Patient support is essential in any healthcare organization, and patients expect healthcare customer support teams to perform well and provide exceptional support.
This expectation requires healthcare customer support teams and non-licensed staff to be adept in their fields to ensure accurate and efficient patient experiences.
However, healthcare customer support goes beyond technical skills and knowledge.
Non-licensed healthcare support agents also need soft skills like empathy, emotional intelligence, and good communication to succeed at their jobs and foster a positive patient experience.
These skills help non-licensed agents provide genuine, meaningful services to their patients. They enrich the patient experience by focusing on who matters most in healthcare: the patients.
What Are Soft Skills?
Soft skills shape how well an individual interacts with situations and other people.
Unlike hard skills, soft skills are more abstract personality traits, making them more challenging to measure and acquire through formal education or training.
Soft skills are necessary in the workplace to ensure a smooth flow of operations.
Demonstrating a good grasp of soft skills also improves teamwork and interactions. Some examples of such skills include effectively communicating with clients and showing compassion.
5 Essential Soft Skills for Non-Licensed Healthcare Staff
Here are five soft skills your healthcare customer support team should have:
1. Active Listening
Active listening is critical to effective patient care.
It means giving your patients undivided attention and engaging with them in a way that makes them feel heard and valued. Active listening is consciously trying to understand your patients, regardless of their cultural background or health issues.
Your healthcare customer support can respond precisely to concerns and expectations by actively listening to patients.
Active listening is essential because it enables your team to provide meaningful customer experiences to every patient and build trust between your team and patients. Both of these factors have positive effects on customer retention and loyalty.
2. Effective Communication
Effective communication can mean the difference between poor and excellent patient care in healthcare.
This soft skill helps your team clearly understand your patients’ concerns. Clarifying underlying concerns is critical in providing accurate solutions to their needs.
Your healthcare customer support staff must be good communicators because effective communication ensures better patient outcomes, minimizes errors, and maintains strong patient relationships.
3. Empathy
Healthcare support agents must always exhibit empathy.
Empathy fosters improved patient relationships and satisfaction by showing patients that you are genuinely concerned for their needs above all else.
Exceptional patient experience is more than accuracy and efficiency.
Patients often experience physical and mental exhaustion because of their health issues. As such, your agents must show patients empathy and compassion because it’s vital to make them feel that everything will be alright despite their conditions.
4. Problem-Solving
Problem-solving skills are non-negotiable in a customer support team because they help agents identify and resolve issues more efficiently. They are also valuable in healthcare customer support, where complex situations often arise.
A proactive approach to patient support shows that your team is adaptable and flexible to handle different concerns and maintain high service standards.
5. Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence benefits both patients and your team.
But what is emotional intelligence, and how does it relate to healthcare?
Emotional intelligence means being more conscious of one’s emotions and how they can affect multiple aspects of one’s work.
Agents with emotional intelligence know how to manage their emotions during stressful and high-pressure situations, allowing them to provide better patient care.
This soft skill also encompasses empathy and managing relationships. It helps improve communication, teamwork, and adaptability and promotes better patient interaction and collaboration.
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The Impact of Soft Skills in Healthcare Customer Support Operations
Working in healthcare takes more than just having the know-how to provide care. Soft skills are more critical in the healthcare sphere than you might think.
Here are a few reasons why learning soft skills is essential in healthcare:
1. Soft Skills Contribute to Patient Satisfaction and Loyalty.
Soft skills like communication and empathy help drive patient satisfaction and build trust.
Understanding your patients’ plights and providing them with enough knowledge affects their behavior toward treatment. Your support agents can significantly impact patient outcomes with the right soft skills.
Positive patient experiences also mean higher patient satisfaction scores and retention rates.
2. Soft Skills Promote Diversity and Inclusion.
A diverse and inclusive culture is essential in healthcare because patients can be culturally different—the same goes for patient support.
Your healthcare customer support team will interact with patients from various cultures and walks of life. In the US, patients can include (but are not limited to) individuals who are Caucasians, African Americans, Asians, Indigenous Americans, and Pacific Islanders.
Thus, your agents must understand their patients’ concerns, questions, and health issues, regardless of their race or cultural background.
Healthcare should be inclusive for it to be exceptional.
3. Soft Skills Improve Team Collaboration.
Soft skills benefit not only patients but also your team’s dynamics.
Healthcare work can be incredibly hectic and stress-inducing, resulting in challenges in accountability, decision-making, and teamwork among healthcare customer support teams.
So, every team member needs to exercise emotional intelligence in such a demanding work environment. Building their collaboration, problem-solving, and communication skills can help ensure better teamwork and smooth operations.
Developing Soft Skills for Healthcare Customer Support
What comes next once you’ve identified which soft skills your teams need to focus on?
Here are some best practices that could help you develop your agents’ soft skills:
1. Soft Skills Training Programs
Tailored learning programs can help you address any specific skill gaps. Developing specific soft skills with targeted learning experiences can help you break down training initiatives according to each staff member’s needs.
2. Scenario-Based Training
Simulation-based learning is an excellent way for team members to understand real-life situations and how to handle them in a secure environment. It also allows you to provide direct feedback to your staff on possible scenarios and minimize errors.
3. Feedback Sessions
Soft skills aren’t measurable in numbers. You can develop your teams’ soft skills by encouraging a culture of constant learning among team members. Leaders can ensure this by promoting regular feedback sessions.
Mentoring and coaching sessions encourage continuous improvement and build better relationships among healthcare staff.
A Well-Rounded Team for Exceptional Healthcare Customer Support
ClearSource’s healthcare solutions go beyond its industry expertise. Our partners’ success also relies on the culture we reinforce as a team. Our team knows the value of compassion and hard work, and we extend those qualities to our healthcare solutions.
We empower our agents to become resilient experts dedicated to transforming healthcare customer support. Our people-centric culture prioritizes the growth and development of our people, pushing us to become more than just the average BPO.
Schedule a call with one of our experts today to learn how we can help you provide exceptional patient experiences!
