Cloud Telephony for Healthcare Industry to enhance Customer Communication

by Avinash Mittal Blogger

The healthcare industry is one of the largest and fastest growing industries worldwide. In India, it is growing at CAGR of 16.5 % and is expected to rise to $280 billion by 2020. With the growth of the health industry, one thing becomes invaluable for it’s stakeholders, i.e, customer communications. However, there are several communication challenges for the healthcare stakeholders.

Challenges in Communication for the Healthcare Industry:-

· Maintaining a track of client communications

· Measuring the performance of agents

· Tracking the customer experiences

· Managing all the outbound campaigns

Due to an ineffective communication, delay in medical treatments has often been witnessed and has caused substantial loss. Though Healthcare institutions have been coping up to avoid any such incident but due to the high-cost of traditional EPABX setups, effective communication could not be achieved. Recently, Cloud Telephony has emerged as an appropriate replacement to this problem. The required automation and streamlining of the calls can be fulfilled with this technology.

What is Cloud Telephony?

· It is a method used to deliver telephone applications on the cloud as a hosted solution.

· It is a messaging and voice service that does not need outdated business telephone systems.

· It is a mode by which businesses could make or receive multiple voice calls and messages without investing on any additional capital infrastructure.

How does Cloud Telephony improve customer communication in healthcare industry?

There are various advantages of Cloud Communication in the healthcare sector such as:-

Provides Easy patient (customer) support

Proper Communication solution for healthcare is of prime importance. Embracing cloud communication in healthcare sector helps create a single number for all your customer queries with automated IVR guidance. A smart routing system enables transfer of calls to the right agent, also, transfer calls to the requested doctor or healthcare department from the system.

Automated service reminders

A lot of patients might need reminders for their next appointment. You can set-up automated call for each one and also send SMS reminders through a call center software for healthcare, available through Cloud Telephony. This would not only lessen patient no-shows, but also help establish a good reputation as a healthcare.

Automated feedback systems

A healthcare center should maintain a good relationship with patients by obtaining first-hand feedback from them. Due to cloud communication, it is easy to get feedback from the patients after every visit. You can easily set up an automated campaign that uses calls and SMS to collect feedback from your patients, and save them categorywise on your dashboard.

Updated patient records

Cloud Telephony in healthcare facilitates easy integration with healthcare information management systems. This would help to keep your patient records updated and thus, it would be easier for the agents to have meaningful conversations with the patients every time.

Automated outbound reminder campaigns

By adopting cloud communication, you can set-up an automated reminder call to the patient half an hour before the appointment time. This gives them sufficient time to get ready for the appointment. Also, lets you know if they need to cancel it.

Safeguarding customer data

Patients expect all their data to be safe and confidential. They are not comfortable sharing information even to the representatives of the healthcare center. With the help of Cloud communication, you can connect your technicians to your patients, without disclosing their contact information.

Conclusion:-

Cloud Telephony is a reliable solution for the healthcare sector. It has made the communication much more smooth and simplified. It is easily accessible and a flexible solution for healthcare institutions of all scales.