Evolving Technology Needs and The Reality of Operational Budgets

The role of technology, be it for engagement or infrastructure, can be a costly afterthought in a healthcare call center. Many health systems know their operational costs for patient access and are fully capable of managing those needs with an internal call center. But technology for the call center industry rapidly changes and it can be hard to keep pace with the latest consumer communication trends and avoid unforeseen service delays or reductions in quality. In fact, we find that the ongoing nature of technology and infrastructure investments are one of the biggest strains on health systems trying to scale their existing call centers to meet their evolving needs and the demands of a newly consumer-minded patient community.

Considerations for call center technology can be overwhelming. Just to be functional, a call center requires a myriad of software, from workforce management and CRMs to data management and integration on top of telephony. Investing in these systems is critical to operations and as such requires careful consideration and planning in an industry that is saturated with options. Additionally, these technologies often come with vendor relationships that must be carefully chosen and maintained to ensure operational continuity. Unfortunately, these vendor relationships are often entered into based on upfront service costs without consideration for the cost of fallout if service agreements need to be scaled or fail to be met.

Benchmark Costs for Technology Infrastructure

Technology and CRM = AVG. $1800 PER AGENT

Workforce Management = AVG. $1750 PER AGENT

Data Integration = AVG. $500 PER AGENT

Reporting & Dashboards = AVG. $500 PER AGENT

Call Center Software (CTI) = AVG. $1000 PER AGENT

Reminders = AVG. $.25 PER REMINDER

The above table only illustrates the basic needs of call center operations. In order to generate revenue and ensure ROI, technologies with deep analytics, comprehensive monitoring, and reporting capabilities must also be a part of the equation. Quality assurance technologies, such as speech analytics or other performance tracking applications, are a necessity for large call centers as it is nearly impossible to manually monitor a large volume of patient calls. It’s these important yet auxiliary technologies that tend to go overlooked in the initial build of an internal call center but greatly impact operational budgets as service demands increase.

How will you juggle the need for new technology and ensure ROI as patient demands increase?

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