZ region with hubs in Newcastle, Sydney and Auckland. While the expansion has resulted in great success for the business, the company identified an opportunity to improve intra-business collaboration due to the physical separation of their of­fices and workforce.

Additionally, increasing demand from customers had resulted in larger call volumes to multiple, dispersed contact centres which was placing signifi­cant strain on the traditional network.

nib sought a telco partner that could solve these problems by implementing a dependable trans-Tasman solution. A network that would not only be able to improve communication channels between nib’s internal teams, but also result in greater customer service outcomes for its thriving customer base.

With a real trans-Tasman ­fibre network and regional connectivity extending to Hong Kong, Singapore and the US, as well as solid experience in delivering bespoke and targeted telecommunications services, Vocus was the obvious choice for nib.

“We selected Vocus because our business had expanded nationally, and more recently across the Tasman, so we needed a partner that could ensure our operations were equipped to meet these new demands,” said Brendan Mills, Chief Information Offi­cer, nib.

What did nib have to say about us?

“We selected Vocus because our business had expanded nationally, and more recently across the Tasman, so we needed a partner that could ensure our operations were equipped to meet these new demands."

Brendan Mills, Chief Information Offi­cer
nib

Collaboration and coordination

Working with Vocus, nib implemented a new network model that provided converged contact centre SIP voice connectivity and IP WAN data network services.

“The voice services with Vocus are predominately SIP based which instantly improved our ability to manage and shift calls within our contact centre delivery points. Furthermore, this enabled us to cater for peaks and troughs in call volume as we could reallocate calls, routing them wherever we wanted,” said Brendan.

“The IP WAN network services allowed us to present rich communication to end points across our network including improving communication channels between our internal teams by introducing collaboration tools such as video conferencing. Our old infrastructure simply did not have the bandwidth to handle video.”

The new communications model has not only allowed nib to continue to expand its operations without any disruption, but has also opened the door to further development in terms of online customer service and communication.

“We think video will become a channel of choice for customers wanting to interact with us and we are now confident that we can offer that with the bandwidth we have in place,” said Brendan.

“The new model is commercially sound and it will also deliver cost savings in terms of downtime, but the greatest benefit to our business has been the overall improvement in the delivery of communications services. The relationship with Vocus has been key to allowing us to build on this momentum.

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