Tag: technology

Make Sure Each Piece of Contact Center Technology Works as a Seamless System

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D.

In continuing our series on call center integration, we move to the topic of technology, specifically the need to integrate your call center tools. Today’s vendors offer a wide array of technology options to enhance the contact center operation.

Yet if these tools don’t integrate with each other, we lose—or even negate—their promised productivity pronouncements.

Technology tools that won’t talk with one another is almost as detrimental as not having the tools in the first place. Therefore, it’s essential that we integrate our contact centers’ tools and technology. That’s why you need to integrate your call center tools.

Interoperability

We’ve all called places and given basic information in step one of the contact, only to have to repeat it in step two. This happens too often, and it infuriates callers, setting the stage for ineffective communications from the onset of a contact.

I’ve also had cases where I had to repeat the same information a second time. Another company made me reconfirm my identity each time they transferred my call.

Today’s consumers—your healthcare systems’ patients and customers—deserve better. And they expect more. Complete integration passes on all collected information through each step of the call. This includes transfers, switching channels, and moving between systems.

Databases

Today’s healthcare providers amass a plethora of information. This data ends up in a database. But not just one. Multiple databases. Too often inter-database integration is nonexistent. Even a basic interface is missing.

This requires contact center agents and healthcare professionals to re-enter information, transferring it from one database to another.

Sometimes this requires rekeying, which is time consuming and error prone. Even copy-and-paste functionality fails to provide the desired ease of information transfer.

Then with the same information existing in two places, a nonintegrated environment means that updates must also occur in two—or more—places. This seldom happens and points to the need to better integrate your call center tools.

I know. In the past week I’ve had two organizations try to call me on a number I haven’t had in eight years. Though I let them know of the change when I moved, not everyone’s records received the update. Hence needless frustration on their part and mine.

Apps

Similar to databases are apps and software. Though on a basic level this is addressed with interoperability initiatives and database integration, more work still needs to be done.

Many times I’ve had reps tell me they were writing down the information I gave them so they wouldn’t have to have me repeat it as they moved from one program to another.

I’ve also had instances where they didn’t write down what I gave them, but they tried to remember it. And they remembered it wrong. This meant I had to give them the same information again.

Does your message taking app integrate with your appointment setting app? Does your answering service software integrate with your telephone triage software? Does your class scheduling program interface with your literature request program?

Conclusion

To provide a holistic and satisfying solution to your patients and customers, you need to fully integrate your call center tools to optimize your operation.

When you do so you will enhance outcomes, increase agent workflows, and improve customer satisfaction.

Read more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s Healthcare Call Center Essentials, available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D., is the publisher and editor-in-chief of AnswerStat and Medical Call Center News covering the healthcare call center industry. Get his book, Sticky Customer Service.

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

The first issue of AnswerStat magazine rolled off the presses over a dozen years ago. Since then much has changed. Call center technology has advanced, customer expectations have expanded, hiring and training practices have evolved, and new service opportunities have emerged. The Internet exploded into a global phenomenon that altered everything.

What hasn’t changed much is the telephone call. Call centers still answer calls, make calls, and transfer calls; we give and receive information over the phone. The telephone is the ubiquitous communication medium, and it is central to the call center.

During these years of technological transformation, there was also faxing and paging, but both were insignificant compared to the widespread practice of simply picking up the phone and calling someone to have a two-way conversation in real-time. Not too many people fax anymore, and it’s been ages since I’ve seen a pager. Yet the telephone remains.

But now we also have email, text, and social media. Some call centers have fully embraced these technologies and integrated them in to their operations. Others have persisted in focusing on phone calls. Yet the pressure remains for such centers to add these newer forms of communication and connection into their call center mix. As a result the call center becomes the contact center. To embrace this multi-channel paradigm, your call center mind-set must be about contacts, not calls.

Consider these forms of contact:

Calls: Phone calls represent the majority of contacts in almost every contact center. We excel at calls.

Fax: Some healthcare communication still occurs by fax. Though this channel is small, someone needs to oversee it. Why not the contact center?

Pager: Pagers have gone away in most industries, but they still have value in healthcare where reliability, speed, and disaster-adverseness are vital. Contact centers have always done a great job at sending pages, and some even manage pager inventory. There’s no reason to stop now.

Email: Processing secure email is a natural fit for contact centers. They have the network, the Internet connection, the computers, and the staff – and the ability to send, receive, forward, and screen email, just as with calls.

