After the emergence of Covid-19, all small and large scale businesses were affected in one way or another.
Dental clinics were no exception, and with limited staff, the owners had to revise their workforce strategy for finding an efficient way to reach out to patients, book appointments, and so much more. During that time, outsourcing customer service appeared as a blessing in disguise.
In the post-pandemic world, outsourcing dental call customer service mainly helps clinics reach out to customers according to the latest trends. Installing in-house infrastructure and handling a customer service team can cost you large sums; the outsourcers resolve different queries, schedule appointments, and provide adequate guidance to your patients for you at a much lower budget.
With that said, this is just the tip of the iceberg for what outsourcing customer service can do for your clinic in today’s world. So let’s find out why it has become a necessity.
Dental Call Outsourcing is Cost-effective
The pandemic has pushed a large number of businesses to the brink of bankruptcy.
In addition to that, owing to the limited cost of small-scale clinics, hiring a customer service team will amount to nothing but taking a considerable chunk out of your clinic’s finances. Installing infrastructure, managing workspace, hunting for a skilled crew, and more will distress the organization.
On the contrary, outsourcing customer service means you will directly approach a team of skilled workers operating with ready-to-use equipment. Plus, it allows the resources to be scaled up or down as per the clinic’s requirements in the future.
The savings are then reinvested to strengthen the core business areas, including modern equipment installation and upgrades.
Offshore customer services can further cut corners for you. As there are varying living wages worldwide, you can find an outsourcing company offering services at unexpectedly low costs. While the services provided are not anyway less than those provided onshore.
A Gateway to Meet Patient’s Demands
The calls from your patients are as unpredictable as a toothache. Therefore, 24/7 customer support is a definite demand for a responsible dental clinic.
Due to this, several clinics have geared up their marketing strategy by featuring never-ending customer service. This, in turn, has set higher standards for clinics to meet where there is limited area for errors.
Hiring trained professionals to deal with different patients would require you to invest more resources, which may not be feasible for small dental clinic owners.
In contrast, offshore outsourcing enables you to hire professionals from different regions speaking different languages. This means availability at varying time zones would not be a problem for them. Hence, if your services are stretched out internationally, these outsourcers can work around the clock to provide outstanding customer service.
Be More Competitive
Lockdowns left a limited area for the dental clinics to reach their customers through traditional channels. This is why seeking help from technology has become a demand of the post-pandemic world.
Today, patients prefer staying up to date with clinics through online channels. This includes using online forums like social media, blogging, emails, etc. and equipping the latest technology.
A study conducted by McKinsey reported that 65% of the companies practicing these new go-to-market models considered them more effective in reaching out to the customers than the pre-pandemic methods.
As outsourcers always keep an eye on current demands and newer ways to attract consumers, leveraging them means your services will constantly adapt according to modern trends. Thereby enables you to be a strong competitor in the digital world without investing a small fortune.
Brush-Up Your Customer Service
One of the prime advantages of outsourcing is maximizing customer services. As mentioned before, addressing patients through phone calls will not suffice for the needs of the post-pandemic market. Other pathways, including emails, live chats, online posts, and a lot have taken the place of traditional go-to-market methods.
Since outsourcers are already equipped with all the advanced technologies, you will not need to install them in-house or keep track of recent developments. The service providers will do the drill for you to reach patients through all possible means.
Staying updated also leaves a strong impression on patients. Imagine you visit a dental practice website, and an active member promptly addresses all your confusions.
Now, would that compel you to visit the clinic? To most of us, it will, and that’s mainly because of the fantastic customer service.
For the same reason, there was a rise in pre-appointment services during recent years. Therefore, outsourcing can somehow be the shortcut to successfully running your clinic, especially in post-pandemic times.
Opportunity to Ramp-Up Efficiency
Managing staff is essential yet challenging. Keeping in mind how the pandemic has derailed most businesses’ efficiency, hustling everything together will only become a burden for you and distract you from the core responsibilities of your clinic.
Plus, the recruiters will have to find employees with representative and management skills. Training them about your clinic’s availability, policies, and services is another milestone. This overburdening leads to inefficiency in various departments of an organization.
Instead, outsourcing will save you extra time to invest in polishing your skills and services. Simultaneously, the customer service team working remotely will hire, train, and resolve other minor issues.
As a result, with a team solely focused on addressing your patients, the quality of your services will increase while the burden will decrease. This opportunity will also let you detect and work on the weak areas of your clinic and make the overall operations much smoother.
Better Risk Management
One thing which Covid-19 taught us all is preparing for the worst.
To manage resources in difficult times, outsourcers assist by offering flexibility. This flexibility is not only in terms of continuous availability but also in working under varying circumstances.
At a clinic, better risk management becomes more crucial. There can be some patients urgently in need of guidance and some casual customers inquiring about appointments. Dealing with them accordingly can only prove you as a professional service provider.
Plus, if your clinic scales up, you will require an expanded customer service team with advanced technology to function at a more significant level. Doing it all alone without prior knowledge involves various risk factors. In contrast, handling industry-specific applications are what outsourcers are trained for.
Besides, what if your dental facility gets to face a sudden disruption like the one experienced in 2020? Will you be able to work through the time? If not, then passing this responsibility on outsourcers to maintain continuous customer service is necessary.
The Way Forward
Some critics believe that outsourcing customer service to remote workers may limit your control over the clinics or patients. Insufficient knowledge, poor quality, and lack of devotion are some of the other concerns. Nevertheless, according to our understanding, these outcomes are only faced when you don’t find the right service providers.
There are outsourcers with adequate knowledge and expertise who can handle multi-channel communications far better than in-house staff. Additionally, you can also find customer service providers skilled in utilizing modern technology, including live chat support, artificial intelligence, interactive voice response (IVR), and many of which you might not be aware of.
On top of this all, outsourcing customer service can cost much less than installing in-house resources. So if you are fortunate to find professionally trained service providers, there is nothing that can stop your dental facility from growing with post-pandemic innovations.