If you are running a medical office, you are probably used to the sound of your phone ringing. People wanting to make appointments, questions about medicine, cancellations, and even salespeople. Seemingly everyone in the entire world wants something from you.
That’s why in the past years’ many medical offices have chosen to go the smart route instead and invested into a medical phone call answering service like CallNET. These answering services are designed to take the stress of constant incoming phone calls off your shoulders and outsource it to trained customer service professionals.
Their rising popularity has led to more and more companies offering these answering services, but not all of them provide the same level of quality. Here are 5 common mistakes doctors make when choosing a medical phone call answering service. Avoid these and you will surely find out why this new type of service has become so popular:
- They’re not choosing a medical answering service
Yes, you heard it right. We think not having one of these services is the most common mistake doctors make. Outsourcing your incoming phone calls and not having to employ receptionists will drastically increase the scalability of any business, medical businesses are no exception.
- They chose price over quality
There are many medical phone call answering services out there that offer their services at incredibly low rates. Unfortunately, there is a reason for that. Whilst more high-end answering services like CallNET take their time to train their employees to your specific needs, some of the cheaper alternatives forego the training aspect entirely. Of course, that leads to much lower cost, but your customers will be able to tell that the person they are speaking to is most likely not directly employed by you.
- They think it doesn’t provide enough value
Think about how many phone calls your office gets every day. Now, think about all the phone calls that you are missing during after hours, lunch breaks, weekends, and holidays. It is true that an answering service will take some work off your shoulders, but it will do so much more. It will make your office available 24/7/365, which certainly sets you apart.
- They think their receptionist is irreplaceable
While it is true that there are some areas, like appointment making, where it is an advantage to have a receptionist in house, there are so many others where an answering service is advantageous. Medical questions or general health concerns are much better discussed by someone that has received training in the subject and not a receptionist.
- They think an answering service equals a robot
For most answering services, this is entirely wrong. Almost all of these services provide real people that sit down and give real advice to your customers. There are no weird voice intercoms or mechanical processes to go through. As soon as a customer calls they will be connected to a real human who can help them troubleshoot and find a solution to their problem.
As a doctor, you probably would never think that something as simple as adopting the right medical phone call answering service will have such a positive impact on your practice. You and your staff will feel less pressure, opening up more time to meticulously tend to patients. Happy staff, happy patients.
