Contact Center Volume Management
Your call center for your medical program can always improve. And one of the best ways to enhance patient outcomes is handling contact center spikes better. Of course, that can be easier said than done.
So in this post, let’s cover how to better handle call spikes and ultimately make your health care call center more efficient.
What Are Call Spikes?
A call spike is an increase in call volume. This can often lead to agents handling a higher number of calls than normal when managing peak contact center hours.
Without additional agents, this can increase patient wait times, reduce satisfaction, and ultimately reduce conversions, follow-ups, and appointments. That’s why it’s so essential to keep call spikes under control.
How To Manage Call Spikes In Your Medical Call Center
1. Plan For Seasonality
Certain times of the year like Christmas or other holidays can result in higher call times. This is especially true with health services.
For instance, someone getting a bariatric procedure may choose to have the operation in the winter. That’s because they’re less likely to want to go outside anyway and it’s a good time to recover.
On the other hand, a general medical facility may find that more people are coming in with illnesses due to spending time with family and passing around germs.
Proper scheduling with more agents on staff for seasonality can reduce the effect of call spikes.
2. Anticipate Needs
Qualified medical call center personnel receive excellent training in anticipating patients’ needs. For this reason, they can understand how to resolve issues faster.
Ultimately, if you’re able to achieve a first call resolution handling an issue in under three minutes, you can take more phone calls in a shorter period of time. So aside from having simply more agents available, training the agents to perform more efficiently is key.
3. Leveraged Digital Communications
It’s the age of the smartphone and instant chats. Sometimes a phone call is what the patient prefers, but other times using messaging services like Facebook, WhatsApp, or other live chat programs can be extremely beneficial.
Allow someone to reach out and begin resolving their issue if they’re unable to make a phone call. With the help of automation, call center team members can often resolve someone’s concerns faster this way.
4. Use Omnichannel Channel Approaches
To take the previous point one step further, you should leverage all communication channels. If someone wants a phone call, text message, email, or other type of communication, that should be available.
The reality is remote communication is very scalable when you have the right tools in place. It doesn’t take any longer to respond to a Skype message as it does to a Facebook messenger message.
So call centers should understand the primary channels that patients want to use. From there, they can prioritize their resources. But being as omni-channel as possible is one of the ultimate solutions to optimizing call spikes and ensuring that patients have their needs met.
Improve the Handling of Your Call Spikes Today
If you want repeat appointments, follow-ups, and additional conversions for your health services, then call spikes are a critical factor.
The right type of outreach, engagement, and call handling can make all the difference in the world. If you’d like to increase both your patient satisfaction and your health program growth, then let the professionals help you.
Contact Sequence Health today and take your support to the next level with proven medical call center services.