Feb. 7, 2012 -- Some time ago we set out to study hospital call center outsourcing.  We talked with many senior hospital and healthcare managers, and when it comes to outsourcing call center operations they have plenty of concerns.

They told us about:

•    Outsourced agents able to handle only simple patient inquiries.  Too many calls are referred back to the hospital’s in-house staff.

•    Call center outsourcers who charge extra for everything from adding a physician to the hospital’s referral network to completing a patient survey.

•    Old or unwieldy software that prevents fast program updates and getting detailed, real-time reports.

Most of all, they feel the outsourced call center should be just as smart about their hospitals and their patients as their own in-house team is.  And they feel outsourcing costs should reflect the service quality they’re getting.

But too often, that's not the case.

Hearing all this, we concluded there’s a crying need for a new methodology that overcomes the problems of conventional hospital call center outsourcing.  Our approach addresses each of the major flaws, one by one.

It combines five critical success factors:

o    Structuring outsourced teams of Patient Care Specialists so that they can more effectively share knowledge and are more easily monitored for work performance quality and accountability.

o    Adoption of advanced, purpose-built hospital call center software that enables rapid construction of custom programs that reflect the hospital's unique business and care delivery processes.  It also allows fast, easy system updates and changes – by the outsourced team leader, rather than a programmer from the IT staff.

o    Building a true partnership relationship in which the hospital has ongoing communication with a contained team of Patient Care Specialists who quickly build expertise on the hospital, its care services, business model and brand.  Another aspect of the partnership: Not charging extra for ongoing updates to the referral network or event schedule -- or for such activities such as specialized mailings and patient surveys.

o    Timely, detailed and customized reports from the outsourcer.  These reports contain critical feedback for hospital marketers designing patient outreach programs and for hospital managers seeking maximized operational efficiencies.

o    Cost savings, via program efficiencies and no extra fees or surprise charges.

We took our methodology out to the field, and it’s yielding strong results.  This case history tells the story.

For details on the OnBrand24 Healthcare hospital call center methodology, please visit the healthcare section of our web site.

Mark Fichera, CEO

OnBrand24 Healthcare

Beverly, MA

Jan. 12, 2012 - OnBrand24 has received a flurry of recent news coverage – a feature story in a hospital call center trade publication and another in a daily newspaper.

The January issue of Healthcare Call Center Times ran a lengthy story on OnBrand24’s strategy of introducing the latest customer experience techniques, strategies and innovations to the outsourced hospital / healthcare call center services industry, drawing on our 30 years of customer service outsourcing experience in the e-commerce, retail, help desk, telecommunications and health & wellness markets.  This includes using IM, live chat, texting and other social media to supplement traditional phone-based patient support services used in physician referral, class and event enrollment and physician appointment setting programs.

“…as we move into the new health delivery world,” the article reads, “continuity of care becomes of paramount importance.  Indeed, the healthcare communications flow between the call center and patients could begin to resemble what (OnBrand24) is seeing in other fields – constant contact over time to handle the stated objectives of the interactions.”

Closer to home, the Salem (MA) News, ran a Q&A interview with CEO Mark Fichera about OnBrand24’s outsourced call center services – for both B2B outbound telemarketing, lead generation, customer surveys and sales appointment setting, as well as inbound customer service outsourcing, order taking and order processing.

The article noted that OnBrand24 had recently been awarded a Workforce Training Grant of $95,700 from the Massachusetts Office of Labor and Workforce Development.  The money will be used to train our staff in advanced customer services, sales and sales management strategies.

The Salem News story touched on the aspects of OnBrand24 that make its call center outsourcing unique: all customer service and lead generation specialists are premise-based, meaning they work on-site at our Beverly, MA, location.  They also are more mature, better educated and more experienced than the call center industry norm.

The article concludes with Mark talking about the competitive nature of being a Boston call center services company – or at least a Boston-area call center – and the basis upon which OnBrand24 engages with our clients:

“Typically, we don't have long-term contracts, but we do have long-term relationships — we have clients that have been with us for 15 or 20 years — so we have to prove our performance.”

Jan. 3, 2012 - It’s been over a year since we signed on as the outsourced call center for a large, regional hospital (1,000+-bed) for non-clinical physician referrals and class and event registration, so we thought it was a good time to get a progress report.

We interviewed the call center manager for the hospital (which requested anonymity), and the feedback was very gratifying. 

“You guys made a night-and-day difference,” she said.

She breaks down the benefits delivered by OnBrand24 into four categories:

•    Improved Customer and Patient Support Services: Compared with the previous outsourced call center, OnBrand24 has reduced patient inquiries referred to the hospital’s in-house staff by 70 percent.  This is a major efficiency benefit to the hospital, whose staff now has more time to focus on higher-level administrative and patient programs.  It also means that patients receive more prompt service because their inquiries receive first-call resolution. 

In addition, complaints from patients about call center service quality, which had been frequent, have been virtually eliminated. 

