Understand Your Purpose in Working at a Healthcare Call Center
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D.
You work in a healthcare call center. Why? The most basic answer is to receive a paycheck so that you can pay your bills. Though this is an essential motivation, earning a living will only take you so far in your call center work—and your career.
To find fulfillment, you must move beyond a paycheck to embrace the purpose of the call center. Why are you there? To serve your stakeholders—all of them.
Callers
The most obvious on the list of stakeholders are the people who call you. They have a need, and they hope you can meet that need. When you do, you end up making their life a little bit better. They end the call glad to have talked with you and appreciative of what you did for them. But when you fall short of helping them achieve their goal, you cause consternation. They hang up frustrated.
Although you won’t win with every call, you can strive to succeed as often as possible. Meeting the needs of callers and patients is the first way to serve your stakeholders. Be an asset to your organization and serve your stakeholders—all of them—with excellence.
Coworkers
As you serve callers, you do so within a team environment. Are you a team player? Do your coworkers view your presence as an asset or a liability? Make sure your colleagues can count on you to do your part and not cause more work for them. In fact, do more than what’s expected whenever possible to help make your associates’ jobs easier.
Your coworkers are also stakeholders, albeit an often-overlooked cadre. Don’t be the person who blasts through the day without regard to the people who work around you. Instead aim to be the person everyone wants to sit next to.
Boss
Whatever position you fill in your healthcare call center, you have a boss—often more than one. Your bosses are also stakeholders. By serving callers with excellence and getting along well with your colleagues, you’ve taken the first two steps in being the employee every manager wants to have. Now look for ways you can do more to make their job easier or lighten the load they carry in your call center.
Community
A fourth stakeholder to consider is your local environment. By doing your job well, you play a part in making society better. As you address the healthcare needs of your callers, you elevate the overall health of the area you live in. Don’t lose sight of the fact that the work you do benefits your neighbors and community.
Organization
Whether a corporation or nonprofit, the organization you work for is an essential stakeholder. It provides the infrastructure for you to work in and the means to pay you and provide benefits. As your organization succeeds, you will be the better for it. But if your organization struggles—especially if you could have helped realize a different outcome—you’ll experience the same fate.
Though no organization is perfect in all it does, do what you can to help yours become the best it can. This not only occurs on every phone call you take but also in the space between them.
Conclusion
Don’t be an employee who just shows up to collect a paycheck. Be an asset to your organization and serve your stakeholders—all of them—with excellence. This includes your callers, your coworkers, your boss, your community, and your organization.
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.