Contrast Everseat with the use by practices of IVR (Interactive Voice Response) where your patients are asked to “press 1” or “press 2” in order to route their calls. As my colleague and quality expert Greg Korneluk said, “phone trees are the end of quality.” What seems efficient to the practice is often an exercise in frustration for the caller and negatively affects perceptions about the practice. And negative perceptions influence patient behavior.
The overall attempt here to replace human beings with automated solutions has led to
Get Human
, a website and app designed to help consumers reach a live person when calling a company. The fact that such a website even exists should be a warning sign to doctors or administrators who think they are helping their practice’s bottom line by eliminating the person answering the phone.
The telephone call serves as a critical early impression that can make the difference between a new patient choosing your practice or going elsewhere. And the person answering it should be routinely described as
kind, friendly, patient
and
helpful.
Those are not the words I typically think of when describing a robot.
No matter how sophisticated technology becomes, some activities are just better handled by human beings. And when your business depends on how people feel about you in addition to you making them feel better, there is no substitute for that personal human touch.