3 Things to Avoid When Taking Inbound Calls

What to Avoid When Taking Inbound Addiction Treatment Calls

 

Poor call handling is a serious issue for many treatment centers. It can lead to dropped calls, missed calls and customer frustration. Worse, a poor call can result in a critical missed opportunity to help someone who was desperately seeking life changing drug addiction treatment.

 

In his article, Phone Calls and Search Ranking are Most Important Local Search KPIs, author Ross Marchant mentions, “For any small to medium-size business, incoming phone calls are invaluable leads. They give a business a great opportunity to engage a customer, establish a relationship and impress them.”

 

For the person calling your treatment center, this is often the first time they’ve ever picked up the phone to reach out for help. First impressions count, and for the person calling this is often the first contact they will have with your center. Do you regularly listen to and audit your inbound calls? Does your call center coordinator or admissions team leader review calls with your call takers?

 

It is important to know if the people answering the calls are a good representation of your company, your brand and your services. It is critical to evaluate whether they are able to not just build rapport, but to articulate your facility’s features and benefits in a clear, conversational way. If not, it’s time to get everyone on board for a few coaching sessions so you can focus on getting back to offering first-class services to your clients. Each less-than-optimum call is a missed opportunity. Over time, ineffective call takers can threaten your opportunity to run a successful business.

 

3 Mistakes to Avoid When Handling Inbound Calls

 

Here are the top “bad practices” we’ve discovered many centers are guilty of when taking inbound calls. TreatmentCalls.com sees these mistakes happening over and over:

 

1. Poor Call Handling

 

Poor call handling usually results when calls are not getting answered in a timely manner. Let’s take a look at what happens when inbound calls go unanswered. No one wants to listen to a phone ring endlessly, or have their call go direct to voicemail or, even worse, have their call answered only to be greeted with the silence of dead air when they are placed on hold.

 

In the article “Average Ring Time Before a Client Hangs Up,” it’s mentioned that most people wait for 17 seconds before they hang up.

 

Here is what happens after a potential client hangs up. They didn’t get the help they needed so, if they found your treatment center through an Internet search, they’re probably going to find the next facility in their search and call them (perhaps your competition).

 

The missed call was a missed opportunity, and it may have been the first time the caller reached out for help. Their problem may have existed for weeks, months or even years. When their call goes unanswered, it can leave the impression they truly are in a hopeless state and affirm that their situation is something that can’t be changed.

 

Don’t be that treatment center. The solution to this problem is to hire and train more in-house staff or enlist the services of an outside call center during your busy hours.  Empower someone on your team to answer any call that rings more than four times. Conduct role play scenarios with them to elicit, at the least, call back information from the caller.

 

2. Asking for Insurance Information Up Front

 

The second problem we see during inbound calls that happens over and over, is not taking the time to find out why the person is calling before you ask for their insurance information. They might be researching the top 5 treatment centers they found during a search and have a few questions they want to ask about your facility, location and treatment programs.

 

When you actually take the time and get to know the person calling, you’ll discover the real reason they are reaching out to your center. Taking this extra time to treat your callers like human beings and not a package of benefits often results in more verification of benefits and more admissions in the long run.

 

The person on the other end of the phone is someone’s mom, dad, sister, brother, husband or wife. As an industry, we often become numb to the reality that the caller is a real person looking for answers. Their call for help isn’t something that should be looked at as a potential “lead,” but rather as something that most people would credit for saving their life.

 

So, take some time and get to know the person on the other end of the line. You just might be surprised at the results.

 

3. Robotically Reading from a Script

 

There is a certain lack of humanity that occurs when your admissions team robotically reads from a script. Although scripts are a great tool to refer to if you need to look up information during a call, your clients will probably know when you’re reading from a script. The script won’t sound authentic. It will come off as if you’re talking to them and not empathizing with them and learning why they are calling.

 

In the article Stop Acting – Transitioning Your Sales Script into a Conversation by SMR Group Ltd, it mentions that you must actually listen to the person calling. “First, you’re more likely to discover what the customer needs or wants, which you can then focus on in the conversation. Second, even if you don’t, your willingness to listen with interest builds goodwill that can easily turn into a lasting sales relationship.”

 

It’s a good idea to train your agents on the proper way to use a script so they can actually engage with and talk to the person on the phone and learn why they are calling. A good exercise is to encourage your admissions team to practice reading their script to other team members. This can help them learn how to inject some personality into the script and sound more authentic when speaking with clients.

 

Successful treatment centers follow a set of best practices. There’s a series of things you can do when handling inbound calls to make the people calling trust you and trust your center. Train your admissions team to talk less about your facility and services and more about why the person is calling.

 

Ask the caller a series of questions. You have control on how to tailor the conversation to best meet their needs. The person on the other end of the phone wants you to affirm that you are the best place to go for treatment.

 

There is Always Room for Improvement

 

Treatment Centers often have people on their admissions team, in their call center or in their marketing department that have gone through treatment. This doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to properly answer calls.

 

There is always room for improvement when taking and handling inbound addiction treatment calls. Many treatment centers believe they know the best practices on how to answer their calls, but everyone can benefit from a coaching session.

 

Using a call tracking system lets you monitor all inbound and outbound calls at your center. Listen in to a few of the conversations to find out what’s really going on during those calls. It can be not only an eye opening experience, but critical to the long-term success of your business.