Not a day goes by without someone in our organization reminding the others: keep the patient at the center of every decision you make. It’s easy to get caught up in the nitty-gritty of a healthcare organization and forget who it’s for, and remembering that we’re helping people get better care drives us all to work harder and do better.
Contact center agents, on the other hand, rarely need that reminder. They spend hours every day talking with and listening to patients about the issues they’re facing. The job isn’t easy, either. Many patients call because they’re sick, a loved one is ill, or they have a question about billing. Great agents have the ability to make callers’ days and lives just a little bit easier.
Because of the time agents spend connecting with patients, we at Singola Consulting place contact centers high on the priority list when it comes to improving the patient experience for our clients. We know from experience that compassionate, smart, and capable agents really do lead to happier patients, and we also know that people who make great agents can be hard to find. We have spent years cultivating the Ultimate Agent™ program to improve recruitment and retention rates at healthcare contact centers. Even when the program is in place, our clients have to make the commitment to treat their new agents well and offer them a chance at long-term employment.
Throughout 2014, we had many clients adopt the program, and we’re finding over and over again that Ultimate Agent™ and proper follow-through improve patient satisfaction and can actually turn the contact center into a revenue generator. That means everybody wins, especially the patients.
More information about the Ultimate Agent™ program can be found here, and stay tuned for future in-depth blog posts.