The healthcare industry worldwide is witnessing the fastest growth, with the US spending a whopping amount of USD 3 trillion towards its development, which contributes to almost 18 percent of its economy. India is also racing at a fast pace in terms of the healthcare industry with a CAGR of 16.5 percent to around 22.6 percent and is expected to hit a massive valuation of USD 280 billion as a whole within 2020. With the growth of the industry one thing becomes invaluable for its stakeholders, customer communications. And the best way to manage that is through the advancement in could telephony systems. This will not only bring order to the system but also make healthcare services more accessible to the people in need.
Challenges in Communication for the Healthcare Industry
For hospitals, phones are always running off the hooks. Here are the 3 main challenges it needs to deal with:
1. Keeping a track of client communications
There are several patients who call the hospitals every day with numerous queries, and there are plenty of agents for most large organizations to address their grievances. But the hospitals hardly ever keep track of the client conversations and follow-up calls are a messy situation that causes irritation to both parties on either side. There must be a tracking system in place that keeps conversations recorded to address queries faster.
2. Measuring the performance of agents
While call centers do so with stringent policies and close watch over their agents. Hospital call centers mostly have no quality checks and performance tracking; this compromises the customer experience often to the great cost of the hospitals due to negative impressions.
3. Tracking customer experience
There is no tracking system in place that measures conversions in hospitals, so hospitals and healthcare centers remain ill-equipped to measure their customer experience. The problem with lack of record-keeping leads to forged data manipulation and in turn affects the reputation and business of most hospitals.
For patients who are at the receiving end of the spectrum, the hardships are often graver and a higher cost.
Making appointments without having to wait for long hours at the waiting room is almost impossible these days. That is because most agents who handle such calls have no consolidated data to estimate a realistic time period for each appointment. Hence, it creates a mess for all having to wait for long hours, wasting valuable time, creating frustrations.
Notifying changes in appointments is yet another challenge. In most cases, patients are notified too late for a cancelled appointment. This costs not only the clinic or hospital in relation but also to the doctor’s name in question in bad regard.
Alerting the patient of scheduled checkups and appointments is mostly a manual business still today, since it is completely manual it is prone to errors and delays that may cause gross inconveniences for the patients.
As for service centers such as diagnostic clinics and others, maintaining a CRM system in place can be a game-changer. This will prevent data loss and keep track of communications made. This can be especially helpful for chains of diagnostic centers with multiple locations so that they can maintain customer experience and monitor performance to maintain a standard.
How Cloud telephony Solutions can help Healthcare?
Communication is key in every aspect especially in a sector where it deals with patients’ life and death. So a system that is easy to use and maintain is ideal to cater to a positive experience for everyone involved. Routing calls effectively to the right department with an IVR Service is an easy fix to call redirections. They also enable hospitals to use a single toll-free number or virtual number that is easier to remember and keep track of.
Automated reminders can improve the customer experience at a great deal. New parents and elderly patients are especially helped through such an organized system. This can be put in place easily with a bulk SMS service for the healthcare industry. Such communications systems affirm reputation and maintain a lasting business relationship with patients.
With cloud telephony services in place one can maintain proper feedback systems to enable the patient parties to feel empowered and in control and create a loyal group of subscribers to your hospital or clinic’s services.
Moreover with a technologically advanced secure system in place hospitals and health care organizations can maintain updated patient records, minimize errors and keep confidential data safe with themselves. It is time the healthcare industry got more accessible to its customers and got transparent with clear communications in place.