Call Answering Services: Where Does it Hurt?

A better customer service experience and cost effective solutions are the motivating factors that typically compel companies to seek the support of an answering service company.

These fixes are in direct response to “where something hurts” on a company. For one of our customers, their pain was cost. We therefore customized a remedy.

ISSUE:
A large cardiology practice in Clearwater Florida needed to cut costs.  After a thorough review of their internal processes, it was discovered that their busy practice made numerous changes throughout the month to their on-call calendar.  The answering service was spending too many hours keeping up with the requests and updating their changes.

The practice therefore needed a customized and secure process to update their on-call schedule in order to reduce the time and expense associated with the answering service making these changes.  They needed a scheduling interface that could reflect different job functions and the hours that specialized resources were available.

SOLUTION:
Our on-site software engineer created the On-Call Manager™. Instead of a static spreadsheet updated from faxed pages, this living document was developed based on algorithms that produced dynamic and up-to-the-minute detail.

Designed as a webpage, their once labor-intensive process was transformed into a virtual road map that allowed both administrative and “view only” privileges.

RESULT:

• Cost savings – the paper-driven fax machine was expensive to operate.
• The “paper trail” emitting from the fax machine was eliminated and the password protection resolved the security issue.
• The solution reduced the amount of resource hours spent doing manual administrative tasks when their time was better spent on patient care.
• The On-Call Manager™ removed a point of failure by alleviating the potential for entering errors into the system from the hard copy faxes.
• The software solution provided accurate tracking and a login history that could be analyzed.

 

The On-Call Manager™ product can now be optimized for any Answer Excellence client and even has the functionality to send out on-call reminders and emergent alerts on an as-need basis. Overall, it was the perfect solution for a unique problem.