September 22, 2014
Healthcare is a fast-growing and high-demand industry that nearly everyone depends on, usually at critical times. Yet it is ranked as one of the worst customer service providers, following TV and internet/wireless providers.
Whether it’s finding a doctor you trust, getting your prescription refilled, or finding a solution to your health emergency, the experience must be simple, smooth, and stress-free. With the growth of communication channels and customer demands, healthcare providers must innovate their old processes to accommodate the modern customer consistently across each channel.
The passing of the Affordable Care Act has changed customer expectations in the healthcare industry, a change that requires providers to shift from a primary focus on delivery business benefits towards servicing the needs of individual consumers. Healthcare providers must shift resources from transactional legacy systems towards customer-centric systems that remove the friction associated with a customer's experience, speed innovation, and drive growth.
In reality, customers have already made this shift. Carriers that remain static and continue with outdated systems are already suffering the negative business impact, and becoming increasingly disconnected from their customer.
Healthcare providers must communicate on the channel of their customers’ choice.
With the growth of social and mobile, the number of customer service channels has rapidly increased over the last couple of years. To stay competitive, providers must increase the ease of service by adopting a multi-channel customer service approach.
It’s not about having a voice on all possible service channels, but instead having a consistent, quality voice on the primary channels that your customers use. Focus on the quality of multi-channel customer service, not quantity of service channels. Determine how your customers are choosing to interact with your brand in order to build your channel growth strategy based on customers’ demands and expectations. And, most importantly, ensure that the experience is consistent on the channels you have before attempting to add new ones.
