Behind the Scenes: A Day in the Life of an Elite Virtual Receptionist in Allied Health Services
It’s Tuesday Morning and the voice of a concerned mother echo’s down the phone and the echo of an older child comes through in the background. I’m already loading Clinko to check availability with the Counsellor as I listen to mum tell me she’s been referred to a therapist with her 14 year old, and can I get her in asap because it’s urgent. It’s just one call I’ll take today for our Allied Health Clients as a Virtual Receptionist, and helping people is one of the things I love about my job.
I’m in the Elite team.
That means I’m answering the most complex calls using a variety of booking systems from Clinko, which is our preferred Health Care Appointment Scheduling platform, to Halaxy, Nookal, Dentally, Acuity, and even simple booking systems like Calendly. The training to become one of the best customer service agents for health care has taken me years of practice and regular focus training in key topics. Perhaps our job sounds simple, but there is more to being a receptionist in the Allied Health Services space than you would think!
Internally we train on:
- confidentiality
- compassion
- tone
- rapport
- accuracy
- conversions of enquiries to bookings
- rescheduling cancellations
- dealing with sensitive information
- handling complaints
- emergencies and more.
Dealing with live callers from all walks of live takes a certain level of skill, and sometimes patience.
We care about people
Our role in answering calls in the health care space means having care for the patients, their well being, the way they feel about attending the appointment, and the way they feel about dealing with us during the bookings process. Our care makes the patient experience a warm and welcoming one.
We know our voice is the invisible brand of every health professional we answer for.
When a clinic engages us to answer their phones, we all take that responsibility very seriously. We have such a huge impact as the first point of contact because a great receptionist is a big key to a good practice.
So back to my booking of the 14 year old… “We will see you and your daughter when you come in next Thursday at 4pm, you can park in the car park across the road, please come 10 minutes early and remember to complete the intake form which you’ll receive by email after this call. The session will be payable up front and you can claim whatever portion back through your health insurance. All the information is on the screen for me in our custom built client dashboard. I’m a pro, I’ve done this a million times. I hang up the call and send the therapist a notification via Slack. On to the next call.
If your business is in the Health Care industry, or you would benefit from having your calls answered (think centralisation, affordability and reliability) why not contact us today to learn how we can help your business thrive?
