What Are The Benefits And Challenges Of Customer Service In A Healthcare Call Center?

Healthcare call centers serve a different purpose. Their focus is on improving people’s physical and mental well being, helping them navigate the healthcare system, and they are fundamental to a great patient experience (PX).

This makes them unique compared to conventional consumer-facing contact centers in that when a user contacts their local health system, they are not asking about a product return or estimated delivery time. Rather, they are calling to make an appointment, either for a routine exam or to request a test.

Because of this, healthcare call centers focus on emotional connections, trust, relationship building, and empathy.

What Are The Benefits Of Health Care Contact Centers?

These types of call centers are much more than customer service. In addition to providing a central place for patients to interact with your health system, it provides several specific benefits that are essential to acquiring, engaging and retaining patients. Here we list four of them:

1) Greater Participation

Agents are on the front lines of patient engagement. Whether it’s a caller’s first interaction with the center or their hundredth, it’s important for agents to help drive their engagement. And although there are many ways for patients and users to communicate with their health system, many still choose to call by phone. In fact, 85% of patients still schedule their appointments over the phone, according to Mercury Healthcare.

Having a call center with qualified and trained agents who can answer the questions of callers and resolve their doubts is key to keeping patients and users engaged. For this reason, it is important to offer personalized care through knowledge of the patient’s history.

2) Improved Patient Satisfaction

Health systems seeking to improve patient satisfaction must focus on creating a high-quality experience.

Two of the most important factors in improving a patient’s satisfaction are trained, competent agents and a personalized experience. Both can be accomplished at the same time by giving your agents easy access to caller information. If an agent knows her background, she will have the knowledge to deliver a highly personalized experience, increasing satisfaction.

3) Better Retention Through Follow-Up

Healthcare call centers also play an important role in patient retention, for example by sending appointment reminders via SMS and following up afterwards.

In addition, a follow-up strategy implies proactive attention. Thus, agents can consult the profile and see if a patient needs an annual appointment, or even a specific medical test. Likewise, it is important that the agent addresses the patient by his / her name and ensures that he / she receives timely care. This personalized approach to contact center services helps build loyalty.

4) Higher ROI

Healthcare contact centers can generate a three-to-one return on investment, according to McKesson, thereby boosting both revenue and patient loyalty.

There are a few reasons why high quality engagement improves ROI (return on investment). If a patient receives high-quality care when she needs it most, she will continue to seek services from that provider. Additionally, a positive experience for callers will result in better brand awareness, and possibly even a large number of new patients due to good referrals. Combined, these factors will increase your return on investment.

What Are The Common Challenges Within The Healthcare Call Center?

Leaders of this type of contact center have to adjust both the training and the technology that supports an agent’s success. These factors require time and resources, but overcoming these challenges is key to delivering a high-quality experience.

1) Performance Tracking

There is a dizzying number of metrics that healthcare call centers can track. For that reason, it’s crucial to focus on the metrics that matter, and that often means measuring patient experience and ROI.

Tracking operational metrics such as first call resolution (FCR) or churn rate can help your health system identify areas to improve agent efficiency. However, don’t focus too much on these, as operational metrics can impede progress if leadership focuses more on efficiency than experience.

Leadership must balance operational measurement with growth metrics. This will help measure the value of the relationship between business development, marketing and the call center. By focusing on income-generating activities, additional investment can be obtained to support continued growth.

2) Recruitment And Training

An agent’s training and behavior can make or break a patient’s experience, so finding the right staff and equipping them with the necessary tools and technology is crucial. However, that is not easy. During a typical shift, agents can handle anywhere from a few dozen to 100 calls, messages or emails, and many work unusual hours to accommodate patient needs. The stress and lack of organizational support inherent in many healthcare call centers can add up to a high turnover rate.

Therefore, leadership must begin by recruiting emotionally intelligent and technologically savvy agents. Once qualified candidates are recruited, training them properly is the next investment. After training, officers should feel supported and comfortable in whatever situation they may encounter. This will ensure the retention of the best staff.

3) Culture Change

Patient needs are changing and healthcare call centers need to ensure their culture keeps up. However, changing it is not an easy task. Management, agents, and even the leadership team can cling to outdated practices out of habit, making effective operations a real challenge.

Breaking those habits and creating an engaging work culture will reap long-term benefits for both the contact center and patients. Cultural changes can help improve efficiency and patient care.

4) Find The Right Technology

By equipping agents with modern technology, you can help them improve efficiency while delivering a quality, personalized experience. Finding the right technology, such as an integrated solution with your healthcare CRM, is critical to overcoming common contact center challenges.

This technological transformation is necessary to turn the healthcare call center into a revenue-generating asset.

In conclusion, the contact center is usually the first interaction a patient has with their health system. Because of this, there is a great opportunity for agents to make a great first impression that will improve patient engagement and satisfaction. If this is leveraged and supported with data-driven technology and processes, the call center will have a positive impact on patient acquisition and retention initiatives.