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How Firefly Network Eliminated 90% of Call Routing Overhead Without Losing the Human Touch
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Background
When Fritz Griffioen learned his insurance network's longtime receptionist was retiring, he faced every agency owner's nightmare: How do you replace someone who manually routes 200+ customer calls monthly across a 200+ branch network?
The traditional answer - hire another receptionist and hope they learn the system - felt like putting a band-aid on a broken process. Firefly Agency Network needed something better.
The Challenge: Success Creating Its Own Problems
Firefly's growth had created an unexpected operational burden. As their network expanded to over 200 independent branches, their main phone number appeared on policy declaration pages everywhere. The result? A constant stream of customers calling the central number instead of their assigned agents.
Their small internal team was drowning in routine tasks: looking up customer information, identifying the correct agent, and manually transferring calls while providing context.
With an experienced receptionist planning retirement, Firefly faced a choice: continue the manual process with new staff, or find a fundamentally better solution.
"We waste valuable time handling non-revenue generating calls that are distracting our producers" Fritz explains.
The Solution: AI That Customers Actually Prefer
After meeting Sonant at an industry conference, Firefly decided to pilot an AI receptionist named Eva. But this wasn't typical phone tree automation - Eva was specifically trained for insurance workflows and integrated directly with their EZLynx database.
The implementation involved four critical components:
- Database Integration: Eva integrates directly with their EZLynx database, giving her instant access to customer information for 70,000+ customers without requiring API development.
- Intelligent Fallback Systems: When phone number matching failed, Eva could naturally ask for policy numbers or addresses to identify the correct agent, ensuring virtually every customer reached their destination.
- Natural Conversation Flow: Instead of robotic menus, Eva engages in authentic conversations that feel completely human to customers.
- VIP Bypass List: For certain pre-identified questions, Eva automatically forwards the call to their respective branches.
The Results
The Results: Beyond Their Wildest Expectations
The transformation was immediate and dramatic:
Firefly achieved a 90% reduction in manual call routing, going from around 200 call transfers to just 20 in the first month — a significant improvement noted by Taylor, the company’s customer service manager.
The transition was completely seamless for customers, delivering a flawless customer experience. Taylor noted that Eva sounds authentically human, allowing natural conversations without any awkward pauses or indications that callers are speaking with an AI.
After processing over 2,000 calls, Firefly reported zero customer complaints about the AI interaction. The system also delivered enhanced operational capacity, handling multiple calls simultaneously and eliminating the bottlenecks that previously occurred when human staff were busy.
Reflecting on the transformation, Andy Kirkham, Firefly’s Operations Manager, summed it up simply:
Sonant was the best thing we've done this year.
Looking Forward: Scaling the Success
Firefly's success with call routing has revealed additional automation opportunities. They're now exploring mortgage company certificate processing and enhanced service request handling. Andy Kirkham, Firefly's operations manager reflects:
"What's interesting is thinking about what else is possible (...)" "We started just thinking about call forwarding, but now we're seeing opportunities we hadn't even considered."
For other insurance networks facing similar challenges, Fritz offers this advice:
"The sooner we could get something like this working, the better it would benefit our team. There's really no reason to wait if you find a good solution."
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