About 211 Virginia
211 Virginia has served the Commonwealth for over 15 years, connecting the community with essential resources. 211 Virginia is a free and confidential service offering access to crisis and emergency counseling, disaster, food, health care, insurance, stable housing assistance, employment, veteran, family services, and more to a wide population. 211 Virginia is the Commonwealth’s largest information and referral network available for social services. With an easy-to-remember three-digit dialing code, 211 Virginia connects people with help, 24 hours a day, 365 days in the year.

Industry: Non-profit social services

Location: Roanoke, VA

Contact Center Size: 25-50 seats

Use Case: Reduce call volume, increase text adoption

Product: Textel Conversations integration with NICE CXone

The Problem: Overwhelmed by a Surging Call Volume, 211 Virginia Struggled to Keep Up

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, 211 Virginia was prepared to meet the inevitable increase in community needs. By June 2021, the state of emergency was lifted, but another variant of the virus was on the rise. And the team at 211 Virginia saw an unexpected and dramatic rise in inquiries again. Relief services and eviction and utility moratoriums were set to end, placing thousands of renters in Virginia in a crisis. Then, with COVID numbers continuing to rise with the delta and omicron variants, 211 Virginia was in over their heads.

Their contact center was setting records for the number of inquiries they were receiving; their call volume was escalating.

As a result, abandonment rates skyrocketed, community needs were unmet, and their agents had to ultimately suspend collecting demographic data to keep up. Overall, 211 Virginia saw an 18% increase in call volume and a 34% increase in unmet needs through 2020 and 2021. They needed to find a solution to juggle the intake.

The Solution: 211 Virginia Team Added Texting to Reduce Call Volume & Solve Operational Pains

With such a significant increase in inquiries, 211 Virginia needed to find a way to lower its call abandonment rate and provide its inquirers with an additional, more flexible communication channel. Meanwhile, their contact center specialists were overwhelmed, drained by the endless incoming calls.

They turned to Textel for help. In May of 2021, the 211 Virginia team went live with texting, adding Textel to their existing NICE CXone platform in their contact center. In the first year, they saw an increase from initial inbound texts averaging around 580 texts to receiving an average of nearly 14,000 incoming texts. That bump in volume made texting their second preferred communication channel in just one year.

Texting Supported Internal Operations and Employee Engagement

Textel’s product integrated with 211 Virginia’s existing NICE CXone platform. This made implementation and adoption simple. The contact center staff, varied in its age demographic, took on the learning curve of the new technology and found texting to be a helpful break from the phone.

Because of the nature of calls 211 Virginia receives, it’s important that their employees are mentally prepared to support crisis and emergency situations. “Specialists think of text as a little bit like a break from being on the phone,” said contact center director Margaret Telsch-Williams. “They don’t have somebody in their ear, but they’re still doing their job.”

According to Telsch-Williams, the community resource specialists look forward to handling incoming texts, avoiding the “wear down” and mental burnout parts of helping customers through crisis moments. Texting gave employees a breather and variety in their day, breaking the monotony of talking non-stop or listening to callers who are upset and stressed themselves.

211 Virginia said their texting inquiries take almost twice as long as a call to resolve. This may sound like an issue operationally, but in reality, the interruptions in a texting conversation made it possible for 211 Virginia to help more people simultaneously. Once they found a workflow, specialists could handle multiple text threads at the same time. And, the 211 Virginia team was able to care for multiple inquirers and support their own employees in the process.

Texting also fixed the problem of collecting demographic data. “We have a series of demographic questions we have to ask incoming callers,” Telsch-Williams said. “But when we got our texting set up so that it automatically asks those questions for us via text, that helped us greatly in terms of the duration of time that an inquiry takes. By the time a caller connects with a specialist, we already have so much information on the caller, allowing us to get to the heart of their needs right away.”

With texting, 211 Virginia was able to relieve some of the stress from their overwhelming call volume and streamline operations, driving efficiency in their contact center.

Texting Met the Unique Needs of the Community

211 Virginia’s mission requires them to be available at all hours in the day, every day of the year, to support anyone who calls. Often, their callers are in distress, navigating homelessness, job loss, and/or
financial and emotional stress. Many of their inquirers are feeling ashamed and anxious when they reach out to 211 Virginia. By adding texting as a channel, 211 Virginia noticed how texting supported their community’s unique needs.

“A lot of our inquiries are personal and confidential in nature. And some people are not doing well when they reach out,” explained community engagement manager Amanda Holcomb. “Many are ashamed in their situations, so it’s hard to ask for help. But it’s a lot easier when your identity is a bit more distant than with a voice having to share that information. Some people are more likely to send a text or a chat or an email than they are to call because it feels a little less direct.”

Telsch-Williams added that texting is helping their most vulnerable community members navigate a scary and stressful time in their life.

“We had somebody who was texting us from the bathroom of a hotel room. She was actively homeless, but was staying in a hotel,” Telsch-Williams said. “Her kids were in the bedroom area and she was texting us from the bathroom. She was crying, needing help, but didn’t want to be vulnerable or fall apart in front of her kids.”

“With texting, though, she could reach out for help and could do so quietly with us,” she added. “We were able to give her information on how to find housing and how to fix her situation. She didn’t know what to do. She had never been through this before. But because she could reach out over text, she was able to have that moment away from her kids to breathe, problem solve, and still receive help.”

The Result: With Textel, 211 Virginia Cut Down Call Volume and Boosted Efficiency

Increased text adoption by 400%.

211 Virginia saw their texting skyrocket in just one year. The organization went from averaging 579 inbound SMS messages annually to 13,838 messages annually. Inquirers were eager for a channel that offered more flexibility than live chat or a phone call and more anonymity when navigating crisis situations.

Texting became the #2 preferred contact method, second only
to their phone line.

After one year of use, texting became the second preferred communication channel in 211 Virginia’s contact center. With overwhelming call volumes following the COVID-19 pandemic, inquirers could choose texting as a more flexible channel to reach out for help and resources.

Streamlined operations and demographic data collection.

Since Textel is fully integrated into NICE CXone, their existing contact center platform, 211 Virginia adopted the new texting process quickly and easily. And with an added channel relieving their phone lines, the team reduced call volume, giving agents a break from the phones. They also figured out how to streamline data collection, creating a faster and more personalized user experience.