Category: Healthcare Call Centers

Healthcare call centers articles by Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

6 Keys to Produce a Happy and Effective Workforce

Post author By Peter Lyle DeHaan
Post date September 27, 2023

Address These Critical Items to Better Retain Staff and Serve Callers

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D.

Operating a successful call center in the healthcare industry is hard. There is a never-ending tension to balance the expectations of patients and callers with the needs of operational staff, all the while remaining fiscally viable.

Here are six tips to help you produce a happy and effective workforce to keep your operation running smoothly and efficiently.

Compensation Package

I’ve never talked with anyone who thinks they’re overpaid. And only a few people ever think they receive appropriate pay. Most think they deserve more.

Ask any call center employee what’s most important to them in their work and they’ll likely say their compensation. They work to earn money so they can cover their needs and wants.

Though their actual paycheck is a big part of their compensation package, they’re also looking for other benefits such as healthcare coverage and provisions for time off, including vacation, sick days, and personal time.

Though you could bust your budget trying to provide the compensation package your employees think they deserve and expect you to provide, you don’t need to do so if you address other less tangible workplace related items.

Provide a competitive compensation package, along with covering the next five items will help you produce a happy and effective workforce.

Managerial Support

Employees want to feel the support of their supervisors and managers. This starts with listening to what they say and showing them you care.

Let them know you understand what it’s like to answer phone calls all day long. You do know this, right? When they see you periodically sit down and take calls like the rest of them, it will do much to garner their attention and gain their respect.

Appreciation

Most managers say they appreciate their staff. But how often do they take the time to actually tell their employees? How often do they do things to show it?

This doesn’t need to be anything expensive or spectacular. I once had a boss who each payday would look me in the eye, hand me my paycheck, and say, “thank you.” He did this for every employee.

Though I was too often frustrated with him in other areas, I had no doubt he appreciated me and my work.

Though this might be hard to implement if your call center operates 24/7, look for creative ways to produce the same results. And if your staff receives their pay and documentation electronically, look for other opportunities to make eye contact and sincerely say, “thank you.”

Scheduling

Appropriately staffing a call center is a tricky issue. You need to have the right number of people working to efficiently handle the calls and other communications that come in.

If you don’t have enough people present, those who are there will end their shift exhausted, frazzled, and frustrated. Yet if you have too many people working, your labor costs will escalate, and you’ll be over budget.

Seek to find a scheduling balance that doesn’t overwork your staff or tax your budget. When developing a schedule be considerate of the needs of your employees.

If they rely on public transportation to get to work, don’t schedule them on days or times when they’ll have trouble getting to work or making it home. If they go to school, be sure to work around their schedule.

Workload

Call center employees who move continuously from one call to the next throughout their entire shift are less likely—and less able—to give their best to every caller every time.

They’ll soon grow immune to the number of calls in queue and plod through their day from one call to the next. Yet if they have too much idle time between calls, they’ll become bored, and their focus will wane. This doesn’t provide for good customer service either.

Instead, strive to develop a schedule that will give your call center staff a balanced workload that is just right, neither too busy nor too slow. It will make their shift go by quicker and produce better results.

Shared Vision

The final item, having a shared vision, is by no means the least important. In fact, when you and your call center staff share a compelling vision about what you’re doing and what you want to accomplish, the first five points on this list become not as important.

This doesn’t mean you can ignore those items, but when you have a shared vision with your staff, they may be a bit more open to overlooking shortcomings in other areas.

Produce a Happy and Effective Workforce

Though it takes work to produce a happy and effective workforce for your call center, it can happen. Follow these six tips to move you closer to achieving that goal.

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.

Tags agent management

Healthcare Call Centers

Call Center or Contact Center?

Post author By Peter Lyle DeHaan
Post date August 31, 2023

Call center communication channel options

Technology Provides More Communication Channels to Serve Patients Better

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

The label of call center referencing outward-facing communications is an historically accurate term. At one time it handled calls from a central location. Hence, we formed a descriptively accurate name of call center.

But many call centers have moved beyond calls to embrace a more inclusive descriptor of contacts. It’s likely your operation has too or plans to do so.

Here are some of the communication channels available to call centers:

Telephone Calls

Yes, calls still make up the bulk of contacts for most operations. While older generations tend to prefer phone calls and younger generations tend to avoid them, the complex nature of healthcare communications often makes the telephone the most efficient and effective communication channel. This will continue to be the case until a channel emerges that’s more efficient and effective.

