Hey! Danielle here – although most of our readers probably know me as myHSA D, or just “D,” I will also accept “

Tenacious D ” and “ Sunny D .”

I wanted to share a bit of my background – where I came from before joining the myHSA team, along with experiences I’ve carried over into my day-to-day life working here.

Before myHSA, I was a West Coast (best coast) local, working for The City of Vancouver’s 3-1-1 office. I started there in 2016, and my primary role was City services dispatch. That’s right – I worked in a call center. We would take thousands of calls a day, ranging from misbehaving traffic lights to overdue property taxes to beloved pets running at large!

I would take a call, dispatch the proper crew or log a ticket, let the citizen know help was on the way, hang up, and take a cool 30 seconds to catch my breath and take a sip of water before the next call came in. It was non-stop, and citizens typically waited 10-15 minutes before connecting through to an agent.

Okay, so – why am I telling you all this? Well, I happened to work there once they finally decided to implement a Live Chat feature on the Municipal website. Our call wait times were getting too long – citizens were getting too frustrated, and we needed a more efficient way to assist our users.

I was drafted onto a small, 8-employee trial team for the front lines of live chat – trained to be calm and steady in case someone became angry with us, using

ALL CAPITAL LETTERS TO EXPRESS SUCH DISTRESS

!

To my pleasant surprise, I found our users were actually happier when I assisted them on Live Chat than I had experienced over the phone. They were so relieved to not have to wait on hold and listen to crappy jazz music on a repetitive loop.

Their questions were answered instantaneously and clearly. If they needed to send screenshots or photos, they could do so, and I could see what it was they were looking at. I could assist more than one customer at once and provide more concise answers and consistent help than ever before. Not to mention – I could keep a chat transcript! This means the next time they needed to follow up, all I would have to do is pull up their previous chat to see where we left off. It changed everything.

Fast forward a few years later to my interview with myHSA. I sat across the table from Tim and Steve, jittering over my fourth cup of coffee that day. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this new company or the position I was pursuing. Yet, the moment they said, “We assist all of our users over Live Chat,” a grin spread across my face and a twinkle in my eyes.

“I’m really good at that!” I blurted out loud... then caught myself: “I don’t mean to brag, but seriously, Live Chat is kind of my thing!”

I explained why Live Chat works best for both the user and our staff – and they were already ahead of me on everything I said.

It was a match made in HSA Heaven .

I’ve now been on the myHSA team for just about a year and a half, and our chat line is busier than ever. When people come into chat asking for a phone call, I can almost always convert them to the live chat option if they just give me a chance. Not only does it assist the day-to-day customer support, but it also builds rapport with our users.

I’ve really gotten to know a lot of our users through the chat. Sometimes our advisors come into Live Chat to simply catch up, and they don’t even have a pressing HSA issue to talk about. It’s awesome.

Danielle Constantine Client Coordinator myHSA