One of the first things that we recognize as professionals working in the automated call center service industry is that the human error factor is very real. At No More Phone Tag, many of our doctors, healthcare professionals and mental health service providers have specifically selected an automated answering service to eliminate these issues and to make their after hour phone service more effective for patients as well as their doctors and staff.
Often these professionals have been using live medical call centers for years, and they have gradually become dissatisfied with the level of service provide, the experience reported by patients, and issues reported by on-call physicians.
To help those not yet sure about the benefits of automated answering systems over the live medical call centers, let’s take a closer at the potential for human error with live systems that are simply not present with automated answering services.
The “Having a Bad Day” Factor
When a patient calls into a medical office or facility after hours, they realize that they are not going to be speaking to an actual employee of the office, but rather a call center staff member.
However, that doesn’t mean that if they are treated disrespectfully, impolitely or with rude comments or intrusive questions they won’t see this as a reflect of the medical office. They will make this association because your office ultimately is responsible for the quality of answering service you select.
When operators are having a bad day and bring it to work, it can result in more stress, anxiety and even humiliation for your patients. With an automated system, there is never a change in the polite, courteous and prompt way that patient calls are answered.
Non-emergency and Emergency Calls
One of the biggest sources of frustration for both doctors and patients occurs when the operator acts to make arbitrary decisions to escalate or de-escalate a call. For doctors, this results in excessive non-emergency calls during their assigned on-call rotation, and for patients, it can result in their doctor not being immediately notified of a serious medical emergency or situation.
With an automated system that allows the patients to select emergency and non-emergency call status and also to leave a voice message in their own words for the doctor to hear, these issues cease to be a problem.
These two very basic ways that human operators can make costly mistakes for your office highlight the advantages of our automated systems over live medical call centers. Just read through the comments on our site and you will see why our current clients recommend this option over systems they have used in the past.