Eric Strom

Eric Strom has spent nearly three decades in benefits administration, working across technology, operations, and service before becoming Senior Vice President of the Service Center at bswift. He now oversees support for more than six million participants and their families, often at moments when the right answer on health coverage, enrollment, or benefits can have real consequences.

Strom has helped move bswift from a largely reactive, single-channel model toward digital-first, omnichannel support, while resisting the idea that transformation should begin with cost reduction. 

“We’re going to improve the customer experience, and that will save money”, he says.

A similar philosophy guides his use of AI. Strom has championed agent-assist technology and a more comprehensive knowledge system that can surface relevant information and workflows while a representative is helping someone. 

He also looks beyond traditional service metrics and considers customer effort, satisfaction, employee engagement, repeat contacts, and whether the technology helped produce the right outcome. AI can then help trace an unsuccessful interaction back through the system, showing what information was surfaced, whether it was used, and where the knowledge base may have fallen short.

For Strom, customers should be able to solve more problems inside digital experiences without contacting a service center, while the people handling the remaining interactions should have better technology behind them. To him, those are complementary investments.