Text Chat

Overall, younger demographics like to text. As such, text chat has emerged as a channel of choice for many consumers, and a preferred channel for many contact centers. It’s easier to juggle multiple text chats than phone calls. Also, whereas phone callers hope to not be placed on hold and expect immediate interaction, text chat users tolerate—and even accept—some short communication lags.

Email

While text chat is a preferred channel for many, email remains the go-to-choice for others. Though futurists continue to predict its demise, email has persisted as a default communication channel. Email shines in its ability to facilitate longer and more complex communications.

A benefit of email is that its users expect time delays. This allows email to dovetail nicely into an operation’s workflow mixing the real-time expectation for phone calls and the near-time expectation for text chat. Even so, email users will not tolerate a long delay. A few hours is an acceptable interval, with same-day response being the minimum expectation.

Social Media

A fourth channel consideration is social media. For some users it’s their default communication option. Though most healthcare-related communications are inappropriate for social media, providers should still monitor it to be aware of requests and handle what they can on social media. For overtures that carry a privacy concern, social media can still serve as an initial contact point, which can then more appropriately migrate to another channel.

Summary

Though many still think of a call center as handling phone calls, we must embrace an expanded vision of processing other communication channels. This includes text chat, email, and social media. And we must stand poised to embrace future channels as they develop.

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

Tags call center, communications

Healthcare Call Centers

Call Center Stakeholder Integration

Post author By Peter Lyle DeHaan
Post date July 27, 2023

Connect with Critical Groups Who Often Go Overlooked

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D.

As we wrap up our five-part series, Integrate Your Call Center, our fourth consideration is stakeholder integration. (If you want to review, the other three are Integrate Your Call Center Staff, Integrate Your Call Center Tools, and Integrate with Your Organization.)

When we integrate our call center with our stakeholders, this means a better information flow between you and other groups that are ancillary to the call center but also integral to success. Here are some items to consider when it comes to integrating with your stakeholders.

Vendors

First up for stakeholder integration is your vendors and suppliers. They are critical to your call center success, so it’s critical to have a good relationship with them. I’ve been on both sides of adversarial vendor-call center relationships, and the results are never good. For this reason, I always strive for mutually supportive, win-win interactions.

When you lift your vendors up, they’ll lift you up. And if you tear your vendors down, your operation is apt to suffer as a result. Seek interactions and solutions that are in your mutual self-interest. Your positivity will be rewarded.

And when difficulties arise—which they invariably will—seek to work with your vendors to find a solution rather than harass or threaten them. Remember, patience goes both ways.

Investors

Whether you’re part of a for-profit or nonprofit organization, someone has invested money in your operation, and they expect a return on that investment (ROI). If the call center fails to provide the return they expect, they’ll close it down and outsource the work. In a worst-case scenario, the organization will go out of business and close their doors. Either way, all those calls center jobs will be lost.

Yes, it’s the owners of your operation that control the purse strings. They are the ones who can say no to your funding requests. But they are not your enemy, so it’s important to have a good working relationship with them.

Call center investors and owners are the second source of stakeholder integration.

Staff

We’ve already talked about the importance of cross training when it comes to integrating your staff, yet call center employees are also stakeholders. They can be appreciative of their employers or hostile towards them. While this is a choice they decide, management plays a critical role in how well they’re integrated into the mission of the organization.

Key elements include their compensation package, managerial support, and how appreciated they feel for the work they do. Other areas are scheduling, workload, and a sense of a shared vision.

If they’re unhappy they’ll vent their frustrations with their coworkers, their family and friends, and potentially everyone who calls. Since they talk to a lot of people every day, a disgruntled telephone agent can harm your brand and hamper your objectives in quick order.

Thankfully, the opposite is also true. When they’re treated right, they’re much more apt to be happy and satisfied with their work. Then they’ll likewise let other people know, and their work will show it.

Conclusion

When it comes to making your call center the best it can be, be sure to include your stakeholders and integrate them into your operation. Though these groups often go overlooked, they are critical to your success. Don’t overlook stakeholder integration.

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

Tags operations management

Healthcare Call Centers

New Skills for Today’s Agents

Post author By Peter Lyle DeHaan
Post date June 29, 2023

Hire Staff with the Abilities That Today’s Consumers Need and Expect

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

There was a time when hiring managers looked for three key skills in their call center applicants: a pleasant and understandable telephone voice, good spelling, and neat penmanship. Yes, legible writing was key because everything was handwritten.

Then computers arrived and the penmanship requirement was replaced with typing skills. Today these three capabilities remain important, but we need to add more to our list.

