Healthcare is the most sensitive industry as it deals with the health and life of human beings. There can be compromises made in various other aspects of life, but not with healthcare. Every person wants the best possible care and the doctors do dish that out. Staying in the healthcare industry requires a proactive approach. Laid back approach can cost more than you can ever think of. It has to be constantly kept in mind that a minute’s delay is all there is between life and death. In the wake of such a fact, the receptions of busy healthcare organizations are always choke a blocked with customer queries. Often the number of queries or requests is so large that some people sitting behind the desks are not able to do justice. This is why the leading healthcare organizations are using the call center solutions for such services.
Why Call Centers are Essential for Healthcare Industry?
The patients trust a healthcare organization over another because they believe a hospital has better doctors and support staff. The fame of a hospital does not rely solely on the qualification and quality of the doctors but all the staff. Before getting across to the doctors, the patients and their family members have to communicate with the helpdesk. Whether it is regarding emergency or regular admission, checkup or any other appointments – all the functions are carried out by the receptionist. Now, you can outsource this customer care process to a reputed call center. The benefits of doing so are many.
1. Agents are trained to tackle the incoming calls efficiently; they are never frustrated or irritated by calls.
2. They can handle high volume of calls without drop in quality; whether it is the first or hundredth call the agent will be courteous and helpful.
3. Agents can process the requests quickly and take action to save time.
4. They can offer flawless appointment setting services.
5. Agents from the multilingual support can speak to the non-English speaking callers too.
6. Helpdesk is open for 24X7, which means that your callers will always find a way to your hospital no matter what time it is.
7. With the organized pre-treatment process, the healthcare organization can solely concentrate on the things they do best.
8. There will be proper documentation maintained for each and every incoming or outgoing call, so that the documents can be verified.
Why Training is so important for Health Call Center?
As healthcare call center is an in-demand area of work, so most of the call centers are calling themselves champions at this. But the problem lies in their lack of understanding. Everyone who is a part of a healthcare set up has gone through years of education to earn their places. All but the customer care employees, they might get the job without any certification at all. They may not have any idea about medical terminologies and conditions. This is a very risky situation for both the healthcare facility and the call center. It can lead to loss of life even! This is why the agents who are part of the health care call center should undergo hours or even days of training before they are thrown into the process.
What are the Essentials of Training?
There are many contact centers which throw their agents in the midst of a healthcare process without sufficient training. A basic or generalized training would suffice aptly for any other process. But the key to success for a health call center process lies in the customized training schedule you can come up with. If the agents are ill trained the attrition rates will be very high. Modern customers are Internet savvy and thus they have access to all types of medical information. So, it is expected that the questions they will ask regarding the healthcare would not be basic questions. If the agents answer wrong it will be understood in a few minutes. So, using a different training session for the health call center agents is essential.
1. The first step is to give a thorough training about the basic terminologies of healthcare and some treatment processes.
2. Second step would be to give a complete understanding of the hospital or healthcare organization that you are representing – its history, capacity and various facilities.
3. For detailed understanding of the medical sector take the help of a consultant or medical practitioner to provide in-depth understanding of the things that the organization deals with.
4. Give trial runs to agents and record their conversations, have these analyzed by a senior medical practitioner and try to set up a training program that would address the common problems faced by the agents.
5. Unlike other processes, for the healthcare set ups technology should not take a front seat; the training should be all about the people and practices.
Every medical contact center process should be unique and customized as per the needs of the organization. It is necessary that a senior medical advisor is consulted.
Great post about medical call centers. So many times, I have been put on hold when talking to the front-desk people at the doctors’ office while they are helping someone who is at the office checking in or out, or paying their bill. I think that you could add to your list of benefits: Using a call service frees up in-office staff to do other, higher-priority jobs and help patients in person. Just a suggestion.