When you don’t have all the facts, you can’t make informed decisions about where to put your resources. Netfor’s Service Desk Consulting uncovered the data necessary to evaluate a multi-hospital system’s call center.
Situation: A major healthcare system with more than a dozen hospitals had anecdotal evidence that callers to their in-house call center weren’t satisfied with their service. While the system’s more than 20,000 full-time employees, including 3,500 physicians, were providing excellent care, their average customer experience wasn’t keeping up. They knew they needed to do something but didn’t have the information to determine a strategy for improving their customer experience. In addition, they had commissioned a study that specifically looked at holistic patient experience; the call center emerged as an area that was deficient in the areas of best practice and delivery. Making decisions and spending money in an effort to make improvements without having a firm grasp on their situation was a risk they weren’t willing to take.
Action: The healthcare system partnered with Netfor to get a clear picture of their call center’s performance. Netfor Service Desk solutions are grounded in strategy. Without a thorough understanding of our clients, their needs, expectations, and goals, we cannot reach our full potential to provide the Netfor Service Desk experience. That partnership often starts with Service Desk Consulting and our detailed, data-driven assessment process. For this health system’s assessment, Netfor first created and validated the vision for its call center. We helped the health network identify its business focus and draft a vision strategy document to identify the risks and costs of improving the call center. Once we agreed on the vision, we moved on to the Service Desk Consulting assessment, evaluating 15 different areas related to the client’s call center management. Specifically, Netfor analyzed the abilities and performance of the health system’s customer call center based on four categories: processes, organization, technologies, and governance.
Within each category, we dug deep, evaluating those areas and assigning them maturity ratings to measure how well each category was performing. Among our many areas of investigation, we reviewed:
- Current processes within the organization
- Current organizational structure
- Ability to support the health system
- Tools they used to provide services
- Evaluated their effectiveness
- Processes in place to
- Design
- Transition
- Operate
- Improve Call Center Services
- Call center service reporting
- Success factors
- Service- and quality-improvement initiatives
- Data archives to assess how well the practices supported the health system
After an exhaustive examination, our Service Desk Consulting Team measured the data, produced the findings, and presented those conclusions to stakeholders and business sponsors within the health system. If a client chooses to partner with us beyond the typical assessment stage, Netfor will identify recommendations to satisfy the deficiencies found through the assessment and identify “quick win” efforts to get the ball rolling toward improvement.
Major Results: With a Service Desk Consulting assessment in their arsenal, clients can make educated decisions regarding their call center or help desk. This particular client validated their concerns. We empowered this organization with the knowledge of what they were capable of and what they couldn’t handle on their own. Assessment clients can clearly see the big hurdles that need to be overcome and know if they have the resources to overcome them on their own. They know if they have the skilled workforce to manage an in-house service desk and provide the level of customer experience they want. They know if their technologies are equipped to handle their needs or if new call-, service-, knowledge- and workforce-management systems need to be implemented or outsourced to a Service Desk provider. They have information regarding how their call center or help desk is organized, if a culture change is needed or if employees’ roles need to be redefined. Issues of governance related to improvements, formal management processes, change management, dashboards, and scoreboards will inform clients’ next steps in providing their customers with the best experiences possible.
Sustainability: Our Service Desk Consulting assessment findings sometimes lead to an outsourced Service Desk relationship, which is how we at Netfor most directly keep clients growing and improving their customer experiences. On its own, the assessment serves as a valuable benchmark, showing clients which areas need the most attention and which have the most potential.
