In a time when medical practices, clinics, and healthcare facilities turn to their call centers for more support in providing essential communication services they can encounter one of two outcomes. For those organizations that carefully chose a medical call center that specializes exclusively in the healthcare industry and has built a robust platform and hired accomplished staff to meet those needs, they see their call center vendor rising to the occasion. These service providers meet and exceed expectations.
However, not all healthcare organizations have made such careful deliberations in selecting a call center provider. They made their selection based on price instead of capabilities. Though sometimes going with the low-cost provider makes sense, when it comes to maintaining professional communications with patients, especially in the middle of a health crisis, quality matters. These short-sighted, budget-conscious healthcare organizations that picked the wrong provider are now seeing their call center falling apart when they need them the most.
A Failure to Meet Expectations
During normal situations and times are good, healthcare organizations have a base level set of expectations for their call center partners. However, when these healthcare providers face staff shortages and encounter social distancing recommendations, they turn more to their call centers for help. Yet too many unprepared call centers fail to meet the expectations of their clients during this critical time.
Though no one knows for sure if their call center can rise to the occasion when they expect more, ask one critical question. Is your call center able to meet expectations during normal conditions? If they struggle under regular circumstances, they’ll fall apart during challenging situations.
Therefore an accomplished medical call center that can meet or exceed expectations in the course of doing their regular work is in the best position to continue to exceed expectations during trying times.
Unanswered Phone Calls
Though no call center can guarantee to have a person answer every phone call, the leading medical call centers do much better than the typical provider. When call centers experience more call traffic due to increased work, are they able to answer the call?
Unanswered calls are a disservice to you and your patients. For call centers that try to cut corners as a normal part of their business, letting calls ring without anyone answering them is a common result. How much more pronounced is this dilemma when they receive more calls during a pandemic?
Yet unanswered calls don’t have to be the outcome. Leading medical call centers have built into their infrastructure and their planning the ability to adjust quickly and answer as many calls as possible, outperforming lesser-prepared call centers. In doing so they are able to exceed expectations.
Delays in Answering
In most cases if the caller is willing to wait the call center will eventually answer their call. But the patient could encounter extreme delays. This means forcing the caller to listen to a ringing telephone or answering calls with a recording and leaving patients on hold for a long time.
Is It Time to Switch?
If during normal conditions your call center struggled in these areas—not meeting expectations, leaving calls unanswered, or taking too long to answer them—then they are certainly struggling even more now. Maybe it’s time to switch to an advanced medical call center that is prepared for such a contingency. They stand poised to meet and exceed expectations.
And even if you decide that now is the wrong time to switch, keep your frustrations in mind. Make a note on your calendar. Once things return to normal will be an ideal time to change providers. And when you do so, select a medical call center that is prepared to manage your communication needs during a crisis, as well as afterward.
They will meet and exceed expectations.
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. Peter Lyle DeHaan is a freelance writer and call center authority.