50K customer calls show companies still aren’t listening, wasting resources and millions of dollars
INDIANAPOLIS — November 15, 2021 — In a first-of-its-kind survey last year, Authenticx analyzed 14,000 call center conversations and determined that American healthcare companies weren’t listening to their customers when they called on them for help. A year and another analysis later — this time more than 50,000 customer interactions — companies still aren’t paying much attention when their customers reach out.
In fact, Authenticx’ data miners discovered that on average, 25% of interactions get caught in what they have termed an “eddy effect” — a vicious cycle where the customer gets stuck being sent to one customer service rep after another and never gets their issue resolved.
A typical eddy effect interaction:
Customer: “I’ve been going back and forth between [insurance] and [pharmacy] all week long; then I was told my order was on hold…”
Agent: “Well you’d need to call [department] so they can help you”
Customer: “Yeah, I already did that three times and was told someone would call me back, they never did.”
“These ‘eddy effect’ calls cost companies an average of $320,000 a month, or nearly $4 million a year, and incalculable damage to companies’ customer service reputations,” said Amy Brown, founder and CEO of Authenticx, a groundbreaking customer intelligence company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to glean insights from customer interactions from call centers and live chats.
Brown bases her assessment on her company’s second annual “Customer Voices Report”, available at no cost here. The report makes core insights derived from millions of customer voices and, using proprietary AI technology, to further examine more than 50,000 customer interactions. Though drawn largely from healthcare clientele, the data is useful for all sectors.
“We recently uncovered $792,000 in wasted spend per month for one of our clients,” Brown said. “Our discovery prompted our client to discover the root cause of the communications issue, address it and profoundly improve its customer service, not to mention its bottom line.”.
See how Authenticx calculates the cost of the eddy effect here. Additionally, the report names the top six Eddy themes identified by patients in healthcare today:
- Status checks on overall health treatment, claims and prior authorizations;
- Confusion about billing and insurance coverage;
- Program enrollment and form submission;
- Gap of consumer knowledge in insurance and medical terminology;
- Overwhelmed emotions; and
- Re-doing work or waiting for updates due to needing to resubmit or send more information.
“Too many consumers simply don’t understand the complexities of the healthcare business and are ill-equipped to effectively navigate between their provider, insurance, and pharmacy,” Brown said. “It’s never been more critical for healthcare organizations to deliver customer service with empathy, flexibility, and clear problem-solving solutions.”
About Authenticx
Authenticx was founded to analyze and activate customer interaction data at scale. Why? We wanted to reveal transformational opportunities in healthcare. We are on a mission to help humans understand humans. With a combined 100+ years of leadership experience in pharma, payer, and healthcare organizations, we know first-hand the challenges and opportunities that our clients face because we’ve been in your shoes.
Want to learn more? Contact us!
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