Evolving Medical Information Call Centers through Performance Measurement and Process Improvement (PH124)

Reinvent Your Medical Information Call Centers:

Are your call loads decreasing because customers seek information via new avenues?

Do you face info-sharing competition within your own organization?

What new areas demand medical information expertise?

Evolving Medical Information Call Centers addresses these questions — and more — to give your company the boost needed to correct your call centers’ mistakes and evolve the group into new territories. Our study contains real-world data and best practices from top pharmaceutical companies’ medical information call center operations.

With customers able to find product information on the Internet or from other sources — and with internal teams encroaching on territory previously owned by medical information groups — call center leaders now face a number of potentially function-changing challenges.

Top teams combat the evolving landscape by tightening their own ships – which means enacting performance metrics and process improvements to become more efficient and to strengthen customer relationships. Additionally, medical information call centers continue to move into new areas, adding tasks where their skill sets translate well.

This research developed to help medical information call center leaders in their improvement efforts. The report makes its case in three easy-to-navigate chapters:

Medical Information Structures, Headcounts and Budgets – As the first major point of contact between patients and doctors and the company, call centers set the tone between customers and the firm. For medical information teams to deliver the highest quality service, they must be structured well and own sufficient headcounts and budgets. This chapter investigates structure and staffing choices while determining how these influence call center budgets.

Call Center Performance Measurement – Surprisingly, metrics tracking is a largely under-utilized practice in medical information call centers. In this threatening environment, however, the first step toward improvement is tracking and measuring call center metrics. This chapter examines what measures companies currently track — and which ones all centers should be tracking. Benchmarks help call centers compare themselves against centers at top pharma companies.

Call Center Process Improvement – Pharmaceutical companies that focus on making their call centers efficient, available and easy to navigate will earn customer raves. To ensure that customers have good experiences, medical information leaders build sound processes into their call centers. This chapter provides details of call center processes such as answering systems, agent availability, triage systems as well as response methodologies and internal communication.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Medical Information Structures, Headcounts and Budgets

Percentage of companies with centralized structure
Ratio of internal vs. outsourced call centers
Percentage of outsourced call center operations in US vs ex-US
Call center staffing
Levels of education represented in call centers
Mix of education levels represented in call centers
Medical information budgets
Source of medical information budgets
Percentage of budget allocated to salaries
Brand-level medical information spending
Chapter 2: Call Center Performance Measurement: Tracking Key
Metrics

Call center metrics tracked
Average total number of inbound and outbound calls per center
Average total number of calls per FTE (monthly and annually)
Ratio of inbound vs. outbound calls
Expected vs. actual turn-around time
Percentage actual turn-around time exceeds expected
Average on-hold times
Average abandonment rates
Customer satisfaction rating
Cost per call
Number of written responses disseminated annually

Chapter 3: Call Center Process Improvement

Sources of medical information inquiries
Percentages of companies with IVR systems in place
Days and hours individual call centers are open each week
Percentage of companies with medical information personnel available during business hours
Utilization of external medical experts
After-hours availability of medical information specialists
Ratio of written to verbal responses
Percentage of companies with specific types of written documents available
Ratio of response delivery (fax, e-mail, mail)
Percentage of departments offering written material on investigational products
Percentage of companies with websites for FAQs and/or standard letters
Stakeholder feedback mechanisms
Sample Content from the Report

Excerpted from Chapter 2 of “Evolving Medical Information Call Centers.” The full report contains a number of real companies’ performance measures.

Customer Satisfaction/Call Quality
Somewhat shockingly, customer satisfaction is only measured by 40% of companies surveyed. While medical information call centers do not sell, customer satisfaction is still something that all should track. Measuring satisfaction informs call center leaders on whether their teams are relaying information clearly and concisely. While reps are not selling and trying to earn clients back, this is another opportunity for pharma companies to “touch” their prescribers and patients.

Figure 2.16 [data figure appears in full report] shows the two companies reporting their customer satisfaction ratings. Both boast good ratings, with over 90% satisfaction measures. Obviously, the aim for call centers is for all contacts to be positive; however, a 90%-95% satisfaction rating is generally the goal.

Companies mostly track customer satisfaction through surveys, both live and with response forms. Leaders use phone surveys, online surveys, and email surveys to gather satisfaction responses. For the most part, participants track satisfaction internally, without help from outside vendors.

According to many call center experts, pharma call centers should be doing more by way of customer satisfaction measurement. Beyond the fact that only 40% of companies even measure customer satisfaction, pharma medical information call centers should use third-party objective groups to measure performance. These groups offer additional response types as well such as flash surveys, focus groups and event surveys.

Though there are many ways to combat poor customer satisfaction, one of the more innovative methods is by improving agent satisfaction. Studies show that more satisfied agents produce better customer satisfaction numbers. With this in mind, medical information leaders must make sure that agents have competitive compensation packages, have feedback mechanisms to promote change, and work in enjoyable conditions.

Controlling call quality also aids in creating higher customer satisfaction ratings. Managers should be observing calls regularly, scoring agents on factors such as customer service skills, knowledge, and ability to navigate internal database systems quickly. Managers should use these observations to identify agents’ strengths and weaknesses and to develop training plans to improve their performance.

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