Playing music while a caller is on hold seems like the right thing to do. Perhaps hold music is better than dead silence, but there is a hidden liability to it that so many medical offices fail to recognize. That liability is the dropped call and what it could mean to both patient and practice.
A big contributing factor to dropped calls is time. Patients don’t have endless amounts of time to spend waiting on hold. They have their own busy lives to attend to. So hold music will only keep their attention for so long. At some point, even their favorite music will not be enough to keep them on the line. And once a call is dropped, the damage is done.
Why Dropped Calls Are Bad
One of our goals as a medical answering service is to ensure that no calls get dropped. We work hard to guarantee that every call is answered by a human agent in a timely manner. We do so because we know that dropped calls are bad.
Dropped calls directly affect the patient experience. Moreover, they impact a patient’s perception of the practice. A patient who hangs up rather than waiting on hold will likely be frustrated. That patient may experience diminished trust in the practice. If the scenario plays out multiple times, that patient might ultimately decide to go elsewhere.
The reputational risk to small practices is more pronounced for obvious reasons. Small practices cannot afford to lose patients. They can’t afford to see negative reviews pop up online. The thing is that no amount of enjoyable hold music is a suitable substitute for a human being answering a call quickly and with the ability and knowledge to help.
Dropped Calls and Missed Appointments
Practice reputation is reason enough to avoid dropped calls. But there are other things in play. For example, dropped calls and missed appointments are inexorably linked. A patient who cannot get through must either forget about making an appointment or find other means of doing so.
In this day and age, it is easy to say that patients can simply make appointments online. But certain segments of the population are reluctant to do so. Seniors are particularly wary of online scheduling. They would rather call and speak to a human being instead. But if they cannot get through, they can’t make their appointments.
Another situation arises when a patient is attempting to call in to cancel or modify an appointment. Many practices assess a financial penalty for missed appointments in order to encourage patients to be more respectful of a clinician’s time. But it goes both ways.
Not answering the phones or allowing calls to be dropped creates friction when patients are unable to cancel or modify their appointments. Assessing a financial penalty on top of it only makes matters worse. It is a great way to encourage patients to go elsewhere.
Frustration on Both Ends
Dropped calls ultimately lead to frustration on both ends. Patients are frustrated that they cannot get through to live agents. They start feeling like the practice does not care about them. Their perceptions of the practice only diminish from there.
On the other hand, office staff find themselves frustrated by having to make callbacks. They get frustrated with missed appointments and the extra workload that comes from following up with patients.
Hold music is better than dead silence. But a better solution is to work with a medical answering service so that patients are never put on hold. Apello can help your practice eliminate the hidden liability of hold music.
