I got up early this morning and, in the predawn, began pulling in cool 60-degree air into our warm home. In short order the temperature dropped seven degrees to an agreeable 70, where it stayed most of the morning. Wearing only t-shirt and shorts, I was quite comfortable.
What perplexes me is that six months ago, in the midst of winter’s fury, with the thermostat set at 72, I would layer on the clothes and still be cold. This is a strange personal phenomenon that occurs with predicted regularity each year as we cycle from summer to winter and back again.
I’ve never known why. One possibility is that since I like summer and dislike winter, it’s a psychological response to my frame of mind – meaning it’s all in my head. I don’t care for that theory.
Alternately, a physiological explanation is more palatable, but on what might I blame it? The answer is that I don’t know. What I do know is that I like summer and am quite comfortable – and happy!
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.
A few years ago, Dr. Maurice A. Ramirez recommended “Five Questions to Ask Your Hospital Before Disaster Strikes.” Be it a natural disaster, a manmade catastrophe, a terrorist attack, a pandemic, or any other large-scale emergency, it is critical for all medical personnel to be trained and ready, including the call center.
Dr Ramirez’s five questions were:
1) What has been done to prepare?
2)Who is grading the drills? It should be an independent evaluator.
3)Does the ER door lock? Many ERs have easy access, so the ER and everyone in it can quickly be contaminated.
4)Who is being trained? It is shortsighted to only train ER staff.
5) What decontamination facilities are available? In a disaster, 80 percent of the victims arrive in something other than an ambulance, which means they show up potentially contaminated.
Now apply these thoughts to your call center – regardless if it is part of the hospital or not.
1)Be ready. Have a plan for your call center and test the plan. During an emergency, priorities change – or at least should change. Making adjustments on the fly is never a wise idea. Determine these changes ahead of time.
2) Seek an independent review. Then implement and test the recommendations.
3) If the ER is locked, expect panicked calls. Know what to tell callers and how to reassure them.
4) Include all call center agents in disaster training. While they will not be offering in-person assistance, they could very well become the first line of defense – via the telephone.
5) Train call center on decontamination protocols. They will need to knowthe options and processes so that they can knowledgeably inform callers.
Now that the basics are covered, ask what else your call center can do. In addition to handling an influx of incoming calls, outbound notification calls can also be placed on behalf of other departments or organizations. Several vendors offer automated emergency notification systems so that key personnel can be quickly informed. Also, include a calling list for your agents; some of them may need to come in or be prepared to work from home or a remote location.
While no one wants a disaster to occur, if it does, your call center could be the hero – if you do some advanced planning.
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.
As a magazine and Web site publisher, all manner of articles and press releases show up in my inbox on a daily basis. Although some of them are carefully targeted to the markets I serve, most are widespread missives that are sent to every publisher with a pulse, regardless of their beat or focus.
Leading up to the historical – some would say, infamous – healthcare vote in the US house earlier this year, I received an increased number of press releases against the bill. Since I wasn’t interested in using any of them, I quickly scanned them while pressing delete; I do not recall any that were in favor of the bill.
Also appearing in my inbox were numerous “op-ed” submissions decrying either the bill or the process. Even though I’ve never published an op-ed piece and never plan to, the submissions continued to arrive. What amazed me was that, for the most part, there was no effort to present a thoughtful discourse or an elegant argument; the submissions were all filled with polarized perspectives and emotionally laden rhetoric. While I might have agreed with their general point, I was repelled by their tenor, tone, and tack.
Even after the bill was passed and signed by President Obama, I have continued to receive press releases and op-ed pieces in opposition to what had happened – and fear of what might happen. A new element was added – announcements of lawsuits being filed.
It would seem that the vote approving the bill and its subsequent signing into law will not end the debate; it will merely shift to a new venue.
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.
January marked a historical senate vote in Massachusetts of near epic proportions. Essentially, this became a referendum on the President Obama’s first year in office in general and the healthcare debate in particular. The result of the contest did not bode well for our president. I wonder if he’s listening, really listening, to what the people have said. What I do know is that his demeanor is more subdued, and he has lost a bit of his swagger.
In politics, our elected officials, including President Obama, have one of three primary goals, which becomes the focus for what they do and say:
Their job is to serve the will of the people.
Their goal is be reelected.
Their intent is to advance an ideology.
They can’t do all three; ultimately, only one will be their true and overarching focus. That means:
If President Obama views his real job as serving the people, he will respond to their message and do an about-face on healthcare. He may not drop it completely, but at the very least, he will reverse course, providing what the people want.
If President Obama’s true goal is to be reelected, he will distance himself from this hot potato in order to avoid committing political suicide.
If President Obama’s genuine intent is to advance an ideology, then he will doggedly stay the course.
