All Inbound Calls are not Created Equal

Addiction Treatment Centers; All Inquiry Calls Are Not Created Equal

 

Addiction treatment center inquiry calls can differ from caller to caller. When you’re taking an inbound call, you don’t know right away who you are talking to or why they are calling.

 

A call to your treatment center usually results in one of three scenarios:

 

1) referral out to another center

2) admissions into a treatment program

3) a follow-up to treatment or a nurturing program

 

The caller may have found your center through an internet search, or may have seen a magazine ad, billboard or TV commercial. It is important to quickly determine the reason for the call and tailor the conversation to best meet the caller’s needs.

 

Find Out Who You’re Talking To

 

How you talk to a caller may be a bit different than how a member of your admissions team talks to them. But the one thing remains the same during both calls: the person on the other end of the phone is reaching out to your center for help. They are looking for a solution to their problem. It’s your job, as a representative of the treatment center, to find out who you are talking to.

 

How you handle a call from someone who has gone through treatment before, compared to someone who is reaching out for help for the first time, is going to be different. Are they the person seeking addiction treatment help, or are they a loved one looking for help for their son, their daughter, their husband or their wife? Engage with your caller, build rapport and let them tell you about their problem.

 

The person that has gone through treatment before has a pretty good idea of what to expect when calling a center through a number they found on your website. They did a search, or were referred by a friend, so they probably have a basic idea of where you are and what treatment modalities you offer.

 

On the other hand, someone reaching out after seeing a helpline ad, who’s never gone through treatment before, probably has no idea who they are talking to, where your center is located or what kind of services you offer. It can be very similar to a cold call, where they likely have no prior knowledge of your treatment center. Let them talk so they can tell you their situation. Discover why they are calling so you can determine if they are the right clinical, cultural and financial fit for your center.

 

If they aren’t the right fit, continue to help them by sharing the number of another center in your referral network. Your admissions department has a referral network, don’t they? Also, ensure you are a member of other facilities’ referral networks.

 

Vetting the Client—Find Out Why They are Calling

 

The person on the other end of the phone could be looking for help for drug or alcohol addiction, or a co-occurring disorder. It’s very important that you find out why they are calling before you start providing information about your great facility, your services and that new surf therapy program you just started.

 

Find out if the caller is seeking help and treatment options, or if they are researching treatment centers near their home and simply calling for more information about your programs. The addiction treatment facilities that are successful, the ones that get more admissions than other centers, spend more time letting the person calling talk about themselves than they spend talking about their center and programs. Letting someone speak allows them to feel heard, empowered and understood.

 

The caller might not care that you have equine therapy, or that you have a specific modality that has helped other people in their situation. What they really may want to know is that everyone admitted to treatment has a semi-private room, that you recently updated your on-site gym, that you just added a 24-7 coffee bar off the main lounge, or that your executive chef just added 3 new vegetarian options to the daily menu.

 

There are many factors to consider when evaluating the needs of the person calling. During the discovery phase, ask the caller questions like:

 

• What is the type of addiction?
• How long has the substance abuse been a problem?
• What is the person’s general health status?
• Does the person have any pressing life commitments (job, family children)?
• Does the person need to go to detox before being admitted?
• Are they looking for a specific treatment modality (12-step, religious, gender specific, holistic/spiritual)?
• Is the person in need of a center that offers dual diagnosis program options

 

Properly evaluating the reason for the call is key to getting the caller the help they need and started on their path to recovery. Sometimes your center is not going to be the right fit. Working with your outreach coordinators and admissions team to build a robust referral network will ensure everyone calling your facility gets the help they need.

 

Return Client vs. New Caller

 

Try to find out if this is the first time they’ve reached out for help or if they’ve already talked to other treatment centers. Did you know that up to 38% of incoming calls are from people who have called other centers before picking up the phone to call you?

 

What that means is that the person calling your treatment center didn’t get the help they were looking for on the first call. This is a HUGE number and goes to show that maybe, as an industry, we aren’t doing a great job of actually listening to the person on the other end of the phone.

 

We are potentially missing an opportunity to care for somebody that is reaching out to us and genuinely looking for treatment options for themselves or for a loved one. It’s time to put down the script, stop sounding like a robot, and actually get engaged in the conversation.

 

The people calling your center aren’t anonymous. There is a real person on the other end of the phone. Many people are actually afraid to pick up the phone and call. It could be they are hesitant to call your treatment center because they’ve been turned down before. You need to empathize with the person calling, find out why they are calling and gain their trust so you can offer them a solution to their problem.

 

Changing Lives by Connecting People with Treatment

 

In the article Tips on Handling Inbound Customer Service Calls, author Charmayne Smith says, “Most call centers have an established quality-control program. These programs are used to ensure that the calls are handled in a professional and timely manner while providing accurate information. One of the best ways for customer service representatives to maintain quality control is to treat every call as if it is being monitored.”

 

If you use a call tracking system, you can listen to and monitor some or all of the calls coming in to your center. This lets you make sure your admissions team is asking the right questions during the call, so they can create a comprehensive needs assessment for the person seeking treatment. The information collected during the client discovery phase is a powerful marketing tool that enables you to create a personalized recovery plan based on the specific needs of the person seeking treatment.