To stay competitive, the healthcare industry is recognizing the need to make patient experience a priority and figure out ways to make it better. It’s misleading to think that leveraging technology in the healthcare space is all about automation and redundancy of the workforce. It also offers opportunities to deliver the best customer service to patients.

Patients are looking for treatments that are precise, convenient, and inexpensive. Providers are looking for ideas and innovations that save time for physicians and money for insurance companies. From extremely targeted treatments to analyzing an individuals’ risks for various diseases, digitalization is changing the entire healthcare ecosystem and providing value to  patients’ lives.

Importance of great customer service in Healthcare

The Healthcare industry is one space that demands personalized relationships. You may have the best physicians and experienced staff, but if you fail to provide consistently high-quality customer experience, your organizational skills may go unrecognized. Strong customer service gets the most loyal patients and provides the best care.

Here are a few statistics to back this up –

• Almost 47% of consumers are unhappy with their healthcare experience, and a vast majority feel that healthcare organizations are focused more on industry needs than the needs of consumers.¹
• 44% of US consumers switch to a competitor following a poor customer service experience.²
• Acquiring a new patient can take from 5-20 times more effort and resources than keeping an existing one.³
• Healthcare providers delivering better customer experiences generate revenues between 4% and 8% above the⁴
• 86% of customers are willing to pay more for better customer experience.⁵

It’s not just the healthcare providers, brands developing medical devices and machines need to follow a customer-centric strategy too. This will result in satisfied customers, increase retention rate, and bring in more collaboration from healthcare providers.

The role of Digital Technology in Customer Experience

Though there are too many innovations in the healthcare industry, here are the few notable ones that will truly enhance your patient’s journey.

Digital Touchpoint

As per the 2019 Healthcare Consumer Study, 49% of the patients expressed frustration with their healthcare provider administration processes that include appointments scheduling, payments, and insurance information.  ⁷

The high touch approach has simplified telemedicine, providing a seamless experience to the users. The users can virtually access hospital services in less time with less hassle. This can save money by reducing unnecessary visits to hospitals and clinics.

Cisco states that 70 percent of consumers are comfortable communicating with doctors using technology rather than seeing them in person.

Digital touchpoints as well as solve other simple tasks like payments and navigating through medical history.  However, digital touchpoints must be data-driven and in compliance with privacy laws.

They must be able to capture and interpret user data in a contextual, automated, and personalized way. It intelligently connects with other smart devices used by the patient to detect the existence of critical points along the therapy path.

AI and Robots for Queue Management

AI has taken customer experience to the next level. It helps in optimizing queuing systems identifying customers’ needs, matching with healthcare providers, assisting them with the documents, and notifying them of their wait-time.

Robots with a specially written algorithm can recognize customers on their second visit and help them with their purpose of visit. AI helps these robots to interact in spoken words and operate hands-free amidst the coronavirus, ensuring safety of patients as doctors as well.

Healthcare Data and Analytics

Data is the cornerstone of accountability and planning. According to the Health Research Institute, 88% of healthcare providers say that having insufficient patient information prevents them from meeting expectations. 8

Healthcare systems can personalize care and accelerate diagnosis by using data collected through connected devices. It helps with the workflow challenges, by forecasting the needs of the patients and adjusting patient-doctor schedules. It also helps to reduce costs, wait-time and enhances the overall experience.

Electronic Health Records

Electronic Health Records allow faster and more integrated information sharing between health care providers. AI-based analyses help to filter, organize, and search for information from multiple sources and access the right information. It reduces unnecessary investigation,  and improves communication and collaboration.

Medical professionals are able to save time to pull charts, manage prescriptions, schedule appointments, and improve workflow efficiency.

Chatbots and AI-based customer service

There are two areas where Conversational AI can be implemented with relative ease and assist medical professionals to treat their patients with much greater efficacy and care.

1. Information Dissemination – AI assistants can be a force multiplier when it comes to raising public health awareness. All it needs is the right platform that can be accessed by multiple audiences or with everyone. It can answer general queries regarding symptoms, transmission, preventive measures, and include official government helplines as well.

It can be a substitute for the initial phone call with doctors to discuss the concerns and make in-person appointments. This will help people make informed decisions about seeking further help.

1. Customer care- The administrative staff at hospitals can be overtaxed with the sheer number of inquiries and questions.  The virtual assistant can help patients around the clock in booking appointments, answering general FAQs about updates, medical insurance, informing about the test available, their pricing, and sending test reports. A well-designed conversational assistant can reduce the need for human intervention in such tasks by as much as 80%.9

Good Customer Experience Begins Online!

To build trust and loyalty with a patient, healthcare organizations need to take control of their omnichannel presence. Just not their website, but across various directories, social media, messengers, third party reviews, etc.  

People today depend on the web to find a provider and a strong online presence gets more referrals. Over 80% of patients research providers even with a referral—and that goes for every age group, not just younger patients. Providers must lead their healthcare organization with a compelling consumer-first approach and digital mindset.

Patient Experience is paramount for any healthcare organization. If you are still skeptical about including a customer-first approach, you are already behind. iLink with its digitally integrated business service can help you craft an excellent experience for your patients and healthcare providers.

Talk to our experts!

Endnotes

1. https://www.revechat.com/blog/healthcare-customer-experience/
2. https://blog.thedoctorsanswer.com/21-patient-experience-statistics
3. https://blog.thedoctorsanswer.com/21-patient-experience-statistics
4. https://blog.thedoctorsanswer.com/21-patient-experience-statistics
5. https://blog.thedoctorsanswer.com/21-patient-experience-statistics
6. https://blog-idcuk.com/how-3d-printing-is-transforming-healthcare/
7. https://www.xcubelabs.com/blog/top-digital-technologies-that-helps-you-deliver-quality-cx-with-healthcare-products/
8. https://www.qminder.com/customer-experience-trends-healthcare/#:~:text=Data%20is%20the%20cornerstone%20of,used%20for%20internal%20analysis%2C%20too.
9. https://hackernoon.com/conversational-ai-in-healthcare-2-key-use-cases-wybn3ycz