I suspect we will likely see him continue his unrelenting push for a healthcare overhaul – even if it’s not what the majority want or if renders him a one-term president.
Parkland Health Improves Care, Cuts Costs with Unified Communications
Parkland Health & Hospital System recently implemented a unified communications solution from Amcom Software, Inc., that has enabled them to enhance patient care through creative uses of technology, which in turn has reduced costs. The Dallas-based organization also uses integrated Amcom solutions for its contact center operations, Web-based employee directory, on-call scheduling, and emergency notification.
Round-the-clock agents field more than one million internal and external calls annually, including requests to activate critical medical and nonmedical notifications throughout the organization. The tight process developed for Heart Cath Team activations has notably reduced the hospital’s treatment time for heart attack patients (door-to-balloon time). The efficient use of the technology has helped Parkland achieve recent accreditation as a primary stroke center.
The system’s emergency notification capabilities have also helped Parkland send alerts to key groups outside the hospital for time-sensitive situations. This has included notifying staff at the nearby children’s hospital of incoming critical patients.
Internally, Parkland’s 8,000 employees have come to rely on the system’s Web-based employee directory and on-call schedules, which logged 2.5 million hits since 2005. Together, these efficiencies have generated ROI for Parkland in the form of reduced workload for the contact center.
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.
As a publisher, December is a slower time of the year for me. It’s not that I have less work to do, but I have fewer interruptions in the form of ancillary email messages and phone calls.
Conversely, for most answering services, the winter holidays present the opposite scenario, with the days leading up to Christmas being busier – and for some services, significantly busier.
The amount of increase in December call volume varies by region and client mix. While some answering services see little change in call volume during the winter months, most see an increase.
In cases where the increase is moderate, it is handled using existing staff, with operators working more hours and additional shifts or former operators being pulled in from other departments.
The goal is to not increase the employee count if possible and to avoid having to let people go when the holiday rush is over.
For answering services with a greater influx of calls – such as those that also do some order taking – existing staff is often inadequate to cover the projected traffic.
In these instances, temporary staff is needed. Although hiring temporary holiday staff – be it directly or indirectly through a staffing agency – is daunting and draining, there is an upside.
These short-term workers give the answering service an opportunity to evaluate their skill and effectiveness, picking out the best for possible permanent status come January. This may be the ultimate agent-screening tool, one that produces the best possible evaluation.
Regardless of which category your answering services fits into – whether you see a slight increase, a moderate bump, or a big jump – one thing can be expected: January should be a slower month, requiring fewer hours on the schedule.
Moreover, this year things are compounded by worries over the economy and wonderings of how much longer the recession will last.
With this as the backdrop, I offer the following considerations for January:
Staff morale will become an even bigger issue. In December, the goal was to keep staff motivated amid an increase in calls, complaints, and fatigue, whereas in January, the need is to keep morale up in the face of reduced hours, fewer shifts, and possible terminations for temporary staff or even layoffs for permanent staff. Even though things have slowed down, morale is still an issue that can’t be overlooked.
Slower times are a great opportunity to renew quality initiatives and provide additional training. Side-by-side coaching and silent monitoring can once again be given the attention and priority they deserve.
When hours need to be cut, the weaker staff should bear the brunt of it. Some operators may not have what it takes to provide the quality service that you seek, while others might have given up trying and are merely coasting. Terminating the obviously weaker agents sends a powerful message to stronger agents that their good work is noticed and appreciated.
A slower January is not a time for either fear or relaxing but a time of opportunity; don’t miss it.
I have long maintained – and increasingly so – that my body does not comply with the “normal” twenty-four-hour sleep cycle. Among the press releases I received recently is confirmation that sleep cycle deviations can occur and that one enzyme may be the central culprit.
Although I don’t fully comprehend the details, I nonetheless find it interesting:
Central Gears of the Mammalian Circadian Clock Exposed
“The circadian clock, a twenty-four-hour metabolic rhythm governing sleep cycles and other physiological processes, has long been known to play a central role in regulating the daily activities of living organisms. Its detailed biochemical mechanisms, however, have largely remained a mystery.
“That mystery is one step closer to being unraveled with the latest discovery by a research team led by Hiroki R. Ueda of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology and Joseph S. Takahashi of Northwestern University, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers analyzed 1260 pharmacologically active compounds in mouse and human clock cell lines and identified ten that exerted the greatest impact on the clock cycle. Surprisingly, all but one were found to target a single enzyme (casein kinase I ε/δ), the inhibition of which, researchers showed, dramatically extends this cycle from twenty-four hours to more than forty-eight hours.
“That the circadian clock may be regulated by relatively simple processes involving only a handful of molecules, a possibility indicated by this result, overturns conventional thinking on the topic.
