Veritape Views

Customer profile: Patientline plc

• Provides personal telephone and entertainment systems incorporating internet and email to hospital patients
• 130 hospitals
• 70,000 bedside units
• 120-seat centre in Dumfries, Scotland; 24-hour operation; 20,000 calls per day
• Veritape call recording software installed throughout

The scenario

Patientline installed Veritape call recording across all seats in its contact centre. Its introduction resulted in rapid reductions in average call handling time. Patientline’s Senior Operations Manager says:

Almost overnight the introduction of call recording reduced AHT by 12% and increased sales by 11%.

While this was good, part of Patientline’s reason for introducing call recording was to effect major efficiency gains throughout its business. There was clearly more to be done.

The issue

Patientline’s Senior Operations Manager describes the issue:

Once we had installed call recording, and we started listening to the calls we were handling, it very quickly became apparent that our advisors spent a considerable amount of time telling each new patient about how the system worked. You could hear the parrot style tone in their voice. I was also concerned that there could be occasions when we did not cover our bases in relation to the Data Protection Act.

The solution

Using Veritape’s software, Patientline analysed a number of recordings and identified information they could remove from the call.

In addition, we looked very carefully at the Data Protection information we needed to supply to callers and how we were currently doing it.

As part of the project approval process, a number of example calls were recorded and played at a monthly Board meeting to highlight the potential benefits of a pre- and post-amble script.

Listening to the calls was a very powerful tool and supported the case well, allowing us to edit out the parts of the call we could remove by introducing pre-amble messaging and then compare it with the standard type of call.

The benefits

Average call length was cut for all types of calls, sometimes dramatically. For one particular type of call Patientline handled, call length was reduced by 60%.

Call recording analysis had allowed us to see how very easily we could make changes to improve the way we worked. The improvements have reduced call handling time, taken the monotony out of advisors’ calls, ensured consistency, guaranteed the promotion of all our services, and assured us that we are complying with all of our Data Protection Act requirements.

The follow-up confirmation

Patientline used Veritape’s software to prove that the changes were effective.

Post implementation, call recording again allowed us to validate our original assumptions, comparing old style with new. More importantly, it allowed our team leaders and training team to tackle those advisors who were struggling with the changes which were made to their call handling scripts.