Customer service personnel are fair game for anyone who wants to complain. Though this has been a too-common pastime for years, the intensity and ferocity has increased in recent months. Anyone in a customer-facing role—or a patient-facing position—counters greater scrutiny, higher expectations, and lower patience now than at any time in history.
People today are frazzled. This comes from most all aspects of life, where work, family, and leisure pursuits don’t function as well as they once did. The result is more demanding people than ever, shorter fuses on their tempers, and the much lower likelihood of anyone bothering to say thank you for a job done well.
Just as this applies to your office staff, it also relates to your diligent, hard-working medical answering service.
Be Thankful for a Prompt Answer
The goal of any answering service is to answer your telephone calls. This is a given. Some answering services do this quite well, while others struggle. But it’s not possible for a person to answer every call on the first ring every time. Few callers expect this, so push that thought aside. Instead, seek a goal for promptness. An average time of three rings is excellent. This means that some calls will be answered faster and others, a bit slower, with an average goal of three.
The best answering services can achieve this. If yours does, be sure to acknowledge their work and be sure to thank them. Though this is what you pay them to do, some kind words will go a long way and mean so much to them. And you’ll feel better too.
Be Thankful for Professional, Personal Interactions
Have you ever shaken your head at poor customer service, be it in person, over the phone, or online? It happens, but it should be rare and not the norm. If you have a professional medical answering service, they pursue excellence on every call, just as you do with every patient interaction in your office.
Be sure to thank your answering service for the wonderful job they do for you, both on Thanksgiving and throughout the year. Your answering service’s employees will remember your kind words and appreciate you for thinking of them.
Be Thankful for Making Great First Impressions
We often think of an answering service as answering phone calls, giving out information, and taking messages or dispatching emergencies. Yes, they do this on every call, every day. But the overall outcome is making great telephone impressions. And the impression they make over the telephone with your patients and callers is often the first impression that they receive. It shapes their outlook for everything that happens afterward.
This means that your answering service can help your patient interactions go well or unfold with challenging difficulty. Be sure to thank them for making great first impressions with each caller on each call year-round.
Action Plan
Your answering service works hard for you. Be sure to let them know how much you appreciate all they do. Thank them now, and thank them throughout the year.
Learn how medical answering service from MedConnectUSA can help your practice, clinic, or facility. Then get a free quote to discover how affordable their healthcare communication services are.