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Enhancing Customer Service in Healthcare
Enhancing Customer Service in Healthcare

September 3, 2024

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Is healthcare a customer service industry? There considerable debate on this aspect, whether patients have to be treated like customers, and if healthcare should focus on their revenue value.

I’d say that healthcare is a customer service industry, where patient care takes precedence over everything else. Patients should not be treated as customers; everything in a healthcare facility should revolve around their needs.

Customer service in healthcare needs to address every aspect of the patient's experience. 

While I won't delve into the softer aspects of customer service, I will focus on the key features where technology can enhance exceptional customer service in healthcare.

1. Keep Your Accessibility Easy

Ensure that patients can easily book a service or appointment with a doctor on their first attempt, whether they reach out through your website, by phone, or at your facility. Send them a confirmation in the form of an text and email. Remind them an automated voice message allowing them to either reconfirm or reschedule for a later time.

By doing this, you would make it easier for all patients to connect with the right doctor or specialist, and there would be very few no-shows. 

2. Seek Feedback from Your Patients

How many healthcare facilities do this? Very few, in my opinion. 

How would you feel when a friendly person asks you to review their service after meeting with your doctor. It can be an in person survey, a link to visit their website and provide the response, respond to an automated voice message system, or a choice between these. 

The fact that you are asking your patients to provide feedback about their entire experience itself would make them feel good. The patients would love the fact that you care about their opinion, and they would love the fact that you are willing to listen and better the experience. 

3. Never Miss a Patient Request

What happens if a patient calls your facility and all the phone lines are busy? There should be a system in place to dial back the missed call as soon as a customer service representative becomes available.

Just imagine the thrill it would give the patient and the kind of experience they would feel. 

The same goes on your website interaction, where the patient tries to reach an agent through the chat feature, and you don’t have free agents to attend to the patient. A call back from you would be the best alternate solution with help of the healthcare contact center platform, resulting in a better experience for your patients. 

4. Enable Virtual Consultations

Your patient has had surgery, and they need to come for preventive checkups to ensure that post-surgical recovery is progressing as expected.

Often, a physical visit by the patient isn't necessary and can be managed virtually. People from out of town or remote areas can also consult their doctors and specialists using the virtual video conferencing facility.

In fact, we helped set up a few virtual consultation facilities for healthcare facilities at the peak of the pandemic. 

5. Patient Care Is Everyone’s Business 

Whether it's the front-office staff or the chief doctor, ensure everyone is accountable for delivering the best patient care.

Analyze all of your call recordings with voice analytics. This would throw up improvements, training requirements, compliance, and quality issues, which can be addressed immediately. 

Analyze the text, email, and voice feedbacks provided by your patients, and understand how you can improve the patient experience. 

Please provide feedback to every individual in your facility, and get them to sign up for improvements to provide a better patient experience. 

Finally, you want your patients to have an exceptional care experience from your facility. You want to provide the best care and improve customer service. The ones I have covered in this blog are simple things that any healthcare facility can implement without overhauling its existing systems and at low investments. 

So, what is stopping you?

Read More: How to Improve the Patient Experience in Healthcare?


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