Internet Awareness

We may assume that everyone today knows how to use the internet, navigate websites, and appropriately deal with problems that occur online. Yet we shouldn’t assume this is the case. Instead, test applicants to verify this skill.

I recently talked to a rep who admitted to being confused in navigating her company’s own website. As you can imagine, she wasn’t able to help me.

Social Media Experience

In the same way, today’s call center agents need to be comfortable using social media. And most applicants are. But don’t assume this is always the case. Therefore, it’s important to test them to make sure they have a working knowledge of the social media platforms your organization uses.

Even if their role won’t directly involve communicating with patients and customers on social media, your staff should know how to navigate your social media pages. This way they’ll be ready to assist your clientele if needed—and assume that at some point it will be needed.

Texting and Email Ability

Next, your agents need to know how to compose professional and comprehensible messages for text and email. Using slang and emojis may be fine in casual settings, but it has no place in the healthcare industry. The same applies with spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

Test applicants to ensure their written communication is an asset to your organization and not a detriment to it. Failure to do so will result in misunderstandings and reflect badly on you as a healthcare provider or support service.

Video Ready

As we discussed in the benefits and disadvantages of video calling, we need to hire staff with video in mind. Even if you don’t currently use video in your operation, it’s likely that you will soon. Your employees need to be comfortable in front of a camera.

They must communicate effectively through their body language, in addition to the words they use and their tone. Though their words and tone are all they need when it comes to voice and written communication, video adds the nonverbal component, which is critical for effective communication to take place.

Hire staff that’s video ready—and willing.

Conclusion

In addition to hiring employees with a pleasant and understandable telephone voice, spelling proficiency, and typing accuracy, make sure they possess internet awareness, social media experience, texting and email ability, and are video ready.

This will provide you with a staff poised to help today’s patients and contacts.

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

Tags hiring call center agents

Healthcare Call Centers

Integrate with Your Organization

Post author By Peter Lyle DeHaan
Post date May 25, 2023

Don’t Stay in Your Silo or Function in Isolation

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D.

I once needed to call a company in the healthcare sector. With their call center I encountered long wait times, surly representatives, and little help in resolving my dilemma. I made many unsuccessful phone calls.

At last, one rep transferred me to a different department. My experience with that call center was the opposite of the first one.

The employee answered quickly, was cheerful, and offered help. In one phone call, lasting but a couple of minutes, she resolved my concern. I thanked her for her helpful resolution and remarked how difficult it was to get to her department.

Her response took me aback.

“No one knows we exist,” she laughed. “We’re our company’s best kept secret.”

It seems she worked in a silo within her organization. Her silo functioned wonderfully, in contrast to the organization’s primary call center. What made the difference? I assume it was management, but that’s a topic for another time.

Today’s discussion is about integrating your call center with the rest of your organization.

It’s Us Instead of Them

When you integrate with your organization you move away from the mindset of us referring to the call center and them referring to the rest of the organization.

Instead, everyone in the company becomes us.

Making this mental switch is key. Without it, any plans to integrate with your organization will not succeed. Embracing a holistic us mentality is the first step to successfully integrate with your organization.

It’s Focusing on Others Instead of Self

As you make this mindset shift, you also shift your focus. By redefining us to include the entire organization, you encompass a greater set of employees who can band together to serve patients and callers. Isn’t that why your organization exists? To help patients and callers? To best accomplish this the focus must be on callers and what you can do—with your whole company behind you—to best address their concerns or needs.

It’s a Team Approach

This reformed focus embraces a team approach to problem solving. The goal isn’t to make yourself look good or even your whole department. The goal is to work as a team to make your organization look good. When you do this you and your company win, and—more importantly —so do your patients and callers.

Implementation

This grand vision to integrate with your organization is easier to visualize than to realize.

Though you can start it from within your call center, it will take time to permeate through your entire organization. It’s easier when the initiative comes from the C-suite. And, of course, some managers will resist this change. But this reveals their selfishness.

They’re more concerned about maintaining the status quo than about what’s best for the organization and your customers.

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

Tags customer service, operations management

Healthcare Call Centers

Do Video Calls Have a Place in Your Contact Center?

Post author By Peter Lyle DeHaan
Post date April 27, 2023

Examine the Benefits and Disadvantages of Video Calling

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

For years, some call center managers have looked forward to having video capability in their call centers. Others weren’t so open to video calls. And most agents have opposed it as well.

Yet the past few years have prepared us, even conditioned us, to participate in video communication.

If you don’t already have video in your call center or are moving in that direction, now might be the right time to explore it more seriously.

