Make sure your hearing loss callers feel heard on the phone.
Working in the hearing industry requires a certain kind of person – someone who wants to help others to live life as normally as possible. It’s a heroic decision to commit your working life to benefit others.
Being responsible for answering phones at an audiologist office also has its own struggles and hurdles to overcome. Callers are most likely either a person with hearing loss or a loved one who wants to help their family member or friend.
For those calling in with their own hearing issues, it may be evident on the phone call that they have trouble hearing. As the call handler, you want to be aware of this and make the best user experience possible. The goal of the call is to have the prospective patient come into your office to help them with his or her hearing issue; setting the appointment by the end of the call is vital.
If the call does not go smoothly and the caller has a bad experience, the call will end without an appointment. This is a missed opportunity. Missing just one potential patient could mean losing the opportunity to help more than just the caller. “According to W. Edwards Deming in his ground-breaking book Out of the Crisis, a happy customer who comes back for more is worth 10 new prospects. Happy customers spread their good news to 8 other potential customers, but unhappy customers spread their bad news to 16 potential customers,” says The Hearing Review.1
Here are a few tips to ensure that your next calls result in appointments rather than lost patients.
- Speak slowly and clearly, using the caller’s name throughout the call. This makes it clear that you are paying attention to the caller and making everything as clear as possible, so there is no confusion on expectations or commitments.2
- Try to minimize extraneous background noise. Most likely, you are answering calls in the front office where there may be many patients waiting in the waiting room area near the desk. When answering a call, try to close the glass partition to keep the noise level at a minimum, so the caller doesn’t have any trouble hearing you.2
- Have the caller repeat vital information back to you. When you are confirming appointment times, a doctor’s name, directions to the office, or anything of the sort back to you. This avoids missed communication and prevents your caller from missing their appointment because of mishearing important details.2
- Build rapport with the caller. People want to do business with people they like, so make sure to be friendly and hospitable with each caller. Treat them like a person, not just another phone call. Download our “5 Ways to Build Rapport” sheet for more tips on building rapport with callers.
Potential lost patients don’t just mean that there is one less person you are not helping to hear; it can also be detrimental to your business. According to The Hearing Review:
Follow these tips and make sure that you aren’t losing patients due to bad customer experience, especially before they even step foot into your office.
Curious to learn more about your missed opportunities? Contact a CallSource representative and discover how we can help improve your call-to-appointment ratio.
1. https://www.hearingreview.com/2014/08/customer-loyalty-quotient-clq/
2. https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/communicating_with_people_with_hearing_loss/
