Whatever industry you are in, attaining success in the post-pandemic world completely depends on your customers---Whether they are patients, residents, students, guests, or travelers--have faith in you and trust that you are able to keep them safe.
The days are gone when support services like food services or housekeeping services were merely standard requirements of a business. Your customers are now holding these departments to a higher pedestal, and they can either cost your business or build up trust.
If you are responsible for running your own healthcare facility or among one of them, choosing a healthcare BPO to take care of your support services is an effective way to meet your customer's rising expectations.
Though primarily perceived as to strategy to save money, the benefits of outsourcing go far beyond just cost savings. Below mentioned are three benefits of outsourcing your support services.
- Customer/Patient Recruiting and Retention:
The lengthy process of hiring and training employees is expensive and burdensome for healthcare facilities, especially for the positions that fall outside of your organization's specialty. For example, a team responsible for recruiting at a healthcare facility has experience in hiring clinical resources. However, they may not be able to fill hourly non-clinical positions like a patient sitter or a housekeeper. When you choose to outsource, the recruiting duties fall on the shoulders of the healthcare BPO partner, who has its own hiring team that is specially trained for those specific positions.
The BPO agents thoroughly understand the nuances in support service staffing volumes, like seasonal voluntary turnover, and show up equipped to keep consistent staffing levels. Another benefit of hiring a BPO partner is that they have the ability to offer flexible options for team members. This was truly visible during the pandemic times when healthcare facilities were forced to lay off, furlough, or temporarily remove staff. A good service provider can find other options for those team members. This can include transferring to another location or cross-training for other required positions. Then, as the organization stabilizes and is ready to ramp operations back up, the BPO company has maintained the resources needed to provide staffing.
- Tools, Training, and Technology:
If 2020 has taught us anything, it would be that you need organizational ability to succeed. When any unexpected mishap comes your way, you need to stay ahead of the curve in terms of finding quick solutions to problems. Travel, hotel, and healthcare industries started to depend on the perception of safety, cleanliness, and risk to combat fear and build trust with the patients and customers. The reality behind this is you may lack the expertise to shift gears in these departments. In the healthcare industry, meeting your patient or visitors' expectations requires redesigning operating models, adjusting training programs, and implementing the latest technology — things that are outside of your business's core focus.
The perk of working with a BPO service provider is that you're not just outsourcing staffing but also the tools, expertise, and technology to make the rapid changes your patients expect.
If you are choosing a healthcare call center, you need to take a closer look at the tools and training they offer. Below are a few important things that every BPO should have:
- Training programs backed by an L&D team that keeps training content updated and can make adjustments as per your requirements.
- Expert knowledge in the most effective tools and equipment to ensure maximum quality and cost savings.
- Enabling technology platforms that help teams function more smoothly and offer real-time visibility into performance metrics.
- A Long-Lasting Partnership:
Although both the healthcare facility and the hired BPO often talk about creating long-term partnerships, they too often devolve into an easy transactional relationship that is surrounded by terms, conditions, and contract modifications. This may result in some short-term cost savings, but it usually precipitates poor results. It can also create a corrosive work culture that is plagued with huge turnover and a lack of career growth opportunities for team members. Instead, a true partnership offers operational stability, a seamless CX built on trust, and a positive working environment.
The Pandemic has exposed the inability of transaction-focused BPO relationships to endure the challenges of a rapidly changing environment.
But a long-lasting partnership may be one of the biggest benefits of outsourcing. A reliable partner rather than merely a company you have a contract with--must possess these qualities:
- Flexibility:A BPO partner should be able to work with you and adjust to your needs, even during hard times.
- Agile Decision Making:Being a true partner denotes acting quickly on any changing requirements or challenges.
- Culture- You need a support service provider whose culture breeds authenticity—someone who is in it with you for the long haul.
By being able to identify these features early in your healthcare BPO selection process, you will be able to choose a partner that is up to the task of working with you to achieve common goals, even during pandemic times.
FINAL WORDS
Outsourcing is so much more than just a simple way to save money. It gives you access to resources and expertise that are required to meet the changing expectations of the patients in the healthcare industry. With hiring, training, technology, and a lasting relationship, BPO companies can help your organization become more resilient and trustworthy.