The Benefits of Video

There are three components to our communication: words, vocal, and nonverbal. The words we use comprise only 7 percent of our communication. Our tone of voice and inflection account for another 38 percent. The remaining 55 percent is nonverbal; it’s our body language.

In a typical call center, agents can only use words and vocal components to communicate with callers. This totals 45 percent, not being able to tap into the remaining 55 percent nonverbal component.

Video calls add this nonverbal component into the mix, allowing for all 100 percent of communication to occur. The result is enhanced interaction, more effective information exchange, and easier rapport building. These combine to improve customer service, which results in happier callers, less miscommunication, and fewer callbacks.

An added benefit in the healthcare industry is the ability to see patients online, which can be a huge benefit, especially in telephone triage.

The Disadvantages of Video

Despite all the upsides to video calls, there are some downsides as well.

Employees opt for call center work for assorted reasons. A common one is that they want to avoid in-person interaction with the public. This may be due to appearance, low self-confidence, or social anxiety. They feel safe and competent over the telephone, whereas they would struggle with in-person scenarios. Adding video to the call center removes that safety net.

Other agents may feel uncomfortable in front of the camera, not have a personality that works with video, or lack the appearance needed for successful visual communication.

In all these situations, forcing an employee to accept video as part of their work may alienate them and cause them to resign.

Preparing for Video Calls

Here are some tips to successfully implement video in your call center:

Make it optional for existing employees: Allow them to opt out if they’re uncomfortable. Don’t penalize them for this.
Provide training: Though most employees know how to use a camera—from both a technical and practical standpoint—not all will. Offer instruction as needed.
Review your dress code: Some call centers have a relaxed dress code or no dress code, reasoning that when you’re talking on the phone it doesn’t matter what you look like. This goes away with video. Make sure video agents look presentable and act professional.
Update your documentation: Make sure your employee handbook, policies, and written expectations reflect video calling and the use of cameras in your call center.
Hire new employees for video: Screen applicants and hire staff with the expectation of video.

With these elements in place, you’re ready to move forward with video calls in your contact center. May you enjoy the process and realize success.

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

Tags call center management, operations management

Healthcare Call Centers

Integrate Your Call Center Tools

Post author By Peter Lyle DeHaan
Post date March 28, 2023

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.

Tags Peter Lyle DeHaan's Vital Signs, technology

Healthcare Call Centers

Remote Patient Monitoring

Post author By Peter Lyle DeHaan
Post date March 2, 2023

Add New Services to Better Serve Your Stakeholders

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

Whether you’re an in-house medical call center provider or a for-profit outsourcer, look for ways to add more services to better serve your stakeholders. This will increase your value to them and help your community. It will also increase the value of your operation to your organization or to owners.

One such option is remote patient monitoring.

Remote patient monitoring tracks the output of patient devices as they gather healthcare-related data. Much of this plethora of information yields to automation. But at some point, the output requires human intervention. Why not let your call center agents provide that personal evaluation that surpasses an algorithm or escapes the abilities of artificial intelligence (AI).

You already have the staff to do it. And regardless if they have medical training or not, they do have a working understanding of healthcare. Also, you have the infrastructure in place to do it. Though you may need to add a module or app to your existing platform to handle remote patient monitoring, you already have the basic technology in your call center.

When you offer remote patient monitoring, two benefits result.

The first one is that you can better serve your stakeholders and your medical community. And the other outcome is that you make yourself a more valuable vendor to your stakeholders.

If you’re an in-house operation, this earns you more attention at budget time and a more esteemed standing within your organization. And if you’re an outsource call center, the results our increased revenues and a more holistic service package to offer to your clients.

But don’t rush into remote patient monitoring without careful planning. Consider the technology aspect, the training aspect, and the legal aspect. None of these are insurmountable issues, but it is critical to address each one in advance. As the old adage goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

By all means, consider remote patient monitoring for your medical call center. Just make sure you do it right, and your chances of success will increase greatly.

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

Tags customer service

Healthcare Call Centers

Integrate Call Center Staff

Post author By Peter Lyle DeHaan
Post date January 26, 2023

Pursue Agent Cross Training to Produce Better Outcomes and Improve Efficacy

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D.

In my post “Integrate Your Call Center” I discussed various integration strategies to pursue. Now I’ll dive into each one of them with more intentionality. First up is to integrate call center staff.

The key requirement to staffing integration is cross training. Cross training will improve efficiency, increase employee skills, and better serve callers. Cross training also moves your operation closer to FCR (first call resolution), which produces both caller-centric benefits and improved operational outcomes.

