Phoenix Rising

Technology is transforming hospital call centers into profit centers that improve customer relations and drive the bottom line.

Over the past decade, hospitals around the country have elevated the level of sophistication of their marketing call center operations. One-person offices of yesterday that relied on telephones and Rolodex cards for physician referrals have turned into high-level data centers, capable of handling a myriad of caller needs and requests. More and more forward-thinking hospital leaders have recognized the vast potential of such operations, and of the vitally important role a well-designed and intelligently directed call center can play in their institutions.

Technology is transforming hospital call centers into profit centers that improve customer relations and drive the bottom line.

Over the past decade, hospitals around the country have elevated the level of sophistication of their marketing call center operations. One-person offices of yesterday that relied on telephones and Rolodex cards for physician referrals have turned into high-level data centers, capable of handling a myriad of caller needs and requests. More and more forward-thinking hospital leaders have recognized the vast potential of such operations, and of the vitally important role a well-designed and intelligently directed call center can play in their institutions.

Today’s call centers have a new look as they enter a new world. This world leverages the wizardry of new technology in ways that drive business, cement relationships and measure response. When properly integrated and managed, these technologies continue to support the trend of hospital executives looking at their call centers less as cost centers and more as profit centers.

As a result, today’s call centers handle functions beyond answering phones, making physician referrals or even registering callers for hospital-sponsored workshops, screenings and seminars, although all of this is still a core part of what they rightfully do. They are truly sophisticated enterprises—in many cases fully equipped customer interaction centers—which, when properly managed and valued, can pay big dividends by serving as the nucleus for ongoing communication and customer-relationship building.

Building Customer Interaction Centers
One of the new “looks” of hospital call centers is found in their ability to seamlessly integrate the telephone with the sponsoring hospital’s Web site to give consumers multiple channels and options through which to communicate. In an era of high consumer expectation and personalization, such integration allows consumers to “speak” with the hospital through whatever channel they feel most comfortable, and to do so any time of the day or night from their homes or offices. Just as today’s consumers want choice in everything they purchase, they now have choice in how they communicate.

While more communication and business transactions are handled via the Internet, the Web remains just one form of communication. Because of the personal and sensitive nature of healthcare, many people still want to speak with a live person. Hospitals that listen to their customers recognize this and, rather than abandoning their telephonic capabilities for the ease of the Internet, have found a way to effectively mingle the two. Those who have done it well have made available, through their Web sites, many of the same functions previously accessible only by phone—from physician referral to registering for a class and paying for it via credit card. From a pragmatic standpoint, it is less expensive to interact with technology than a live person, so hospitals are well served to drive interaction to the Web whenever possible and feasible.

Integrating the traditional call center function with 21st century technology requires numerous components. Consumers increasingly use e-mail and hospitals increasingly offer this capability. Other hospitals have introduced “live chat” on their Web sites through which, via the Internet, a consumer can converse live with a hospital representative—often the same person who answers the phone and provides a similar service telephonically. Many of these sites also include “call-me-back” buttons, with which customers can request specific times for hospital representatives to call them back for live telephonic conversations.

Hospitals desiring to do this must recognize that retooling their call center operation, to transform it into a true customer interaction center, can require a significant investment in technology and training. Because answering phones is not a core business of hospitals—providing patient care is—institutions, with increasing frequency, have turned to outsourcing this service to companies who do it exclusively. As technology provides call centers with more capabilities, and as consumer expectations and competitive pressures demand that more be done, outsourcing is a way for hospitals to keep up with the market while keeping their eye on what they do best.

Using Technology to Facilitate CRM
Years of collecting and storing data has provided most hospital marketing call centers with a plethora of information that until now has largely gone unnoticed and, in most cases, virtually untapped. The challenge today is to turn this information into true knowledge, so it can be of value and provide the sponsoring hospital with a decidedly competitive edge. Fortunately, technologies are now available that allow hospitals to do just that.

To understand the lessons hospitals are just now learning, look at Amazon.com or other sophisticated online merchants, and recognize what they are doing in the field of customer relationship management (CRM). These companies store information on the buying habits of their customers, so they can push e-mails to them. When buyers sign-in to the Web site, it welcomes them and suggests other purchases of new releases that the customer may find of interest based on past history.

Today, programs are in place that allow call centers to not only mine data they themselves have collected, but also tap into other databases assembled by the sponsoring hospital (within HIPAA guidelines) to truly have a complete snapshot of the caller’s profile, past history with the hospital and “buying” habits. This information can be assembled and transmitted electronically, in real time, to the call center advisor who can say to the caller, “I see you are a member of our seniors walking program. Did you know that we have a class coming up that may be of interest you?” Cross-selling customers in this manner not only further bonds the individual to the institution, but allows the hospital to provide personalized attention to the caller along with valuable information.

Hospital Data Integration
While most of the focus continues to be on call center-initiated interaction, the truth remains: There are multiple access points within a hospital beyond simply calling into a marketing driven “800” line. Callers “enter” a hospital system through the switchboard, preregistration, billing, outpatient scheduling and other departments, which at many institutions still run proprietary systems that may or may not be communicating. This has made it difficult, even under the best of intentions, to get a handle on all of a hospital’s activities.

Here, too, technology is now available that makes integration more and more possible. As a result, hospital marketing heads, and CEOs with a strong marketing bent, are rightfully looking at customer access beyond the campaigns initiated through their marketing departments, and are now asking their CIOs, “Can we develop a common platform that takes into account all of the access points in a coordinated and centralized manner?” Fortunately, the answer is yes, and those hospitals that accomplished it are now intelligently leveraging technologies in ways that markedly increase customer service.

Through a common platform, the call center now can make outbound preregistration calls to reduce the time patients spend filling out paperwork once they walk through the door. The call center can handle outpatient scheduling and then integrate with the hospital’s in-house database to communicate directly with the outpatient surgery department, for example, to assemble and facilitate all needed information. A call center also can make post-discharge calls to check on status, make sure patients are following post-discharge instructions and even conduct patient satisfaction questioning. In all of these ways, a call center can add additional value to the hospital and drive the entire organization toward more efficient, better coordinated customer service, in a manner that makes both financial and operational sense to the institution.

Keeping Up With Changing Times
Like much of society, things change rapidly in the hospital call center industry. New technologies, and an awareness of the benefits that capitalizing on these advances can bring, trigger some changes. Environmental pressures, and the need a hospital feels to stay a step ahead of the competition, can prompt others. Still others are the outgrowth of a demanding public that expects responsiveness, personalization and attention to their every interaction, and who will not settle for less when it comes to something as vitally important as their healthcare.

Healthcare delivery itself has evolved into an incredibly complex process that is fraught with questions. More and more, consumers are expected to navigate through the healthcare system themselves and to make intelligent decisions regarding where and how they receive care.

These decisions affect their health and pocketbooks, so consumers are looking for answers—or, at least, for information that allows answers to materialize in a more easily understood manner.

Times have never been healthier for hospital call centers to provide immeasurable value to both the public and their own sponsoring institutions. Those in leadership positions at hospitals throughout the country are wise to recognize this and think of an efficiently run call center not so much as “nice to have,” but as a “need to have,” as they remain the trusted source of care in the community.

For more information on The Beryl Companies,
www.rsleads.com/605ht-203