August 2019--Creating a centralized call center often makes sense as dental groups scale and add more practices.
Hiring a group of highly-trained customer service representatives to book new appointments, confirm existing ones, and answer patient questions can free up the staff in your dental practices.
That gives the on-site team more time to spend with patients.
Suppose you’re thinking about creating a dental answering service. In that case, there are some key questions to ask before you develop a dental call center.
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This question is trickier than many people realize. A few of the options include:
It’s imperative that you go through these questions and clearly define what the goal of your operation is.
When a call comes into a specific dental office, the receptionist usually answers by saying:
“Thank you for calling (Practice Name). How may I help you?”
When a call comes into a DSO call center, the operator must know which dental practice the patient thinks they are calling. Otherwise, the operator won’t know which office name to use in the greeting.
Call center operators typically need to have several computer screens in front of them to display promptly:
The DSO call center operators will need the same access as in-office receptionists to enter the caller’s contact and insurance information and schedule appointments in the correct column for the appropriate time for each provider.
Remember, that first call is incredibly important - call center or not. See what Christina Villarreal, a Patient Experience Manager, says about the first call:
A very basic script may include:
“Thank you for calling (Practice Name). Para continuar en español, por favor, oprime nueve. If you are a current patient, please press 1. If you are a new patient, please press 2. For all other calls, please press 3.”
Suppose your protocol is to have the call center operators only handle new patient inquiries. In that case, callers who select two will be routed to the call center, and callers who choose one or three will be routed to the dental practice.
It’s important to remember to record the information in Spanish if that’s needed and to direct those callers to Spanish-speaking team members. Next, you'll want to create scripts for new patients calling in for the first time.
Suppose all of your calls are being routed through a call center. In that case, it's vital for operators to quickly understand whether they are interacting with a new or existing patient.
For new patients, a lot of information will have to be gathered for the first time, so your call center must have questions scripted out. For example, a few questions you might want to ask include:
Some dental groups have calls not answered by the call center redirected to the dental practice receptionist. Others have a voicemail box established. The voicemail option works best when there is only one brand involved.
Suppose the call center operators are returning voicemail messages.
In that case, it’s important to establish protocols to capture the information for each callback attempt and ensure the correct number of attempts before changing the caller status from potential patient to lost patient.
There should be Standard Operating Procedures for every process the call center operator manages, including:
One of the keys to success is developing a “repeatable playbook” for success. Every single call center operator needs to know and follow the same protocols. Here are a few ideas as you’re getting set up:
If possible, have them shadow a dental receptionist in a dental practice for at least two days to understand how it works.
Hopefully, they’ll understand that their role as a call center operator is vital to the practice's success.
Ideally, have a test workstation where the new hire can listen to actual calls being answered by an experienced call center operator, and the new hire can enter data into a test site.
Then, the new hire and a trainer can compare the new hire’s information to the actual data entered by the experienced operator and address any discrepancies.
Your KPIs should be in place so you can effectively track and measure performance and grow.
Ensure the call center operators have the tools they need to improve.
Based on your KPIs, you should know which team members perform best and which need additional training.
Hiring a group of well-trained customer service reps to book new appointments, confirm existing ones, and answer patient questions can free up the staff in your dental practices.
That gives the on-site team more time to spend with patients.
Patient Prism could help your company track key performance indicators (KPIs) and improve the skills of dental call center teams.
We’re the only call tracking company that leverages artificial intelligence and human call coaching validation to deliver patients directly to your dental practice.