{"id":1481,"date":"2017-12-04T16:18:02","date_gmt":"2017-12-05T00:18:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.sprucehealth.com\/?p=1481"},"modified":"2023-10-26T05:59:57","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T12:59:57","slug":"missed-calls-lost-patients-medical-phone-system-failing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/missed-calls-lost-patients-medical-phone-system-failing\/","title":{"rendered":"Missed Calls and Lost Patients: How Your Medical Phone System Is Failing You"},"content":{"rendered":"

If your practice is missing calls, you’re losing out on important opportunities.\u00a0People don’t make physical phone calls in this millennium unless something is seriously wrong, complicated, or time-sensitive, and missing\u00a0such literal calls for help both delays patients who need care and prevents your practice from growing and remaining\u00a0financially viable.<\/p>\n

Of course, nobody intends\u00a0to miss calls;\u00a0it only happens because medical offices are\u00a0hectic during\u00a0the workday and\u00a0then prohibitively expensive to staff\u00a0at\u00a0night or on\u00a0weekends. So is the problem intractable? Are medical practices forever destined to miss calls?<\/p>\n

No, I mean, I’m writing a blog article about it, so you know that I have some answer in mind, and the good news is that phones have advanced\u00a0tremendously since the days of copper landlines and tape-powered answering machines. If your current medical phone system doesn’t have features for call rescue, smart routing, texting, and other essentials, then it’s failing you and your patients. Let’s get up to speed.<\/p>\n

Missed Calls\u00a0= Lost Patients<\/h2>\n

Sometimes people will call your practice and not reach a human.\u00a0This is\u00a0unavoidable unless you staff your\u00a0phone lines 24\/7 (painful and inconvenient), pay for a nurse triage line (expensive), or hire an answering service (live humans but otherwise\u00a0pretty similar in function to voicemail<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Then, when a patient’s call is missed, one of three things happens for\u00a0them (ordered from best to worst):<\/p>\n

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  1. They get\u00a0what they want from a recorded message (e.g., your clinic hours) or are\u00a0otherwise able to accomplish\u00a0what they set out to do when they called<\/li>\n
  2. They leave\u00a0a voicemail<\/li>\n
  3. They give up<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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    74% of people are likely or very likely to choose another business<\/b> after a negative phone experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    Of these possibilities, #3 is clearly the worst. If a prospective new patient\u00a0calls you but then gives up, you’re probably not going\u00a0to hear from them again. One\u00a0industry study, for instance, found\u00a0that 74% of people are likely or very likely to choose another business after a negative\u00a0phone experience,\u00a0with the authors also reporting that healthcare is one of the top three industries that people want to contact by phone.1<\/sup> These figures together suggest the dangerous possibility that\u00a0would-be patients\u00a0are likely both to\u00a0call your clinic and to\u00a0be very dissuaded if that call goes poorly.<\/p>\n

    People are also unlikely to call back if a first call doesn’t go well.\u00a0One telecom\u00a0firm has\u00a0reported that<\/a> “customers will only try to call a company twice\u00a0[…] before taking their business elsewhere,” while\u00a0“a fifth will only call once.”2<\/sup>\u00a0The company\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0provide the\u00a0methodology\u00a0behind those numbers, and they sell products that benefit from them, but\u00a0the\u00a0sentiment passes the gut test; not many of us will continue to call an organization that doesn’t respond.<\/p>\n

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    Trying to reach a potential customer within an hour of their query makes you 60 times as likely<\/b> to have a meaningful conversation with them as trying after 24 hours.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    Most of us won’t bother to leave voicemail, either. I looked hard for good data on how many people\u00a0hang up instead of leaving voicemail, but\u00a0concrete figures don’t seem to exist. Most relevant\u00a0articles\u00a0cite\u00a0a Forbes piece<\/a>, which\u00a0puts the\u00a0no-voicemail rate at 80%, but it doesn’t\u00a0include a citation and the\u00a0work itself actually seems to be a thinly veiled advertisement.3<\/sup>\u00a0In any case, I think the directional point is correct that a large number of people simply won’t leave voicemail; they’ll just hang up, and you’ll lose your chance with them.<\/p>\n

