Looking to deliver top-notch call center experiences to patients? Monitoring the right call center metrics will help equip your agents with the know-how to provide optimized caller experiences every time. Healthcare organizations that can systematically monitor call center performance metrics essentially drive patient engagement and quality services. But, which metrics should you track?
Explore the key metrics for healthcare call centers that can improve patient satisfaction and reduce miscommunications among team members.
1. Average Wait Time (AWT)
AWT is a priority among healthcare call centers, calculated by adding the total wait times for all answered calls and dividing it by the number of answered calls. The metric measures inbound patient calls waiting in queue for assistance, either from an interactive voice response (IVR) system or live agent. Tracking AWT enables your team to significantly improve agent performance, effectively allocate call center resources, and prevent negative patient experiences.
While traditionally, call centers followed the 80/20 principle (where agents answered 80% of call-ins within 20 seconds), the service level should ultimately determine AWT. Your agents can measure AWT in your call centers by categories such as agent groups and queues. Using a detailed analytics tool can help determine the AWT for each call type to deliver the most suitable agent response.
2. Transfer Rate
A call center’s transfer rate refers to the percentage of inbound calls transferred to another agent or department to provide additional assistance for a specific query. Calculated by dividing the number of transferred calls by the total number of calls received, high transfer rates should raise concern.
Significantly high transfer rates usually indicate inadequate agent training and coaching, which often require additional resources and technological support.
3. Answer Rate
Answer rate refers to the number of calls answered out of the total calls presented to an agent. The general answer rate standard for call centers is around 80% in 20 seconds. However, time-sensitive industries, like healthcare, mostly require higher answer rates.
Brightmetrics™ has years of experience working with healthcare companies to meet top industry service standards. For example, a collaboration with Evolent Health empowered the team to establish realistic agent performance objectives and expectations. These practical guidelines achieved a 95% answer rate, maximum ring time, and average ring time targets.
4. Average Handle Time (AHT)
Optimizing AHT is crucial for healthcare call center agents to provide prompt solutions to patients. AHT is calculated by dividing the sum of your total talk, hold, and follow-up times by the total number of calls presented. Detailed caller data helps interpret and justify AHT, as call types vary in time spent.
For example, call agents typically spend more time guiding patients through exact billing details than booking a clinic appointment. The general AHT standard for the healthcare sector is estimated at three minutes and 28 seconds.
Regularly tracking AHT with call analytics enables your team to identify common bottlenecks and drives opportunities to improve team efficiencies. For instance, you can use call center solutions that monitor trunk utilization in real time to maintain undisrupted caller experiences.
5. First Call Resolution (FCR)
FCR is a key but more complex call center KPI within the healthcare industry that measures the efficiency of resolving a patient query on the first interaction. The ideal FCR score is between 70% and 75%, which suggests an understanding of caller needs.
It is useful for call center staff to also consult the history of other communication channels (e.g., email and website tickets) to identify accurate FCR values. Advanced call management features, such as automatic call distribution, immediately direct patients to the agent equipped with the relevant skills and experience to assist them with success.
Optimizing Healthcare KPI Management with Ease
Healthcare call center metrics and KPIs are critical to a facility’s service performance and overall cost. Studies have found that a call center’s performance has a direct impact on patient satisfaction. That’s why Brightmetrics’ advanced UC and contact center analytics provide historical and real-time data to equip your healthcare agents with the necessary insights to keep callers satisfied in any situation.
With customizable dashboards, intuitive data sharing, and real-time analytics, Brightmetrics UC Analytics™ supports patient engagement, staffing, team training, and agent productivity. By combining these tools, healthcare teams can expect real-time transparency across all KPIs and quickly deploy agents to maintain positive caller experiences.
Try Brightmetrics for free! Make the most of your center’s KPIs to maximize patient satisfaction and retention across every interaction.
