Improving the patient experience (PX) in healthcare has become increasingly important as healthcare organizations compete to acquire and retain patients. Just as businesses in other industries have learned, organizations that set themselves apart by increasing customer and patient satisfaction are more likely to become – and remain – patients’ providers of choice.
When choosing a healthcare provider, quality customer service is a top priority for most patients, and first impressions often determine whether patients return.
Personalize Patient Communications
Personalizing communications is a primary way of improving the patient experience. According to Silverline, “50% of patients say a bad digital experience with a healthcare provider ruins the entire experience with that provider.” In addition, “62% of patients say good communication and continuous engagement matters the most for patient satisfaction.”
Here are some ways to personalize patient communications:
- Gather data about when and how often patients prefer to receive messages and what communication channels they prefer to use.
- Maintain a balance between using automation and providing self-service and live patient support.
- Send messages to patients for reminders, follow-ups, and aftercare.
Sending personalized messages to patients also helps to reduce issues such as cancellations and no-shows.
Gather and Address Patient Feedback
Having a way to voice their healthcare experiences makes patients feel heard, which increases patient satisfaction. As part of monitoring patient satisfaction and improving patient care, it’s important to consistently collect both positive and negative feedback from patients. By doing so, you can identify gaps in patient care and areas where improvements can be made. This will also help you to get better reviews from patients online.
Hire and Train Well
When hiring and training healthcare contact center agents, it’s essential to emphasize the importance of providing caring and attentive customer service. Listening to patients empathetically and making their customer journeys easier is key. Therefore it’s important to give agents specialized training on how to interact with patients. Patients who feel they are well taken care of by customer support will also feel more prepared and more comfortable about visiting a healthcare center and are more likely to return to it in the future.
Use Data to Improve the Customer Experience
With the patient data that healthcare contact center agents have access to, they can help enhance the customer experience:
- By using predictive analytic tools, agents can help pinpoint what action a patient should take next.
- Agents can identify when patients need more care and set the necessary appointments.
- With the technology and patient data, agents can help to make the handling of inquiries, cases, and incidents more efficient.
- Analytics technology can inform agents if a patient does not have transportation to get to an appointment. The agent can help the patient to get a ride and let them know if there is a location closer to them that they can visit.
Enhance Customer Care
In addition to handling routine tasks such as setting appointments, healthcare contact centers can do a lot to enhance customer care. Here are some examples:
- Agents can see a holistic view of patient history, which helps to identify health risk factors, roadblocks to following care plans, and special living situations.
- PPC agents can help to facilitate holistic care plans for preventive care and chronic diseases.
- Patient personas can be used to map out patient journeys.
- Actions for preventative healthcare can be set up to help patients be healthy.
Ultimately, patients want a seamless, informative, and caring customer experience. CH Consulting Group has experience helping healthcare organizations deliver exactly that. Contact us today to learn more about how together we can help improve the patient experience.
