Live chat sees a steadily growing popularity as a communication platform for businesses, including healthcare facilities. From large institutions to independent wellness coaches, with live chat for healthcare, enterprises in these areas can deliver to patients quick and personalized customer service and build stronger relationships with them.
Live chat vs phone support
Live chat and phone customer support are two popular methods for businesses to provide customer help. While both offer a way to get in touch with businesses, there are some key differences between them. From a business-side perspective, phone support comes at a significantly higher cost, since one agent can answer only one call at a time, while the number of concurrent chats per agent is 3 on average and can reach 6! This means that by adopting live chat support, a healthcare provider can still offer effective personalized real time support but make it on a smaller budget or with fewer employees.
Benefits of live chat
Let's explore some of the most recognized advantages of employing live chat.
More loyal customers
Live chat is an invaluable tool for providers in the healthcare industry when it comes to building relationships with patients and increasing customer loyalty. With live chat, healthcare providers can get to know their patients better and provide them with an easy way to book appointments, consult a healthcare practitioner, or get general advice. This helps build relationships with patients, increase customer loyalty, and make patients more likely to return and use services of a particular clinic in the future.
Engagement in real time
It is commonly recognized that the most beneficial time to assist a patient who decides on booking an appointment is when they are researching the available options, meaning browsing websites of clinics and hospitals. A live chat assists with this in the best way possible: there is no need to divert one's attention by calling a phone number or writing an email; the entire conversation may take place immediately on a page of a doctor’s profile and appointment scheduling. With live chat, healthcare providers can quickly and easily answer patient questions and provide them the required assistance.
Lower staff costs
As previously said, live chat allows one agent to handle many dialogues simultaneously. This results in a more efficient work compared to answering phone calls and lower expenses for resolving each client issue. Live chat is great when it comes to decreasing support expenses for healthcare providers — they can use it to swiftly and simply answer patient queries without needing to recruit extra staff.
Extra models of monetization
Utilizing live chat for telehealth is a perfect way for a healthcare institution to expand their service offerings, allow new patients to reach competent doctors from other cities, and offer flexible no-visit-required services to patients who already make physical visits. With lower costs on physical upkeep, telehealth sessions are naturally less expensive and can be appealing to many patients, especially those who are unsure which health practitioner to see about their problem. Online doctor appointments is an excellent way for healthcare and wellness companies to diversify their revenue streams and offer extra services, such as appointment scheduling and online payments.
Useful data
Many live chat systems have sophisticated analytics features that enable impersonalized data tracking, making them excellent tools for those who aim to learn more about their patients. The tools include demographic analysis, source assessment, determining of the most prevalent concerns, and daily patterns of website activity. Furthermore, live chat allows you to easily track the performance of sales reps, support specialists, and medical staff who participate in telehealth sessions. This assists healthcare providers in providing high-grade treatment and increasing patient satisfaction rating.
Overall, live chat is a terrific thing for healthcare professionals to give speedy, personalized online customer service and doctor consultations to patients while also establishing stronger bonds with them. Companies in healthcare and wellness may use live chat to cut support costs, expand revenue models, and acquire insights about patients. By utilizing it correctly, business can deliver better service and boost patient satisfaction via live chat widget.