This improvement reflects OnBrand24’s ability to go beyond scripted responses.  Our patient support specialists are trained to communicate with patients on an individual basis and to take the initiative to research patients’ needs.  Above all, our patient support specialists are problem solvers.  They enjoy helping customers gain access to the resources and information they require.  The result: according to our hospital client contact, OnBrand24 has significantly improved patient support service and customer satisfaction.

•    Dedicated, Premise-based Team: Our team methodology represents a major area of difference and improvement. The hospital’s previous call center had a virtual staff model, with agents and the team manager working from home for a variety of clients.  By contrast, OnBrand24 has implemented a dedicated, premise-based team approach.  This means a relatively small team of patient support specialists and managers work together only on the hospital’s program, and they all work from within our call center facility. 

This ensures strong communication, accountability and responsiveness between the hospital and our dedicated team.  It also enables the hospital to know each of our team members individually.  And it means our team continually becomes more expert about the hospital, its program and its brand.  Lessons learned are not dispersed among agents working for other clients.  Instead, they are absorbed by a contained team. 

HIPAA compliance also is enhanced because patient records are handled by a limited group of agents at a single location. 

Finally, because our Team Leader is dedicated to the hospital’s program, system changes and updates are a top priority and immediately put into effect – the Team Leader is not juggling the needs of other clients. 

•    Flexible Software and IT Infrastructure: The hospital reports that OnBrand24, in combination with LVM’s Centaurus software, quickly implemented a customized program that supports the hospital’s business processes and patient care practices.

In addition, according to the hospital, OnBrand24 quickly makes system changes and updates, such as adding new classes and changing class schedules, making additions to the physician referral network and changing drop-down menus. 

Centaurus is both user-friendly and powerful, enabling our Team Leader to quickly make updates without the involvement of programmers on our IT staff.  And because of the ease and speed we can make those changes, we do not impose incremental charges to hospital, helping them realize significant cost savings.

This contrasts with the previous call center, which charged extra for a wide range of tasks, such as adding physicians to the referral network, making changes to event schedules, completing patient survey, and so forth.  Charges for these activities added up to thousands of dollars per month.

•    Cost Savings: The hospital reports that in addition to achieving enhanced patient service, greater customization and overall responsiveness, OnBrand24 has reduced the hospitals monthly outsourced call center costs by roughly 35 percent.

It’s good to hear “Job Well Done” from a client, particularly one with the complex requirements of a major hospital.  We look forward to continuing a successful partnership with the hospital moving forward.

Mark Fichera, CEO

Beverly, Massachusetts

Beverly Call Center Wins State Workforce Development Grant
To Fund Sandler Advanced Sales, Customer Service Training

OnBrand24 to Become “Sandler Certified”

Dec. 20, 2011 – OnBrand24, the leading call center services provider in Massachusetts serving companies in the Boston area and nationwide, has received a workforce training grant from the Massachusetts Office of Labor and Workforce Development for advanced customer services and sales skills training.

The Salem office of Sandler Training, a global leader in the development of powerful sales and customer service organizations, will provide the training.  Each OnBrand24 call center agent, account supervisor and senior manager will undergo 50 hours of rigorous training in the most effective prospecting, sales, account management, customer service, and people skills.

“It’s great to see the state of Massachusetts invest in the skills of its workers,” said Mark Fichera, CEO, OnBrand24.  “We often compete against low-cost offshore call centers, and our higher labor costs must justify a significantly higher level of capability than call centers in India or the Philippines can deliver.  Sandler training is a big part of our effort to continually improve the services we provide our clients.”

OnBrand24, located in the Cummings Center in Beverly, received a grant of $95,700, part of $11.38 million in Workforce Training Fund grants awarded across the state.

OnBrand24 was founded in 1980 and has partnered with more than 400 companies, providing both “inbound” customer service capabilities and “outbound” B2B lead generation and sales appointment setting services. 

Sandler Training focuses on a wide range of sales and customer service best practices, including effective phone and email protocols, active listening techniques to establish customer comfort, uncovering true buying motives, handling upset and angry clients, generating additional sales through up-selling and cross-selling, effective prospecting and cold calling skills, and advanced sales management strategies. 
Sandler has been awarded the #1 ranking for training programs in Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Franchise 500” nine times since 1994, most recently in 2010.

OnBrand24, which provides premier outsourced call center services 24/7, has enjoyed strong growth in recent months, adding more than 15 new clients and increasing its staff to more than 100 employees.

“We provide each client strong senior management attention, we build customized programs and our staff is highly trained, experienced and motivated,” said Fichera.  “Sandler training is ideal for us because of the strong focus we bring the unique requirements of each of our client’s programs.  We expect to become an even stronger player in the domestic call center market.”

About OnBrand24
OnBrand24, Beverly, Massachusetts, is a full-service domestic call center services company that provides outsourced telemarketing services around-the-clock for clients in the e-commerce, retail, technology, healthcare and manufacturing industries.  All OnBrand24 customer service and lead generation specialists work at the company’s call center facility.  The company boasts many long-term client partnerships as a result of its 24/7 unconditional consistency, dedication and loyalty.  OnBrand24 prides itself on assuming the brand of each of its customers by mastering the products, goals and culture integral to those businesses.  For more information, visit us at www.OnBrand24.com.