Specialists for Every Step in Patient Healthcare

Positive healthcare outcomes are driven by highly trained experts providing specialized care. Why should customer care be any different?

In this 5-minute read we’ll explore:

How customer-centric care is rapidly becoming the norm
Why better CX models are needed to facilitate this
The five pillars of the patient customer experience
Why moving from a transactional to a lifelong approach matters
How data, integration, and automation plays an important role

Healthcare is a highly specialized field. We all expect that if we attend our local hospital or clinic with a physical complaint, the medical professional handling our case will have the domain-specific knowledge and experience required to treat us effectively. But the diagnosis and treatments we receive don’t represent our entire interaction with the healthcare system — we may also need to communicate with the customer care team as part of the process, to manage billing, scheduling, or follow-up care.

Unlike the doctors, nurses, or consultants who provide primary care, traditionally, customer care has not been viewed as an expert profession within healthcare. But this begs the question — rather than seeing customer care as an ancillary service, what if healthcare organizations instead treat it as a specialist function?

The shift to consumer-centric healthcare

The healthcare industry is undergoing a transformative shift from a business-to-business to a business-to-consumer mentality, mirroring changes that have long been established in other sectors — such as retail or banking. As patients become more involved in their healthcare decisions, the industry must adapt to meet their expectations as consumers. This evolution requires a new appreciation for the power of data — not only data from clinical encounters but also insights into patient communications, backgrounds, and cultures.

To utilize and deploy this data effectively, a need arises for more specialized customer care teams, focused on delivering a consistent, informed, and high-quality patient experience over the long term, rather than simply problem-solving or firefighting individual patient interactions, as has often been the case.

Going beyond traditional metrics to measure what matters

A recent analysis by PWC emphasizes that while healthcare has shifted towards a more consumer-centric model, a gap still needs to be addressed due to insufficient customer data utilization. Healthcare providers can close this gap by more effectively connecting patient encounter data with individual preferences and social circumstances to provide a more seamless and customized experience.

Traditional satisfaction metrics like HCAHPS are increasingly seen as insufficient in capturing the full range of what healthcare customers value. What’s required is a more specialized approach, with well-trained CX teams using a diverse range of techniques to assess and record patient satisfaction at every touchpoint, allowing a more comprehensive picture to be built over time.

The need for new CX measurement tools/metrics in a value-based care environment therefore requires a corresponding shift in how we view CX teams themselves — not merely as conduits for communication, but as analysts, facilitators, and advocates, fully engaged in shaping the customer experience and implementing continuous improvements.

The five pillars of a customer-focused healthcare experience

The PWC analysis quoted above recognizes five core areas where consumer satisfaction improvements can lead to better patient experience and healthcare outcomes.

Convenience

Convenience is a crucial determinant of patient satisfaction and engagement — minimizing potential or perceived barriers to care by offering flexible scheduling options, reducing wait times, and streamlining administrative processes. Digital health initiatives, like mobile apps and online portals, can be effective in empowering patients to manage their health more effectively — providing a level of convenience on par with current customer service offerings in other sectors.

The goal for providers should be to make each patient interaction as smooth and stress-free as possible, minimizing frustration or wasted time and encouraging patients to take proactive steps in managing their health.

Quality

Quality, as a concept in healthcare CX, extends beyond clinical outcomes to encompass all aspects of the healthcare experience. It relates to the success of medical interventions but also the environment in which care is delivered, the attentiveness of the staff, and the overall perception of the healthcare facility.

A commitment to quality in customer care means striving for excellence in every patient interaction and outcome — and specialized CX teams play a central role here. To increase and maintain the quality of care requires a multifaceted approach. Healthcare providers must ensure that facilities are equipped with the latest technologies, that customer-facing staff are well-informed and empathetic, and that clinical protocols are designed to be patient-centered.

Support

Effective patient support in healthcare customer care is multifaceted, involving emotional, informational, and practical assistance. CX teams need to be equipped with the knowledge, skills, and information to provide resources for patients to understand their health conditions, navigate their care options, and access the necessary services — and to provide this service consistently over time, avoiding the need for patients to explain their situation or needs in every new interaction repeatedly.

A robust support system must include highly trained CX staff that can respond to patient inquiries quickly and efficiently, provide emotional support during challenging times, and offer guidance through the complex landscape of healthcare. Whether through patient education programs, support groups, or customer service phone lines, the support provided should be comprehensive, compassionate, and contextualized as part of the broader patient journey.

Personalization

Personalization in healthcare centers on recognizing the individual person behind the “patient” label. It involves customizing communication, treatment plans, and service offerings to align with each patient’s unique health needs, lifestyle, and preferences. To do this effectively requires a specialized approach to CX, leveraging data analytics to gain insights into patient behaviors and tailoring communications and services accordingly.

The desired outcome is a patient experience that feels distinctly personal, where patients are treated as partners in their care journey, with their values and preferences taking center stage in all decision-making processes.

Communication

Effective communication is the glue that holds the healthcare experience together. It’s about ensuring that patients understand their diagnoses, treatment options, and the steps they need to take to maintain or improve their health.

Communication should be clear, empathetic, and bidirectional, allowing regular opportunities for patient feedback and questions, and ensuring the data gathered is recorded and categorized in such a way that it can be effectively used to inform future interactions.

By specializing customer care as a function, providers can ensure that agents can convey complex information in a manner that is easily understandable, across multiple channels, such as social media and telehealth, to match the communication style and preferences of the individual patient.

The lifetime value of healthcare CX

Taking these five pillars into account allows healthcare providers to move away from a transactional view of customer care, where every interaction is treated in its own context, to a more holistic, long-term view where customer care is seen as an ongoing process covering multiple touchpoints over time.

In the same way that dealing with a chronic health condition requires specialist input and coordinated communication over a long period, lifetime customer care necessitates a long-term view. A patient’s relationship with their healthcare provider can span years, and each interaction will influence their loyalty and the likelihood of continued engagement with the healthcare system.

The provider-patient relationship is therefore not static but dynamic, changing based on each experience of the system, whether it’s a follow-up call, a routine check-up, or an educational newsletter. To build trust and facilitate a lifetime of consistent, quality care, healthcare organizations must adopt a long-term perspective, investing in the people, skills, and technology necessary to provide a truly holistic customer experience and nurture these valuable relationships.

The importance of data in supporting CX teams

Patients are not defined solely by their conditions. Truly personalized care must be data-driven, with every decision informed by a comprehensive understanding of the patient and their individual needs, and achieving that requires a specialist approach to customer care. To develop a holistic view of healthcare users as people, providers must interrogate data from the entire spectrum of patient interactions — not only clinical data but also insights from patient behavior, preferences, and demographics.

Building CX teams that have not only the necessary communication skills, but the complementary technical and data knowledge that allow them to customize every interaction to the individual is key — as is implementing cross-platform integrations and automation to support CX agents in their work.

Conclusion

Transitioning towards treating customer care as a specialized and data-driven field within healthcare represents not just an incremental change but a revolutionary one. It requires a shift in organizational thinking, CX staff training, and infrastructure to recognize and address the nuanced needs of each patient as a customer with individual preferences, experiences, and expectations.

Committing to the pillars of convenience, quality, support, personalization, and communication means healthcare providers can offer a level of service that not only meets but anticipates evolving patient needs. By doing so, healthcare CX teams can move beyond simply informing patients to building and maintaining a community that values and trusts their expertise and experience — creating better outcomes for both patient and provider.