In healthcare, the stakes are higher than in other industries. Your customers’ health, or that of their loved ones, is on the line, so their customer experience matters more than most.
Over recent years, healthcare has also experienced huge changes.
Fuelled by Covid-19, healthcare, in general, has witnessed massive increases in the volume of contacts (including phone calls), the constant shifting of protocols, and major staffing issues. In addition, the adoption of new technologies and ways of working that were already in development has been accelerated.
The use of AI, remote patient monitoring (including through the use of wearable technologies), decentralized clinical trials (where participants take part from home or via local clinics, rather than central hospitals), and telemedicine have all taken off at scale. For instance, it’s been predicted by Frost & Sullivan that the European telehealth market would witness more than a four-and-a-half-fold growth from 2019 levels, to reach $20.7B revenue by 2026. Fuelling this, they predicted that virtual visits would be up by 41.2%, and remote patient monitoring up by 20.4%.
Changes like these, along with other shifts in contact center trends, have had a knock-on effect for healthcare contact centers. One trend that is affecting all contact centers, but applies in healthcare more than most, is the move to increased digitization, but, at the same time, a push from customers for more personal, empathetic services
As a result of this shifting landscape, a Genesys survey found that 61% of healthcare organizations had increased the number of seats in their contact center between 2020 and 2021 (with 71% saying that growth would continue).
With this dynamic environment in mind, we wanted to highlight how Spearline can support healthcare organizations with some of the challenges they are increasingly facing:
Testing phone numbers in a remote world
Like contact centers in other industries, agents working in healthcare organizations have largely moved to remote or hybrid working. In fact, it’s been reported that Frost & Sullivan’s research on the impact of Covid-19 found over 60% of agents in healthcare organizations had moved to remote work. The Genesys survey mentioned earlier also found that 38% of healthcare organizations thought that managing the shift to remote work was one of their top three challenges.
Quality CX starts with a phone call from your customer connecting to an agent so that they can then deliver the level of service expected. It’s critical then, at any time, to ensure that calls to your organization are routing and connecting correctly. But, with healthcare contact center agents working remotely at this scale, testing your phone numbers becomes more challenging than ever.
Spearline’s testing platform allows organizations to conduct automated phone number testing, as well as on-demand phone number testing, ensuring that global contact numbers connect properly from points across the globe. With physical points of presence in 76 countries (and growing) a real test phone call can be placed to your local phone number, following the real path of your customers’ calls.
Voice quality testing and monitoring
Phone number testing doesn’t stop at ensuring calls are connecting to an agent. To deliver truly world-class CX, the voice quality on your calls is paramount.
In healthcare, quality is even more critical. If a customer calls one of your phone numbers, poor voice quality could mean that essential information being relayed is misinterpreted or missed entirely. At the very least, it will mean that a potentially stressful situation is made even worse by having to strain to hear each other, repeat information, or correct misunderstandings.
In the Genesys survey mentioned earlier, 66% of healthcare organizations said that quality management was highly valuable to them. 35% also said that one of their top three challenges was managing the quality of service.
Spearline’s voice quality testing uncovers your customers’ true voice quality experience by providing an objective audio quality score for phone calls to your contact numbers. A real phone call, placed from a physical point of presence, replicates the call from your customer. Analysis of a voice recording gives an objective voice quality score, taking into account characteristics like sharpness, interference, volume, and background noise.
Voice quality test phone calls like this can be automated 24/7, allowing you to proactively monitor the experience of customers and patients calling your phone numbers.
Testing phone numbers under high demand
Another of the top three challenges for healthcare organizations highlighted in the Genesys survey was managing increased contacts (33% listed this). The Frost & Sullivan research on the impact of Covid-19 also reportedly found that 62% of healthcare organizations have experienced an increased number of interactions with customers, with 64% reporting an increase in voice calls specifically.
With call volumes increasing, automated phone number testing is one way to ensure that phone calls from your customers aren’t suffering as a result of higher – and often fluctuating – demands on phone networks.
When the phone network is overloaded, calls to your phone numbers may suffer – the voice quality may be poor, or they may not be connecting at all. You may not know about this issue until a customer complains, which may take some considerable time. After all, how will they complain, if they can’t get through to you?
By carrying out automated phone number testing for connection – paired with voice quality testing – at regular intervals, you can receive real-time alerts on any issues. This allows you to respond immediately, resolving the issue more quickly and effectively.
The testing rollout of new/changed systems
The Frost & Sullivan research on the impact of Covid-19 reportedly found that 71% of healthcare contact centers had moved to cloud-based systems. This is significantly more than in other industries – the Deloitte Digital 2021 Global Contact Center Survey found that 32% of organizations across the board were running cloud contact center technologies in 2021.
The shift is perhaps unsurprising, given some of the other trends we’ve already spoken about, chiefly the huge increase in the volume of phone calls and wide shift to remote working. But how do you ensure that new technology really is supporting the quality CX you hoped it would? In particular, the process of switching over to new systems can be fraught with potential problems.
Many of Spearline’s healthcare customers use our on-demand phone number testing solution during the roll-out and deployment of new systems such as this. At the click of a few buttons, a real test phone call can be made to any of your phone numbers, globally, to ensure that the switchover has been made without fault. A regular program of automated phone number testing and voice quality testing then follows, to ensure that no future faults go undetected, and quality CX is maintained.
New to Spearline?
Spearline allows organizations to provide uninterrupted services to customers around the world. The Spearline platform in particular, tests inbound telecommunications services, as well as dial-out.
Importantly, our phone number testing works by placing real calls to your phone numbers, but it doesn’t require us to access calls from your real customers in any way. In this way, we have no possible way to access any customer’s healthcare data, ensuring that you remain HIPAA- and/or GDPR-compliant at all times.
If you would like to find out more, we would love to speak with you! Please send us a brief message, and we will be in contact with you shortly.
