Posted & in Answering Services.

  What is patient care without a patient centered approach? When you consider just how vital patient satisfaction is throughout every interaction, this becomes especially true for the medical field, where emotions naturally run high. One of the best ways to ensure patient satisfaction is through impeccable customer service. When you work with a reliable telephone answering service, you can rest assured that your customers are satisfied and will keep coming back to your business or organization. Medical offices receive an estimated 2,000 calls on a daily basis, and more than 50% of customers—regardless of generation—typically use the phone to connect with service providers in multiple industries. Thus, this is the most frequently used mode of communication for patient relations. At Responsive Answering Service, we are here to help you navigate the ups and downs of customer satisfaction; by combating some of the biggest mistakes that businesses make when providing customer service.  These mistakes include inconsistent encounters with team members, missed or lost calls, and improper call handling techniques. When you prioritize patient satisfaction, your answering service can help keep patients happy throughout their experiences with your in-person practice and team. When patients come to you, they expect high-quality, fast, and efficient services. Meeting patient expectations is one way that you can improve your satisfaction metrics. Patients who have received multiple positive service encounters with your staff are more likely to; refer your practice to others, continue coming back for different requests, and foster a sense of loyalty to you and your practice. You value your patients and so do we. When you work with an answering service like Responsive Answering Service, you are receiving some of the highest quality customer service assistance to keep patient satisfaction and client retention statistics trending up. 

Inconsistency

The biggest mistake you can make when addressing patient satisfaction is to provide inconsistent services—whether that is your front desk staff or technicians. When patients reach out to your practice, they expect a similar experience over time. This might mean familiar faces at your in-person office, or recognizable names and voices when connecting with your answering service team. Keeping customer service techniques consistent across individuals is critical to maintaining a high level of satisfaction. 75% of customers desire a consistent experience, regardless of the mode of communication used. When individuals call your answering service after hours, they are highly likely to receive consistent experiences, thanks to strict call standards, and ongoing individualized coaching. These procedures are in place to work on maintaining an easily recognizable and pleasant interaction with any team member your patients could speak to after hours.    This has proven to be the industry standard, with SQM’s CX research showing that 93% of customers expect their query to be handled efficiently on their first attempt to reach a call center agent. These individuals are looking for easy to access services with on-call support that can address patient concerns on the first inquiry. Responsive Answering Service can help your on-call personnel stay consistent as well. We follow up on miSecure Message requests as well as phone calls every 10 minutes. That way, an answering service dispatcher can make sure that all patient and client requests are handled effectively and in a timely manner. Health practitioners of any level are extremely busy with patients, so it makes sense for the answering service to know and understand how to connect with overextended physicians. When you present yourself as friendly, caring, and maintain consistent patient interactions with the help of Responsive Answering Service, you’re making big strides in keeping your patients satisfied. 

Unavailability

  Everyone has spent time on the phone trying to connect to a real person, only to be stuck in an endless automated loop, with no end in sight. Some practices exclusively utilize an automated system like these to handle after-hours requests. Individuals want a patient experience that focuses on the whole person, not just their reason for making an appointment. An Ipsos survey found that 43% of Americans were unsatisfied with the medical system, which was almost double the percentage of other developed countries. This being said, when individuals feel that their providers aren’t available when they need them most, scenarios like the one above only feed into the decline of patient satisfaction over time.  When you work with Responsive Answering Service, you can become a highly available resource for your patients for requests of many types. With 24/7 services and 365 days a year availability, you can rest easy on your off-time. The answering service can take care of caller requests, recognize emergency calls in real time, and pass appropriate queries to your designated on-call provider. These critical steps are important in ensuring that all urgent requests are sent out immediately, while your routine office messages are forwarded to the office during daytime hours. Hospital affiliates operate on a 24/7 basis as part of their service structure, but primary care physicians and specialists typically have set office hours during the work week.  Unfortunately, illness and injury don’t take days off, so making sure your patients can connect with you or a colleague after hours is an important factor in increasing patient satisfaction. With all calls answered by the third ring, Responsive Answering Service is a great option for quick and efficient 24/7 call services for your medical practice. We have the ability to triage requests in real time, engage with multiple callers on an account at once, and connect callers with the appropriate contact in mere seconds. Call handling capabilities are an important factor to consider when maintaining consistent customer service across individuals, with people using phrases like, “they are always friendly,” or “they always answer.” These types of comments and conversations only serve to improve your office’s relationships with patients and maintain a positive reputation in your communities. 

Improper Training

Training your entire staff in appropriate and positive customer interactions is time-consuming and hard to monitor. At Responsive Answering Service, we have individuals on staff who are responsible for ensuring quality assurance for your entity, and the answering service as a whole. This is highly important for patient satisfaction and your medical practice, with 94% of American customers stating they would recommend a company whose services they rate as “very good,” according to Qualtrics XM Institute. Whereas, according to Esteban Kolsky, 67% of customers report an unsatisfactory customer experience as the top reason for seeking out other options. These statistics just make sense. People want their questions answered promptly and personably. When you can’t observe every patient interaction, it can be hard to identify when a potentially negative interaction occurs.  This is especially vital when patients are giving personal information and identifiers over the phone. HIPAA compliant messaging and call handling techniques come standard as part of some answering services, like those provided by Responsive Answering Service, for medical account setups. When patients reach out to the answering service, they anticipate sharing very personal information and situations with a stranger. This is when compassion and understanding from your answering service staff is most beneficial. Regardless of the emotional or physical concerns of your patients, our answering service staff can put a highly individualized and personal touch on every call. A survey conducted by Salesforce found that 79% of consumers are willing to share important information about themselves as applicable; in exchange for genuine connection where they feel their concerns are understood, and they are seen as a real person. We pride ourselves on providing a minimum of three weeks’ training for every agent who answers a phone call to your business. These training procedures are ongoing, with call metrics relayed weekly, including personal error tracking. Our agents are continuously monitored to make sure that your satisfaction along with your patient’s is our top priority.  Answering services, like Responsive Answering Service, are an invaluable resource for maintaining patient satisfaction and driving your business forward over long periods of time. Call centers may have had a negative connotation in the past, but currently an impressive 94 percent of answering service agents feel that providing the best service possible during every call is, “somewhat to very important.” Now more than ever, the helping professions deserve to stand up against negative customer interactions. When you build a longstanding relationship with your answering service, you create a bond that aligns with your goals, especially since the customer experience has a big hand in making or breaking a patient interaction. Throughout your contract, you can reach out to your answering service contact at any point to review and listen to any call. Your chosen answering service team keeps impeccable internal records that allow you to have access to any patient interaction, upon request.  With all of these points in mind, it’s important to remember that your internal staff doesn’t have to manage patient requests alone. Partnering with an answering service allows us to help you maintain consistent, available, and highly compassionate professional call answering. When you take these factors into account, you are making an important impact on how your patient’s concerns are handled. Take the time to update and discuss your existing Responsive Answering Service account, or reach out and set up a fully customizable patient experience for your medical practice, and increase patient satisfaction—one call at a time.