Object: dental clinic in Bern. According to the terms of the contract, we will not indicate the name of the clinic. Size: 8 seats

Specialization: orthopedic dentistry

The problem voiced by the client: an insufficient number of target patients and the unsatisfactory amount of revenue associated with this circumstance.

Results of the initial analysis: the clinic’s staff consists of qualified doctors, its reputation is consistently high, the main flow of clients comes from advertising and recommendations from other clients, no serious complaints have been recorded against call center support employees. However, the conversion of patients into appointments as of December 2022 remained at 43%, which is an extremely low figure for an institution of this level.

Identified problem: low efficiency of the clinic’s call center operators.

The result of our agency’s activities: by August 2023, the conversion to recording was 64% and is still trending upward.

An in-depth diagnostic of the call center activities revealed two main problems:

• Lack of operator scripts with clearly written questions for potential clients. This made call center support services ineffective, since it did not allow employees to fully identify the patient’s problem and correctly present him with the clinic’s capabilities.
• Lack of understanding of sales techniques and the ability of operators to competently lead a patient to an appointment. For the most part, they acted at random, which is why the results remained unacceptably low.

We started building our call center activities as follows:

• Step by step we studied and analyzed the work regulations in force in the clinic at that time.
• Reconfigured Dynamics CRM, sorted target patients into groups depending on their situation and the urgency of the problem. This approach is often practiced in the best call centers, as it helps the operator immediately grasp the right line for building a dialogue.
• Wrote individual scripts for call center employees.
• Developed criteria for hiring new employees and an algorithm for their training.
• Made a training plan for each of the operators.
• Organized regular trainings for call center employees.

When the clinic’s management gradually implemented the innovations we recommended, conversion began to grow by an average of 2-3% per month, reaching 48% by February, and 53% by April. For us, this was expected, but not enough: being healthcare call center outsourcing companies, we knew that we had not yet reached the peak of the clinic’s capabilities.

Working through the mistakes made with the call center employees played a big role. Once every one or two weeks, our employees called or met with each operator and together listened to recordings of his calls, analyzing dialogues with clients and trying to understand:

• What other questions could you ask?
• What should you have asked the patient about beyond what you heard?
• What information should he have been given besides what was said?
• Which phrases should have been reformulated?

After detailed case studies, the quality of interaction between support call center employees and patients rose to a new level, and conversion continued to grow. In June it reached 57% and kept the level at the achieved height the following month. The management was pleased, and so were the clinic staff, since the increased flow of patients had a positive effect on the salary level of the operators.

However, we were still not satisfied. This time we were embarrassed by the period of stagnation, because we knew that for the clinic of this level the convention could and should be above 60%, which means it has room to grow. There was even an idea to transfer call center outsourcing, but in the end we rejected it, choosing a different path.

A change in the course of remuneration for operators helped us make the final leap. Now they received not just a fixed payment, which had already increased quite well along with the increase in the clinic’s revenue, but individual bonuses for each patient who made an appointment. This motivated the operators to make even more efforts, and since they had already mastered the skill of properly communicating with customers, the results were not long in coming.

The direct connection between efforts to motivate operators and skyrocketing conversion rates was clear:

• August: conversion from lead to record reached 60% versus 57% in July.
• September: conversion to record increased by another 2 points to 62%.
• Ultimately, the conversion from registration to turnout increased to 64%.

Considering that the average cost of dental services for implantation and prosthetics in the clinic is 2000 euros, it is clear that even without transferring the customer support service to outsourced call center companies, all the efforts invested have paid off many times over.

To summarize, we can say that the emphasis on training operators and increasing their motivation allowed us to achieve a conversion rate of 21% within 8 months, increase the number of patients and increase the clinic’s revenue. Now the conversion continues to grow, the facility is thriving, and we continue to “keep our hand on the wheel”, correcting some of the shortcomings of the call center, which are becoming less and less common.

I am convinced that for any company whose prosperity depends on ensuring a flow of customers, the path to prosperity begins with call center diagnostics. If you do not skimp on the audit, professionals can identify errors in work that are invisible to management, and then you can either remove outsource customer service, or, with the help of specialists, make the necessary changes, raising the efficiency of the center to previously unattainable heights.