Here are some ways cross training can take place:

Channel Cross Training

Many people use the phrase call center, and we all understand what it means. A better label, however, is contact center. This reflects that we no longer process just calls, but contacts. These various forms of contact come to us on different communication channels.

The most common communication channel is voice, as in the telephone. It is ubiquitous and will continue to serve a vital role in our contact center.

Text chat emerges as another critical channel with increasing acceptance and use. Many customers persist in texting even when reverting to a phone call would more effectively meet their objective, both in terms of accuracy and timeliness.

Email communication is another channel. Some rely on it completely and expect contact centers to provide that option.

Social media is a fourth channel that is the default for some, even though it’s not always ideal for healthcare scenarios. And there are other possible channels.

The goal of channel-cross training is to have all operators adept at all channels. Though some may specialize, they need to know how all channels work and be able to function efficiently on each one. This allows you to integrate call center staff and have them move between channels as needed, either according to schedule or on demand.

Call Type Cross Training

The second type of cross training relates to call types. For example, an agent who focuses on taking messages, should also be able to schedule an appointment or take a class registration. Or an agent who functions as a receptionist and spends all day transferring calls, also needs training on other features to better meet caller needs.

Without cross training, patients and callers can easily bounce around from one agent to another based on employee specialty and training particularity. With cross training, however, one agent can address whatever need the caller may have. They could take a message for the doctor’s office, register a patient for a class, and cancel an appointment, all before transferring them to a different department—assuming that’s needed.

Call type cross training allows you to integrate call center staff more fully.

Cross Training Pitfalls

Yet not all cross training is wise. So use common sense when you integrate call center staff. Though you don’t want a highly paid nurse taking a message for billing, there’s no harm in them doing so. Yet you don’t want non-medically trained personnel addressing a patient’s questions about a healthcare concern. This is a disservice to the patient, will likely provide misinformation, and could result in a lawsuit.

Therefore, encourage agents to have a patient-first perspective and seek to help callers in every way possible, while at the same time communicating clearly their limitations.

Conclusion

Embarking on an intentional and robust cross training initiative will help you to fully integrate call center staff. The goal is that, within reason, any employee can help any caller on any request through any channel.

When you do this your patients and callers win, your contact center becomes more efficient, and your agents increase their value to your organization.

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

Tags agent management, training call center agents

Healthcare Call Centers

When Something Goes Viral

Post author By Peter Lyle DeHaan
Post date December 28, 2022

You Can’t Control What Happens Online, but How You React Is Key

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

Content posted on the internet can take on a life of its own, with the masses sharing it, adding comments, and promoting it to more and more people. This is usually an emotional response and seldom an informed decision.

The result is that something posted about you or your call center can go viral. There’s nothing you can do about it. Yet you can control how you react to it. It’s the only thing in your control.

Though we tend to think of something going viral as a negative occurrence, it can be positive. Don’t lose sight of this.

For positive viral content enjoy it, add fuel to it, and ride it for as long as you can. The only challenge is knowing when the message has run its course. Then it’s time for you to move on as well.

What’s more common, unfortunately, is negative viral content. It’s something we fear but ignoring its potential to appear won’t stop it. Instead, be prepared to react to it wisely to minimize its negative impact.

Here are some tips to dealing with negative viral content online:

Don’t Go on the Offensive

A common response when attacked is to fight back. This seldom helps and often fuels the fire. Whoever first posted the information or was one of the first to promote it, doesn’t care about the truth. They care about attention and feed off it.

The worst thing you could do is have a public conflict with this person. Their followers will defend them, and your followers will defend you. This escalates the situation and prolongs it.

Share Your Perspective Privately with Your Customers

Quickly communicate the truth or—your side of the story—with your customers. Keep your employees informed as well. A mailed letter may have the biggest impact and the least potential for misuse, though it also takes time to produce and deliver.

An email to your customer list is a faster approach. Just be aware that anyone who receives it can easily forward it or post its contents. Even when a supporter’s actions are well-intended, it could make the problem worse.

An email is especially risky if the message is hastily thrown together, has a critical tone, or is defensive.

You may consider posting something on your website but do so only after careful deliberation. It could hurt as much as it helps.

Let Your Supporters Defend You

Avoid the temptation to defend yourself online. Let your supporters do that for you. A carefully worded reaction from a third party could be the first step to vindicate you, lessen the negative impact, and give reasonable people a chance to consider your perspective.

Conclusion

You can’t stop negative information about you or your call center from spreading unabated over the internet. but you can mitigate its impact. Preparation is the first step. Plan how to respond should the time arise. And if it does, don’t panic and work your plan.

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

Tags communications, internet