In the present era, the consumption of healthcare facilities has enhanced in such a significant amount that it has caused organizations of all sizes to re-think a fundamental question:
Are we treating the patients, or are we serving them?
Many healthcare service providers have initiated treating people they are serving as patients and customers. Several healthcare organizations are not able to adapt to what their patients need as a customer. It results in poor customer service and leads to abandonment on the part of prospective and existing patients. Therefore, the healthcare service providers need to offer a quick resolution of queries of patients. Call center software assists healthcare service providers to do so.
Challenges in the healthcare industry
1. Poor call connect rate – Healthcare organizations face issues in reaching out to the patients and face high call abandonment rates.
2. Maintaining pace with various demands of customers – Healthcare service providers face problems in effectively handling appointment bookings, cancellations, and complaints of clients and patients.
3. Report collection – Patients delay in collecting the reports due to a busy schedule. Thus leading to a delay in the treatment.
The role of the call center in the healthcare industry
All small and prominent healthcare organizations have a team of calling agents to handle queries of customers. This team is liable for pre and post-care customer interactions. But effectively attending thousands of calls a day and offering a satisfactory response to patients is not an easy task. Contact center software is a one door solution to all these problems of the healthcare industry.
Features of contact center software
1. Interactive voice response – IVR is the first voice that your customer hears just after contacting you. It assists healthcare industries to be always in touch with patients and offers them a customized response.
2. Automatic call distribution – Automatic call distribution assists in systematically handling the calls. It ensures that calls get automatically routed to the most suitable agent, thus reducing the waiting time of the customer. It routes the call based on location, performance, least occupied routing, calls to the idle system, and several other parameters.
3. Call recording – Call recording feature in inbound call center software and outbound call center software records all incoming and outgoing calls. It aids businesses in monitoring call quality of their agents and also succors to the organization during the dispute between agent and customer.
4. Live call transfer – It assists agents in transferring the call to another agent without disconnecting the call to provide a satisfactory solution to the queries of the customer. It helps in reducing the waiting time of customers and enhances customer satisfaction.
5. Analytical reports – Call Center software offers analytical reports displaying call volumes on several days, peak hours, the number of missed and received calls, new and returning callers, traffic-generating from various geographical areas, and several other insights. It assists in scheduling calls, making staffing decisions, and analyzing the performance of agents and the satisfaction rate of customers.
Benefits of contact center software for the healthcare industry
Contact center software provides several benefits to patients. It’s smart call routing feature routes the call to the nearest ambulance and helps patients in reaching hospitals on time. Various benefits of contact center software for the healthcare industry include:
1. Easy access to reports – Call Center software helps hospitals to send the medical report of patients via email, SMS, or WhatsApp and other social media platforms.
2. Appointment and scheduling – Doctors and healthcare service providers can track and set appointments of patients. Call center software with integrated IVR makes appointments super easy for doctors and patients. It automatically schedules the meeting, handles cancellation, and sends out the remainder as well as complaints. It manages everything from scheduling appointments to post-treatment queries.
3. Virtual healthcare and telemedicine – Contact center software offers various features that make medicines and virtual healthcare easily accessible. It helps patients in getting contact with doctors virtually by using video conferencing features. It also enables doctors to get in contact with each other and discuss various health issues and new medicines. It saves effort, time, and money with superior patient satisfaction.
Apart from these benefits, other advantages of contact center software for the healthcare industry include:
- Smart call routing
- Access to the patient’s demographic data
- Audio and video conferencing
- Post-discharge engagement
- Quick complaint redressal
- Effective streamlining of outbound calls
- Omnichannel experience
- Built-in quality management
- Unified agent desktop
- Click to chat, click to call capabilities
- Support all digital channels
- AI powdered agent assistant
Conclusion
Contact center software makes healthcare services easily accessible to people and enhances the productivity and profitability of the Healthcare sector. Therefore, it is advisable to implement inbound and outbound call center software in healthcare service centers.