The more important finding that the inhibition process identified is insensitive to changes of as much as ten degrees Celcius further hints at a breakthrough in the related puzzle of temperature compensation: how circadian clocks maintain constant periodicity over a broad range of temperatures.
“Taken together, these findings suggest the need to fundamentally revise existing models of the mammalian circadian clock. They also point the way toward novel approaches to treatment of sleeping disorders and other debilitating clock-related conditions.”
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.
Although I frequently write movie reviews, this is the first to appear in a trade publication. However, given that the setting for this Broadway musical-turned-movie is a telephone answering service, the justification can be easily made.
In The Bells Are Ringing, Judy Holliday reprises her Tony Award-winning role as Ella Peterson, a telephone answering service operator, in Vincente Minnelli’s musical comedy.
Ella can’t keep from eavesdropping on her client’s calls, compulsively going overboard to help them out. She does this by sharing tidbits of information she hears from other clients.
Initially everybody benefits, so her involvement doesn’t cause too much of a problem, but when she goes incognito to meet and help her problem-plagued clients, things begin to go awry.
One of them, playwright Jeffrey Moss (Dean Martin), becomes enamored when he actually meets Elle (who adopts a concocted alias), and she falls in love with him.
Unfortunately, Jeffery doesn’t realize who she is, since when she calls him from the answering service, she adopts the voice of an old woman so she can mother him. He buys into the rouse completely by affectionately calling her “Mom.”
Holliday and Martin have great on-screen chemistry, the musical score is superb, and the dancing enjoyable. The production is so delightful that the fact it is a musical (which I generally don’t care for) doesn’t get in the way or detract in the least.
Jean Stapleton (aka “Edith Bunker”) plays the role of Sue, the owner of the answering service, which is cleverly called “Susansaphone.”
The answering service has a diverse group of clients, one of which is actually a bookie whose messages are coded to sound like record orders.
Of course, the police, who also suspect Susansaphone of being a front for another age-old profession, isn’t far behind this enterprising crook.
The movie begins and ends with creative and compelling commercials for Susansaphone. Sadly, this was the final film appearance of the talented Judy Holliday before her premature death.
Although released in 1960, the movie still has great appeal to anyone working in the telephone answering service industry – even more so if they used or remember the quintessential cord board.
My family moved the summer before fifth grade, and I started a new school. I quickly realized three things. I was far ahead in math, hopelessly behind in grammar, and had been placed in the wrong class by the school secretary.
The result was that my teacher gave me special attention and esteem, while my classmates viewed me with academic awe and respect. Although I didn’t learn much academically that year, I did undergo a metamorphous of self-perception.
Put succinctly, I began fifth grade as an above average student who felt average and ended the year as an above average student who was convinced he was exceptional. That single attitudinal change altered the trajectory of my educational path – and ultimately my life. Yes, Mrs. Wedel influenced me immensely.
In seventh grade, I had Mr. Snow for English. Our class read and studied Dickens’ classic story, A Christmas Carol. Mr. Snow helped us dig into this timeless tale and mine its many truths. The conclusion was inescapable for me and equally profound. Like Dickens’ Scrooge, we have a choice on how we live our life: it can be for selfish purposes, or it can be for the joy of living and the benefit of others. I chose the latter.
In high school, it was Mr. Grosser who affected me greatly. With a passion for molding young minds, he was part educator and part entertainer. There was never a dull moment in his classroom, where the unexpected became routine. He wanted us to think, profoundly and deeply. His influence was significant and helped me mature as an individual and prepare for adulthood.
The standout mentor of my college years was Professor Britten. Intellectual and insightful, he quietly communicated profundity with ease, effectiveness, and aplomb. I found myself hanging on every word. Nothing he said was wasted, and everything had significance. He was the teacher whose class one took, not because of the subject material, but because of the instructor.
These are just a few of the teachers who influenced me. Aside from academia, I have had many notable “teachers” in the business world as well. Although not teachers per se, they nonetheless educated me, playing a critical role in guiding me to become the person that I am today.
Whatever your role in your call center, be encouraged that you are influencing others, even if you don’t know it. Whether a director of operations, a manager, a shift supervisor, or a front-line call center agent, you influence those around you by what you do, the things you say, and how you treat others. Like the infamous Scrooge, you can either influence negatively by pursuing a life of self-focused hoarding, or you can influence positively by sharing, giving, and inspiring others in an encouraging and profound manner.
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.
At the World Economic Forum, Jim Wallis suggested that wondering when the global economic crisis would be over is the wrong question to ask – even though it is the one foremost on our minds.
He posited that the real query should be, “How will this crisis change us?” After all, if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them. Drawing parallels between the years preceding the Great Depression and the past few, he offered that we have indeed repeated history. Here then is how I suggest we must change:
Learn to be happy with less. Virtually everyone in the US is better off than half of the world’s population.
