Any organization that is trying to meet the needs of both customers and employees can run into a bottleneck in communications if both segments are using the same channels. Arnot Ogden Medical Center was dealing with higher call volumes as the number of patients and services being offered by the facility were increasing.
Not only were patients calling the switchboard to get to the right person, employees were calling the same number from inside the organization to request transfers to co-workers and departments. At the same time, employees and medical staff were dialing the same number from outside the hospital to connect with the desired individuals and as a result, callers were experiencing long waits as an auto attendant was not available.
This very obvious problem was combined with Arnot Ogden’s desire to integrate and streamline various telecommunications initiatives within the hospital. In simple terms, Arnot Ogden needed a fully managed service to merge switchboard staff with a customer service in a different department of the hospital and to implement an auto attendant solution. In addition, the change needed to be transparent to callers.
Even with this change, however, Arnot Ogden needed more than just a separate center to manage calls. Many of these calls did not require live interaction and the use of an auto attendant could drastically reduce wait times and speed the process of connecting callers to the right individuals. To achieve these goals, Arnot Ogden turned to nameConnector Service from Parlance.
With the implementation of this fully managed service and an auto attendant, nameConnector relieves the switchboard of some 13,000 calls per month. As a result, operators can provide better and faster service to those external callers who need assistance.
The auto attendant element ensures employees are provided with immediate access to co-workers and departments from both inside and outside the hospital through one number dealing and voice recognition technology. Employees are also provided with common outbound destinations with this fully managed service and now callers are connected in less than 12 seconds with a connection rate of more than 97 percent.
The return on investment for Arnot Ogden was realized immediately as the organization did not need to hire additional staff to complete the consolidation of telecommunications resources, especially the implementation of the auto attendant.
Gregg Martin, CIO at Arnot Ogden Medical Center, commented, “nameConnector Service was a vital component of our strategy to combine the existing switchboard staff with our call center employees. Without nameConnector we would have had to hire additional staff to handle the increased call volume in both areas.”
While Arnot Ogden did consider other vendors, Parlance was selected as a result of its all-inclusive managed service offering. In addition, the auto attendant delivered considerable cost savings for the hospital, drastically impacting customer service and the bottom line.
To download a free customer case study and learn more about how Parlance's nameConnector solution helped improve Arnot Ogden's operations, click here.