Imagine this: you run a busy doctor’s office. Your administrative staff spends much of their time working directly with patients in the office or filling records and reports. This makes it difficult to answer every phone call from patients looking to schedule appointments or needing information about their account at your office.
The same problem can happen in a financial office, such as a bank or wealth management firm. As your team works hard to prepare reports or serve in-person customers, there’s little time left to answer when the phone rings. When calls are answered, they can disrupt the flow of work and cause delays on projects.
Missing phone calls can lead customers to seek services from your competitors. Call centers provide an easy solution to avoid losing customers due to busy phone lines and overcrowded voicemail boxes.
At TeleDirect, we know the importance of answering every call that comes into your healthcare or finance services office. We asked industry experts for their best advice on why you should work with a call center. Read on to learn the top four reasons to work with a call center.
- Cost Savings
On the surface, you might think that working with a call center service adds to your office’s costs. Paying for an outside call center service, however, ensures all of your calls are answered, without the cost to hire new employees.
The cost of a call center is generally much lower than hiring and training employees to answer your phones in-house. An employee will probably require a salary as well as additional benefits, such as the cost of vacation time or health insurance. In-house employees also require your business to purchase the equipment, hardware, and software the employees need to do their jobs, such as:
- Desk
- Computer
- Phone
- Office chair
- Office supplies (pens, notebooks, correction ink, etc.)
- Phone service or separate phone lines
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software
As Jason Hawkins, a partner at Advertising for Surgeons who has over 12 years of experience in the healthcare industry, points out, there’s a “huge cost-savings element to outsourcing” your call center needs. Hawkins also mentions the need to pay additional taxes when you hire new employees and suggests most offices significantly reduce their labor costs by outsourcing to a call center service.
- Improves Office Efficiency
Along with cost savings, Hawkins suggests call centers improve efficiency, saying, “most healthcare companies that we work with simply do not have the bandwidth to take on an influx of calls from both new patients and existing patients. Having a call center helps to ease the burden so the office staff can run the operation smoothly.”
Healthcare and finance offices can improve their overall efficiency by working with a call center. Nina Jensen, the Community Outreach Manager for communication management platform 8×8, explains, a call center “frees up your staff to focus on more important aspects of their job.” Your team can work on finishing projects and completing regular tasks instead of fielding calls all day.
They’ll also benefit from fewer distractions throughout the day. Without a call center, an employee has to stop what they’re doing to answer the phone. After the call, your employee has to go back to their project and take a few moments to refocus on the task at hand. Working with a call center reduces employee downtime for a more efficient — and effective — office.
- Better Customer Experience
No one wants to sit on hold or get sent to voicemail when making a call. Waiting too long for answers can leave patients and financial customers feeling neglected. Hiring a call center ensures your customers can get their questions answered all the time.
As Jensen points out, “Using a call center can help provide a better experience and customer service for patients. When calling a healthcare provider, it can be off-putting to be put on hold for a long time.” Using a call center service can improve the customer experience by providing:
- Shorter phone wait times
- Faster appointment scheduling
- Comprehensive data collection, such as patient insurance information or customer address data
- Quick answers to customers’ basic questions
A call center also helps you retain a human touch in an increasingly digital world. Dan Moyer, of medical device company RA Fischer Co, mentions, “Nobody likes getting a recording or voicemail, especially when it comes to medical treatment advice and referrals.”
Call centers let you give clients the best customer service from real, live customer service agents, rather than recordings.
- Trains Well-Rounded Future Employees
It’s easy to see how call centers can directly improve your business. An unexpected advantage of using a call center, however, is how it could indirectly help your business in the future. Many call center employees are just starting their careers and plan to move on to larger roles outside of the call center in the future. Working with a call center helps create opportunities for potential future employees to learn about your industry.
Working in a call center helps future industry employees develop the skills they need to take on managerial and other roles in businesses like yours. It provides an opportunity for these employees to experience all aspects of a business. They also learn to make quick decisions and how to handle dissatisfied customers properly.
Nadia Ibrahim-Taney is a university career coach and lecturer who helps recent college graduates get hired and be successful in the workplace. Ibrahim-Taney encourages recent graduates to work in call centers, explaining, “Call experiences make employees more well-rounded and capable of dealing with adversity.”
When call center employees are ready to move onto a different role in the healthcare or finance industries, your business benefits from well-rounded candidates with direct experience working with your clients.
Improve Your Business with a Call Center
Ready to see how working with a call center can help your healthcare of financial business meet customer demands? Get in touch with the experts at TeleDirect! We’re ready to help you customize your call center needs so your office never misses an important call again. Get a quote by filling out our contact form or calling us directly at (800)776-1081 today.
Smitha is the CEO and CFO of TeleDirect. Smitha obtained her license as CPA in 2007 from the California Board of Accountancy. Smitha is a results-driven leader with a proven track record of driving profitability and growth. With over 20 years of experience in business and finance, Smitha’s expertise in developing and implementing strategic plans has led to significant improvements in customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and operational efficiency. Smitha’s expertise in financial analysis and strategic planning allows her to develop innovative solutions that balance the needs of clients, employees, and shareholders. Smitha is passionate about building strong relationships with clients and fostering a culture of excellence that empowers employees to deliver outstanding results.