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Empathy as the First Response: Healthcare Contact Centers in Caring Practice

September 12, 2023
Healthcare contact center

As a medical service provider, delivering exceptional service should not only be about resolving issues. It should be about nurturing the relationship with patients. This is where empathy statement call center comes in handy, helping to drive measurable outcomes across both patient satisfaction and operational efficiency.  

Now, imagine a scenario, where a patient after undergoing surgery faces questions about their medical bills, insurance coverage, and post-surgery care. At such times, the patients need clarity, and more of it, they need reassurance and personalized support.  

This scenario highlights the need for empathy statements for customer service, which fosters trust, reduces frustration, and patient retention. When a healthcare business effectively leverages empathy, it enhances not only patient experience but also lowers the churn rate and improves customer loyalty.  

Let’s discover why empathy is important in healthcare and how it’ll be of utmost benefit.  

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Role of Empathy Statements for Customer Service in Healthcare Domain 

Healthcare customer service outsourcing is one of the most sensitive areas that should be handled with precision, care and knowledge. 

Empathy plays a key role in the healthcare contact center industry. It involves the practice of understanding and listening to the needs of customers past the surface level. 

According to the Beryl Institute study, 85% of the patients have ranked empathy as the top factor in determining their level of satisfaction with healthcare service provider. 

In addition, as per PwC, empathy for patients improves operational efficiency, and reduces burn out rates. This clearly highlights that the healthcare call center agents should have balanced emotional intelligence to understand what customers aren’t uttering yet demonstrate their care. Moreover, the agents must gain training about empathy phrases for call centers to offer personalized support. 

Empathy in healthcare call centers

Why is Empathy Important in Healthcare Call Centers? 

Empathy is the foundational skill in healthcare contact centers. It fosters healthy and long-term relationships with patients, and offers numerous other benefits to medical service providers, such as:  

1: Boosting Patient Retention and Loyalty  

Your patient retention soars, when empathy gets integrated to the healthcare call center operations. Every medical service provider understands the high cost of patient acquisition. By building trust through empathetic interactions, the contact center can optimize the NPS and churn rate.  

There are some simple empathy statements for customer service, that do wonders to improve patient loyalty, such as:  

“I understand how overwhelming this is, but I’m here to guide you through this”  

Once the support agents use this phrase, the patient will get reassured that their concerns are taken seriously by their healthcare provider or payer.  

2: Enhancing Operational Efficiency  

While the importance of patient satisfaction cannot be overlooked, operational efficiency is another aspect to focus on. In the focus of empathetic interactions, support agents remain calm, which led them to reduce time spent on escalating issues.  

Additionally, in highly advanced healthcare call center facilities, such as ContactPoint360, it’s analyzed that empathetic agents quickly identify and resolve the issue. As a result, the risk of repeat calls gets neutralized and overall services metrics are improved.  

Top 10 Powerful Empathy Dialogues for Healthcare Call Centers

Empathy dialogues healthcare call centers

3: Better Financial Outcomes  

When patients inquire about claims, billing, and insurance, it leads to a lot of confusion, frustration and anger. But empathetic conversation helps to mitigate all this, as responses and resolutions are quick and accurate.  

For example, empathy phrases for call centers like “I understand why this would be frustrating, and I’ll make sure we find a solution that works for you” can turn a negative situation to a patient satisfying opportunity.  

When you make patients feel cared for, the disputes and tense situations are easier to handle. As a result, claims and billing processes are executed efficiently, improving the revenue cycle management.

What’s Required Alongside Empathy Phrases for Call Centers  

When you express empathy, you are cultivating values, which will help your healthcare call center deliver exceptional customer service. Customers seeking help want to feel that the healthcare call center agents understand their feelings through their words, voice, tone, and cues based on the conversation. 

To empathize with your healthcare contact center customers, your agents should practice the following: 

  1. Active Listening is Always a Priority 

Feeling heard is always comforting. Let your customers speak while you are listening actively to what they have to say. Avoid jumping to conclusions. Don’t try to offer a quick resolution without hearing their side of the problem. When they finish talking, respond with empathy statements for customer service. Some customers simply want to vent. Most of the time, half of the issue gets resolved once customers feel that their concern is heard. 

  1. Avoid Sympathy. Focus on Empathy

Customers are not looking for sympathy. Instead, come up with empathetic statements during the interaction. When a customer calls a healthcare call center only to vent out, try to console by saying “I understand how you feel.” Taking a more personal approach often helps. Using empathy statements also helps in making your customers feel heard and valued. 

  1. Maintain a Clam and Respectful Tone

The adage is simple – you don’t know what the caller is feeling and going through. However, with healthcare, you must be clear when a customer calls a healthcare contact center outsourcing company. At this very stage, empathy might just mean an empathy phrase for call centers like “I understand that you are going through a difficult situation. I assure you I am here to help you.”  

In addition, avoid interrupting the customer, stay calm, and show your attentiveness. Train the agents to greet your customers with their names. This creates an immediate relationship. At any point, don’t be disrespectful even if the conversation is going south. Keep calm and stick to your goal.  

     4. Show a Willingness to Help

In healthcare contact centers, empathetic customer service translates to an effort to help. Aim to strike an authentic conversation with a personal influence by calling out the name of the caller during the conversation and expressing gratitude for their patience. 

 

ContactPoint360 Expresses Empathy as an Organization

Empathy flows through our healthcare contact center. With a leadership team focused on customers, we train our agents to do what is best for our customers. Our healthcare BPO services success stories reflect our company culture.

With empathy comes freedom. If you are leading a healthcare call center services or managing a team, encourage agents to leave their comfort zone to deliver exceptional support. Train your agents to apply empathy throughout the conversation for better CSAT and NPS.

It’s a fact that you may not be able to deliver the best solution always, but you can deliver personalized interaction.

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FAQs

What are the benefits of empathy in healthcare contact centers?

Expressing empathy during conversations is a powerful and effective way of building trust, calming anxiety, and improving health outcomes.

What are the best empathy statements for healthcare customer service outsourcing companies?

Here are a few empathetic customer service phrases for healthcare call centers:

  1. “I am sorry to hear that you are facing this problem.”
  2. “I understand that this is causing a lot of problem for you.”
  3. “Thank you for letting me know about this.”
What is the significance of empathy in healthcare customer service?

Empathy allows businesses to communicate effectively with customers. It fills the gaps in understanding, which creates positive interactions every time. When customers feel heard and valued, they are satisfied with the solutions offered.

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