Automated Calls

It is hard at times to be all consumed with what I do and not use the blog to write about my role with Silverlink Communications. When you get passionate about something, you want to tell the world. That being said, the blog was set up to be a personal expression of my thoughts around healthcare with a focus on communicating with the patient.

So I am going to add some thoughts more specific to our work in HealthComm here. The first thing I wanted to share was my thoughts on evaluating an automated voice vendor in the healthcare space (this is our core technology).

Writing an RFP / RFI
As a consultant, I used to help clients design and write RFPs. I have been on all sides now – consultant, buyer, and responder. If you are new to a space, it is always hard to find a template of questions or pitfalls to watch out for. I certainly admit that I have a bias, but I think my thoughts are pretty universal.

Here is what I would use to evaluate an automated call vendor in the healthcare space:

1. Company – Is the company stable and focused on healthcare? How long has it been providing this type of service? [I love the companies that say “we’ve been around for 20 years” and then in small print point out that they have been providing this service model for 2 years.] How have they grown and innovated over the years? What is their vision of the healthcare space? What is their product roadmap? Do they partner with other companies and have an open architecture for connectivity?

2. Experience – Who else do they work with in healthcare? Do they have people on staff that understand your business? Are they simply order takers (i.e., fulfill this request) or are they bringing you ideas for new programs and challenging your ideas? [Of course, you should talk with their references and call around in the industry. I always prefer to find people that moved from one vendor to another and why. If it’s simply price, I don’t care, but other items may flag issues for you.]

3. ROI Focused – You have to justify your expenses. Is your vendor focused on metrics? Do they track them and help you with your business case? What metrics do they use in their case studies and how do they define them? [One thing I have seen here is people claims calls placed as success versus the number of people that actually took the call and listened to the message.] Are they willing to go at risk based on success or is their model simply per minute or per opportunity (which makes sense for static types of programs – e.g., flu shot reminder)? [Of course, outcomes type data from vendors assumes you share some data so they can create the longitudinal mapping to demonstrate value.]

4. Technology – What type of technology do they use (e.g., Software as a Service(SaaS)? Can you use it within your environment and have your team control the calls (i.e., is it wizard driven)? Are call programs hard-coded or built more flexibly? How scalable are they? What are their Service Level Agreement (SLAs) internally and externally? What issues have they had over the past few years? Do they use Text-to-Speech (TTS) or is it recorded voice? If some of your variable fields are TTS, do they offer custom libraries (e.g., for locations, drug names, patient names)? If they leave a message on an answering machine, what is the inbound call experience? Is it the same? If they leave a message, do you get a pin or do you have to call back from the same number that they called to get the message? What type of variable data can they accept during a call (e.g., credit card number)? If they don’t use TTS, do the variables come across in the same voice [otherwise it defeats the purpose]?

5. Service Model – What type of support do you get from them? Do you have a dedicated point of contact? Is the contact a named resource that you can meet beforehand? What is your visibility to senior management? Who makes decisions? What is your ability to influence the product? Do they look at your data and make suggestions to you?

6. Response Time – How quickly do they respond to your needs? How fast can a call program be set up and executed? If you want to change something midstream, how easy is it to pause a program, make a change, and resume it? Will you have the ability to “throttle” the volume of calls up or down to map to call center capacity?

7. Reporting – What data do they capture? How is it reported – online, file that is sent to you? Can you watch the data real-time? Can they customize reports for you?

8. Personalization – How personal can they make the calls? How many variable fields are possible – name, employer, drug, copay, hospital name, disease state, website, etc.? Can they do multi-lingual and can the patient choose the language at the beginning of the call? Can they use hot words (i.e., if the patient says help that it routes them to an agent) and is there a limit on the number (other than practically)? Can one call program lead to different outcomes (i.e., depending on answers to questions, will the patient be routed to different messages)? What shows up on caller ID?

9. Legal – Do they understand HIPAA? Is your data protected?

10. Pricing – What do they charge you for – set-up, minutes, transfer minutes, opportunities, data management, number of programs, successes, outcomes? [For example, if you get charged by targeted member, have they excluded the ones for which they have no phone number or discounted the price based on a standard percentage that are never reached?]

Of course, as I would tell anyone, don’t be fooled by slideware. Much like I have seen in other industries, I think the proof is in the pudding. I would suggest a “bake-off” when you have it down to your finalists.

• Ask them to come to your office.
• Put them in different rooms with a projector showing their laptop screen.
• Give them a call program with a script and some initial data.
• Ask them to see if they can launch the calls by the end of the day.
• And, make sure to interrupt them at the midpoint to make a few changes to the script or targeting criteria.
• When you get the call, deviate from the script to see how the system responds (e.g., if it asks for a phone number, say a name and see what it does).

This will help you see what they can really do. Even if neither were to execute, you would learn a lot about the complexity of set-up, their process, their model, and how the dedicated service manager is going to support you. Good luck.