Global Healthcare Contact Centers Markets 2021 with Impact Analysis of COVID-19 - Top-of-Mind Challenges Shifted Overnight as Millions of Agents Were Moved to Work-At-Home (WAHA)

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Dec 03, 2021, 15:30 ET

DUBLIN, Dec. 3, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The "Impact of COVID-19 on Healthcare Contact Centers" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The healthcare industry was hit hard by the pandemic as it tackled the toughest of challenges around the globe- slowing down the virus, managing hospital capacity, keeping its staff safe, and ensuring patient privacy and confidentiality. Contact centres were busy far beyond capacity, driving organizations of all sizes to accelerate investments in self-service channels and the cloud.

The publisher surveyed decision-makers in the healthcare industry to discover the effect that COVID-19 had on its customer operations. Not surprisingly, the pandemic had a significant impact on contact centers.

Key insights from the survey revealed:

Traditional pain points for contact centres (such as being seen as cost centres or operating as silos) faded away in importance as healthcare facilities were forced to change to deal with the exponential growth in communications with patients.
Top-of-mind challenges shifted overnight as millions of agents were moved to work-at-home (WAHA) and ensuring the stability, reliability, and security of network operations; training agents/supervisors on new applications; persuading customers to use new interaction channels became a top concern.
Healthcare organizations were not afraid of moving to the cloud or utilizing new technology made easier through cloud deployments.

Respondents included IT decision-makers from hospitals, clinics, health systems, pharmacies, health services, and physical therapy organizations. It explores their plans to improve CX expectations as the world recovers from the pandemic.

Voice interactions for healthcare providers went up in 2020. However, other channels such as social/messaging apps gained importance as the pandemic put pressure on healthcare providers to update information constantly. Providers must improve the level of customer satisfaction (CSAT); social channels were at the bottom of the pack when it came to delivering a high CSAT.

Proactive customer care is also a top priority and essential for healthcare organizations to survive as costs skyrocket. Patients want, and now have, much more control of managing their health, and if providers proactively assist them with the tools to stay healthy, they are more likely to thrive.

For most organizations moving people to a WAHA model did not negatively impact productivity. Instead, more than half of them reported that productivity improved. As a result, roughly 75% of organizations will maintain or increase the number of remote agents staffed during the pandemic.

A top priority is improving the employee experience. Ways to improve agent retention include acquiring new workforce management (WFM) tools with flexible scheduling/preference management, agent empowerment, and management training.

Integrating unified communication/collaboration is essential to many healthcare organizations, primarily to improve the customer journey and employee experience, and agent engagement. Highly reflective of the rapid shift to a WAHA model is that the respondents use collaboration tools to integrate other departments.

Channels covered:

Voice
Email/Web Form
Social Media Messaging Apps
Social Media Apps
Mobile Apps
SMS
Chat With Live Agents
Virtual Agents
Video Chat
Video Teller/Kiosk
IVR

Technologies covered:

Conversational AI & Virtual Assistants/Bots
Quality Monitoring
Collaboration Tools
Performance Management
Flexible APIs/CPaaS
e-Learning for Agents
Proactive Customer Care
Gamification
Augmented Reality

This study is valuable for solution providers to better understand what each industry seeks in delivering excellent CX, and healthcare organizations to benchmark themselves against the competition and other industries.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Research Objectives and Methodology

2. Executive Summary

3. Key Findings

4. Survey Results - Goals & Challenges

Investment Plans
Factors Preventing Contact Centers from Meeting or Exceeding Goals and Objectives
Plans for Technology Investment to Improve Contact Center Performance and Workforce Engagement
Top COVID-19 Issues/Concerns on Contact Center Operations

5. Survey Results - Agent Trends

Agent Seat Trend
Percent of Agents Moved to WAHA Due to COVID-19 - MEANS
Has Remote Agent Performance Improved, Worsened, or Stayed About the Same from WAHA?
How Organizations are Improving Agent Retention Rates

6. Survey Results - Interaction Trends

Total Interactions Trends
Percent of Interactions by Channel Type
Channels that Became a Higher Priority due to COVID-19
Impact of COVID-19 on Voice Interactions
Impact of COVID-19 on Virtual Agent Interactions

7. Survey Results - Customer Satisfaction Metrics

How Organizations Measure Customer Satisfaction
Channels with Best CSAT Scores
Have CSAT Scores Improved or Worsened During the Pandemic?

8. Survey Results - Integration of Unified Communications/Collaboration (UCC)

Importance of Integrating Unified Communications (UC) and Contact Center (CC) Tools
Percent of Respondents that Integrate UCC and CC Solutions
Top Benefits of Integrating UC and CC

9. Survey Results - Omnichannel

Current Level of Channel Integration
Factors Preventing Organizations from Providing a Fully Integrated Omnichannel Experience
Survey Results - Hosted/Cloud
Hosted/Cloud Contact Center Solution Usage
Cloud Capabilities
CPaaS Benefits

10. Growth Opportunities in Healthcare

Investment Priorities in Healthcare, Global, 2021
Quadruple Aim of Healthcare Providers, Global, 2021
Trends, Opportunities and Unmet Needs
Patient-First Philosophy - Delivering Excellent Customer Care is Critical for Healthcare Organizations
Patient-First - Use of AI, Telemedicine and Biotelemetry
Shift to Cloud will Accelerate Innovation and Improved CSAT for Healthcare Providers
Improving Collaboration has Become a Top Healthcare Priority
WAHA Model will Continue to Exist
Employee Satisfaction is a Top Priority
Proactive Outreach is a Competitive Advantage

11. Respondent Profile for Contact Center Survey

Respondent Profile - Level of Decision-Making Authority
Respondent Profile - Percent of Respondents by Contact Center Size
Respondent Profile - Percent of Respondents by Country
Business Functions Supported by Respondent's Contact Center(s)

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/p602my

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SOURCE Research and Markets