While many people still refer to a hospital’s call center as the “switchboard,” technology has brought in a new era of telephone communications, which can significantly increase productivity while maximizing the institution’s ROI.
Indeed, the concept is the same in terms of routing calls to where they need to be going, but with minimal human intervention. In other words, call center optimization is at the heart of both increasing productivity and maximizing returns on the hospital’s investment in call center operations. Here are some ways to make all that happen.
Reduction in Human Intervention
As mentioned above, call center technology can greatly reduce the need for operators to answer literally every incoming call. With speech recognition technology, callers can speak their requests to be routed to the appropriate department, floor, or patient room. Of course, there will always be an option to speak with an operator if the caller isn’t sure who or what they are looking for, but a great percentage of callers will be patched through to the party they wish to reach without ever speaking with a human operator.
Having the Ability to Manage Greater Volumes of Calls
With the right call center platform, greater numbers of calls can be efficiently managed which, in turn, increases productivity. Where callers once waited in line for several minutes to speak with an operator who placed them on hold to return to the previous caller, speech recognition capabilities can now handle dozens of calls while the operator is still speaking with one caller.
Automated Paging and Messaging
It is important to consider the right call center platform when seeking to automate as much as possible. Not only can automating paging and messaging get callers through quicker in emergency situations but it can significantly reduce overhead in terms of payroll. Both increasing volume through speech recognition and automated paging and messaging are two of the biggest ways in which call center technology can impact payroll in that department. The more calls that can be handled by an automated system, the fewer operators will need to be on duty at any given time. This is efficiency and productivity at it’s very best.
Better Customer Service
Finally, one of the biggest complaints consumers make when rating hospitals is related to the customer service they don’t get when calling an institution to get the information they need. People don’t like to be put on hold indefinitely just to find a patient’s room or to speak with someone in Radiology or Billing. With a greater number of calls being handled with speech recognition and automated messaging, operators have more time to spend giving exemplary customer service to anyone with whom they speak.
At the end of the day, healthcare is in crisis and part of that is the high costs associated with literally every aspect of the industry. Along with shortages in medical personnel and the rising costs of energy and other utilities, hospitals are realizing losses greater than ever before. Technology can offer increased productivity, which then offers significantly higher profitability – one big solution to the ongoing crisis.
Author Bio: Boris Dzhingarov graduated University of National and World Economy with major marketing. He writes for several sites online such as Semrush, Tweakyourbiz and Socialnomics.net. Boris is the founder of Tech Surprise and MonetaryLibrary.
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