Don’t spend what you don’t have. Satisfying today’s urges with tomorrow’s income is courting disaster.
Plan for the future. That includes having an emergency fund and a retirement plan.
Whenever possible, avoid debt. When that is not possible, pay off debt as quickly as possible.
Charge cards are intended to be a convenience when making purchases, not a means to buy when you have no money. The first month that the balance can’t be paid in full is an indication of living beyond your means – cancel the card and don’t apply for any more.
Shun greed.
In essence, greed got us here in the first place. I hear a chorus of readers concurring, “Yes, corporate greed caused this mess to happen.” Wait a minute; let’s not blame corporations. Although corporations are legal entities, they cannot think and act on their own accord. Individuals control corporations, and many of them are greedy. The stockholders who own stock in the corporations seek higher returns on their investments; they are sometimes greedy. The people with 401ks, IRAs, money market accounts, CDs, and any interest bearing investment want to make as much as they can; they are partly to blame as well. On and on it goes. Virtually everyone, in one way or another, is culpable for the mess we are in – we have an insatiable desire for more.
As my first bullet point suggests, let’s instead seek to be happier with a bit less. And we’ll all be better off.
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.
There are likely as many billing plans as there are telephone answering services. It seems that everyone has his or her own idea of the right way to bill clients, with each answering service viewing its method as superior. Yet privately, they comprehend its shortcomings.
In reality, there is no perfect billing philosophy and no single right way to charge clients. Successful billing requires that TAS owners understand their selected rate structure and operate the answering service that enables them to capitalize on their billing structure’s strengths and weaknesses.
Here are some typical TAS billing plans:
Flat Rate
Every client is billed the same fixed rate every month. Though not used much anymore, it was common when client expectations were uniform and call-processing systems were manual.
Advantages: Bills are easy to generate, explain, and understand; all revenue is fixed, and clients know exactly what to expect and can budget accordingly.
Disadvantages: It is not fair – essentially half of the clients are profitable, subsidizing the other half who are not. It also attracts high-volume (unprofitable) accounts while discouraging low-volume (profitable) ones.
Possible abuses: Revenue stays the same regardless if work is done; therefore, there is no direct financial incentive to answer calls.
Strategy: Seek low volume accounts; streamline and automate high volume accounts.
Modified Flat Rate
Each client pays a flat rate, but that rate differs from client to client based on his or her historical usage.
Advantages: There are the same benefits as with flat-rate billing, and the disparity between profitable and unprofitable clients will be largely eliminated.
Disadvantages: Knowing what to bill a new client is hard, it neglects seasonal fluctuations, and you must continually review client traffic for changes in usage.
Possible abuses: The initial rate might be set too high or too low for new clients. Failure to lower rates if usage drops significantly will result in overbilling.
Strategy: Analyze client profitability in each billing cycle by calculating client revenue per minute. Clients with a pattern of low revenue per minute (unprofitable) may need their rate increased or their account streamlined and automated.
Unit Billing
Tracks and bills units of work, such as calls answered and calls made; some services charge an additional unit if a message is taken. There is usually a base rate that includes an allowance of units, with excess units being billed additionally.
Advantages: More work can be tracked and billed; high volume and active accounts pay more.
Disadvantages: Not all units of work require an equal amount of time and effort.
Possible abuses: Performing unnecessary units of work under the guise of being thorough, such as double dispatching.
Strategy: Count every measurable unit of work. Automate time-consuming processes.
Time Billing
The time operators spend working for the client is tracked and billed. As with the unit billing, there is generally a monthly rate that includes a block of time; excess usage is billed separately.
Advantages: Billing will directly reflect the amount of time spent for that client.
Disadvantages: Billing complaints are harder to resolve.
Possible abuses: Talkative operators inflate bills.
Strategy: Provide the client with the services they need, coach operators to be thorough yet efficient, and make sure that all time is tracked and billed.
Tiered Time Billing
Agent time is billed the same way as time billing; any system time or automated activity is also billed but at a lower rate. System time includes non-operator activity, such as automated dispatching, call screening, IVR, voicemail, patching, and conferencing.
Advantages: All of the benefits of minute billing; automated activity also produces income.
Disadvantages: There are more items to track; not all systems provide adequate statistics.
Possible abuses: Same as for time billing.
Strategy: Be sure to track and bill all appropriate time elements.
Other items to be considered for any billing method are ancillary charges (fax, email delivery, and on-call schedules), pass-through charges (local, long-distance, and toll-free costs), or surcharges (holiday fees). Other issues are the length of the billing cycle (monthly versus twenty-eight days), late fees, and discounts for early payment.
Regardless of which method you implement, be sure you know its strengths and weaknesses, follow it ethically, and pursue it strategically. With the right approach, any of these methods can be successful.
