It’s likely that private sector healthcare won't be as profitable once government healthcare begins to kick in. It will become a shrinking market which means private healthcare providers will need to rely more heavily on automation in order to hold down operating costs.

What’s more, private healthcare providers will essentially be competing against government-sanctioned healthcare companies that are able to offer healthcare services at lower rates through subsidization. That means private healthcare providers are going to have to make their operations more efficient on almost every level.

At the same time, private healthcare companies must do everything they can to retain their customers and build customer loyalty – and that includes delivering improved customer service.

Process automation is one way healthcare providers will be able to weather these sweeping changes, most of which will begin in 2014. Using automated systems such as intelligent call routing and IVR, private healthcare providers can maintain if not improve their customer service, while at the same time drastically reducing operating costs (not only by enabling them to reduce headcount, but through increased employee productivity as well).

Call center software provider Zeacom offers a suite of business process automation solutions that are ideal for private, customer-facing healthcare entities. With these solutions, providers will be able to streamline customer and corporate communications, thus ensuring that urgent matters are met with all possible speed and attention. By integrating these automation solutions with current technology, healthcare providers “can optimize communications and remove bottlenecks in existing business processes, which will improve workflows across the enterprise,” Zeacom (News - Alert) officials say.

The five main business process solutions that Zeacom offers include:

1. Activity Queuing: Most business processes operate as a silo, operating by themselves without integration with other processes that are also taking place. Zeacom’s Activity Queuing plug-in will provide you with the inter-application glue to resolve this issue, company officials say: “Activity management will automate the hand-over of tasks between various processes.”

2. Enhanced routing: Give your organization enhanced routing, and statistics for first-call resolution, customer satisfaction levels and contact center productivity will hugely improve. A Zeacom tool used here “will enable you to apply your own business rules and processes to how you want calls and emails delivered,” company officials say, adding that “value-based routing gives high-revenue customers priority in the queues – across calls, e-mails, faxes or chats.

3. Screenpops: Contact center agents and other customer service departments will save time whenever a customer, supplier or partner calls if a screenpop gives them contact and account details. Zeacom has standard plug-ins available to make screenpopping an easy and straightforward PA job.

4. Interactive Voice Response: An IVR system will not only generate cost savings, as it directs repetitive enquiries (account balances, et al) away from live operators, but will also enhance customer satisfaction as waiting times are reduced and 24/7 self-service is made available.

5. Custom Development: Zeacom’s Integration Software Development Kit enables customized Process Automation. For one client which dealt with deaf people, instead of equipping all staff with teletypewriter technology, Zeacom integrated the teletypewriter modems into the ZCC, so that staff can reply to teletypewriter calls through a familiar chat window on their PC. No additional investments in hardware or specialized training were required.

By integrating Zeacom’s process automation solutions in with their existing systems and infrastructure, private healthcare companies will be able to “do more with less” and deliver improved customer service at a lower cost. And that will become critically important to them in a few years when government healthcare reform kicks into high gear.