Look for Ways to Applaud Customer Service and Patient Care Excellence
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD
Working in a call center is challenging. Working in a medical call center is even harder, especially given what we’ve had to deal with in the past couple of years. The result has been rapid changes, often in quick succession, trying to adapt to an ever- moving set of expectations and criteria.
Perhaps never before have call centers had to push so hard and to do so much for so long.
Throughout this all, the venerable call center agent adapts, presses through, and produces success in some of the most challenging situations. Here are areas where you can applaud the work of your medical call center agents.
Celebrate Customer Service Success
What some might see as a day-to-day grind and a call-by-call repetition, astute call center agents see as a continual set of opportunities to provide customer service excellence. Acknowledge your leading agents who have this attitude. Strive to catch them doing something right and celebrate their outstanding work. Do this in public and in private.
Celebrate Patient Care Excellence
Medical call center agents play a key—but frequently unrecognized—role in the patient-care continuum. They often stand as a patient’s or future patient’s first point of contact, smoothly ushering them into the organization’s healthcare system. And in growing instances, these same agents serve as a concluding point of contact as the patient wraps up a specific healthcare incident. And sometimes, the agents serve critical functions throughout the provision of healthcare to maintain or facilitate forward progress for both patient and provider.
Your agents do this so often—providing critical links in the provision of patient care excellence—that they may not even realize it. Let them see the value they have in fulfilling your organization’s goal of successfully providing healthcare services to your patients. Allow them to relish their role in your patient’s health and in your organization’s overall accomplishments. Know that this will encourage them in their too-often-underappreciated work.
Action Plan
If you haven’t done so lately, take time to celebrate your medical call center agents. Yes, you confirm your gratitude by providing a paycheck and benefits. You thank them with your words. And you express your appreciation whenever possible.
But you need to do more. Look for additional ways to celebrate their achievements and trumpet their accomplishments. They so deserve it.
Read more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s Healthcare Call Center Essentials, available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book.
Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of AnswerStat and Medical Call Center News covering the healthcare call center industry. Read his latest book, Sticky Customer Service.