Text: Text is growing in most sectors. This is one more channel for the healthcare contact center to add to their arsenal.

Social Media: A growing preference for people of all ages is to interact online with others through social media. Healthcare organizations require someone to monitor all those comments, tweets, and contacts, responding in a timely manner that is professional and accurate. With the plethora of social media platforms, no organization can utilize them all, yet they must be where their patients are. The task of interacting with these social media-minded customers is ideal for contact centers.

Self-Service: A final consideration is self-service, the preferred option for most people when they have a question or problem. How, you may ask, does self-service become a contact center opportunity? Doesn’t self-service subtract from the contact center? Yes, every interaction handled via self-service is one less interaction handled by the contact center. Yet forward-thinking contact center managers see two opportunities.

The first is that contact centers are in the best position to know what issues self-service should address. Poll a group of agents, and the top ten needs for self-service will quickly emerge. The contact center should serve as the advisor for self-service topics. Better yet, the contact center could take the lead role and actually produce and administer the self-service content.

The second opportunity is providing backup for self-service. Self-service cannot help everyone, every time. The contact center should catch those that self-service drops. As a bonus, these calls, taken in aggregate, then provide fodder for additional self-service content.

Whatever channels your contact center covers, keep in mind that it’s not about the technology, it’s about the contact.

Read more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s Healthcare Call Center Essentials, available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D., is the publisher and editor-in-chief of AnswerStat and Medical Call Center News covering the healthcare call center industry. Get his book, Sticky Customer Service.

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

The term “Internet of Things” may be new to you, or it might be something you’ve already grown weary of with eye-rolling boredom. Though a definition for the Internet of Things is still evolving, expect to hear a lot more about it in the future.

Basically, the Internet of Things revolves around the concept of things – instead of people – using the Internet to share information without the need for human interaction. Though a “thing” implies a device, it could mean any object and cover animals or even people. At the most basic level, an active RFID (radio frequency identification) tag qualifies.

A huge area of interest for the Internet of Things is in home automation and convenience. A security system is one obvious item, where sensors in your home report to a computer at the monitoring station what is happening when you’re away. Internet-connected garage doors are a reality today, as well as remotely accessible thermostats, nanny cams, and door locks. Looking into the future, the Internet of Things could report when your kids get home from school, who is with them, and if they leave; of course you will also know if they attended school or skipped. Dreaming a bit more, your kitchen could make your grocery list based on the contents of your cupboards and refrigerator or what you ate last night, even placing an order for you.

Another area for the Internet of Things is fitness. Devices – whether a stand-alone gadget or a smartphone app – can track how many steps we take in a day. With an Internet connection, this data can be sent to another computer for analysis, storage, or action. Imagine receiving a text message encouraging you to go for an evening walk because you haven’t hit your target number of steps for the day. These fitness devices can also monitor basic body functions such as heart rate, moving the Internet of Things into the area of healthcare.

Healthcare is rife with applications, both present and future, for the Internet of Things. Monitoring patients’ vital signs is common in the hospital environment, but the concept can be extended to home-based convalescence or hospice. Telehealth taps into the Internet of Things and can greatly expand because of it. Locating dementia patients who may have wandered off is feasible with the Internet of Things. Even remotely administering medications is a possibility. The list of potential healthcare applications is limited only by our ability to imagine grand solutions.

While the basic premise is that the Internet of Things moves data without human interaction, at a certain point some of this data will require human involvement. This may be to evaluate options when a preset threshold is met, initiate a response, or escalate action. The Internet of Things becomes a serious tool to keep us healthy and safe; lives are at stake.

At the intersection of healthcare and the Internet of Things can stand the modern healthcare contact center. After all, the medically minded call center already has the staffing and technological infrastructure largely in place to handle such tasks. Some call centers are already doing some of these things – though they haven’t likely considered them in the context of tapping into the Internet of Things – to serve patients and assist healthcare providers. Opportunities abound.

To be ready to make the most of these opportunities, look at the healthcare-related Internet of Things around you. Then investigate what your contact center needs in order to handle the required human aspect on the backend. It may be a bit of specific training or perhaps some server software to provide the needed interface. Be ready so that when someone comes to you with a problem stemming from the flood of data from the Internet of Things (IoT), you can nod and smile when you tell them, “Yes, we are IoT-enabled and ready to help.”

Read more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s Healthcare Call Center Essentials, available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D., is the publisher and editor-in-chief of AnswerStat and Medical Call Center News covering the healthcare call center industry. Get his book, Sticky Customer Service.