    Finally, even if a prospective patient does leave you voicemail, or you\u00a0reach out to every number that doesn’t leave a message, you may find that you’ve missed your window by the time you call back. Research from the Harvard Business Review<\/a> found that, in some contexts, businesses “that tried to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving a query were nearly seven times as likely\u00a0[to have\u00a0a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker] as those that tried to contact the customer even an hour later\u2014and more than 60 times as likely as companies that waited 24 hours or longer.”4<\/sup> Unsurprisingly, there are large benefits to striking while the iron is hot, and people are more likely to convert into patients if you catch them at their moment of highest intent, when they’ve become motivated enough to make an actual phone call.<\/p>\n

    So\u00a0How Can You Save Missed Calls?<\/h2>\n

    Some medical outfits have perfected the art of\u00a0missing calls while keeping patients happy<\/a>, but the key for most practices is instead to help patients get what they want even when you miss their calls.<\/strong> This is\u00a0outcome #1 (the best one) on that list up above, and it’s a really powerful strategy. As we wrote in our recent ebook<\/a>,\u00a0patients are increasingly looking for on-demand, self-service ways to get answers and access care, and you can leverage this trend to\u00a0convert missed calls into\u00a0positive outcomes.<\/p>\n

    Simple versions of this\u00a0tactic have been\u00a0around\u00a0for years, with\u00a0many clinics\u00a0including their operating hours and other frequently requested\u00a0information\u00a0directly in their voicemail greetings.\u00a0This allows some patients to get\u00a0what they need without ever talking to a live person, and it’s popular for a reason. Recently, new\u00a0advances\u00a0in phone technology have expanded\u00a0such possibilities dramatically, and\u00a0modern telephony platforms (like Spruce!) now have the power to help huge numbers of your patients, even when you miss their calls.<\/p>\n

    Smart Phone Systems Like Spruce Can Rescue Missed Calls<\/h2>\n

    “Call rescue” is a technology that gives\u00a0callers options\u00a0beyond just leaving a voicemail, and\u00a0we’ve been really excited about it recently at Spruce.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    Diagram of a smart Spruce phone tree, showing a simple call-rescue text for all abandoned calls.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Now, if you miss a call on Spruce,\u00a0you can choose to have the system automatically send a text back to the caller\u00a0and initiate any of a variety of advanced workflows.\u00a0It’s as flexible as you want it to be, so this\u00a0follow-up could be\u00a0as simple as an open-ended text message, or it could be as complete as an invitation\u00a0to a full\u00a0after-hours telemedicine workflow, or anything else you can imagine. Call rescue lets you guide patients into self-service avenues to\u00a0find information and\u00a0get things done on their own, when you’re not available to talk with them live. If you’re interested in this feature, we’ll help you set it up, as there are a few important regulatory items to consider.<\/p>\n

    Spruce also supports smart phone tree features, so you’ll be able to know where people were in\u00a0your phone menu when they abandoned their call. If they\u00a0wanted to request an appointment, for example, then the system could automatically send back an intelligent message about appointment times or other information relevant to getting into your clinic. On the inside, Spruce can then\u00a0notify specific members of your team about certain types of missed calls, so that the right people can easily see who was trying to get a hold of them.<\/p>\n

    \"\"
    Spruce integrates across your desk and mobile phones and is also available on the web, so your team will never truly miss a call again.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Call rescue\u00a0changes missed calls from dead ends into\u00a0active\u00a0text-based conversations. This promotes\u00a0patient engagement and satisfaction while making common workflows, such as intake form completion or insurance card collection, more efficient for everybody involved.<\/p>\n

    Patients now\u00a0expect more than voicemail and busy signals, and with powerful features like call rescue and smart phone trees available on modern medical communication platforms like Spruce, the days of the truly missed call\u00a0are\u00a0numbered.<\/p>\n

    Learn more and get ahead of these changes in communication\u00a0with\u00a0our new ebook, “How Modern Communication Expectations Affect Medical Practices,”\u00a0which you can download\u00a0right here for free!<\/p>\n

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    Download\u00a0the New Spruce eBook to\u00a0Learn More About Smart Medical Communication<\/strong><\/h2>\n