HIRA and SK Broadband Named Top ARS Excellence Institutions

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 14th that it selected the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service and SR as excellent institutions in the public sector, and SK Broadband and NongHyup Property & Casualty Insurance in the private sector for their telephone automated response system (ARS).

This evaluation was conducted over approximately four months (August to November) targeting a total of 500 institutions, including 80 in the public sector and 420 in the private sector, based on 15 indicators such as the time taken to connect to a counselor, whether callback services are provided, and the extent of usage fee sharing.

As a result of the evaluation, the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service received high scores in areas such as 'counselor connection time' and 'callback service provision,' and SK Broadband scored highly across all evaluation indicators, being selected as the top excellent institutions in the public and private sectors respectively. SR and NongHyup Property & Casualty Insurance were recognized as excellent institutions due to their high service improvement rates in ARS evaluations over the past three years.

The overall evaluation score was 63.6 points, an increase of 1.1 points from 62.5 points in 2019. Improvements were noted compared to the previous year in areas such as step-by-step counselor connection, ARS service configuration stages, minimization of waiting time, prior notice of usage fees, and provision of various services. Last year, the average waiting time to connect to a counselor was 21.44 seconds, improved from 28.52 seconds the previous year.

By industry, ARS services in the finance and insurance sectors were rated excellent, while the construction and transportation sectors were evaluated as relatively lacking.

The Ministry of Science and ICT stated, "We plan to recommend ARS service improvements to companies that lack counselor connection functions, have long connection waiting times, or do not have features such as replay or returning to previous menus," and added, "Starting this year, we plan to select major industries with significant impact on citizens' lives and high ARS usage rates for focused evaluation."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.