Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: SA.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to another episode of Street Level Marketing with your host, Mark Lamplugh. We have a great show for you planned this afternoon or evening, whatever time it is where you're watching this.
Our guest today is Samuel Epstein. Sam and I, we used to work together. We opened a call center and that's kind of the premise and the topic of the show that I wanted to, you know, kind of go through and see if you could pick up on some, you know, ideas on how to scale call center, how to grow a call center, some of the important metrics that it takes as you're planning a build out of one. Many businesses require and you know, need people answering the phones to close deals and build a business. So Sam, welcome to, to the show.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Thanks for having me, Mark. I appreciate it.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: So tell me what inspired your entry in, you know, in operations and marketing space, particularly in behavioral health.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Yeah, so it started with my own recovery journey. So getting into recovery myself very quickly, I saw that there were gaps in this industry that I felt like I could insert my specific set of skills to ensure that not only are we operating with empathy, compassion and care, but you know, also infusing that into the day to day operations.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
Now when somebody's wants to open up call center, what is like one of the first steps in planning, you know, the launch?
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the first step would be making sure you're clear on purpose and direction. You know, why are you opening the call center in the first place? Why do you think that there is a need for you to have a call center?
That would be step one and then, you know, what is your direction with it? Right. Like how, how big do, do you think it needs to be in, in the infant stages and then how big moving forward will you need it to grow to? I, I'm a firm believer operationally that we, we need to plan for, you know, plan for Shoot for the Stars essentially.
So, so plan bigger and then, you know, have a, have another plan to focus on scaling as it grows.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
You know, I want to talk about, you know, deciding on whether you want to do it in house or you want to outsource it when the, you know, the proper timing of that is. And if you, you know, I think a lot of, and I, a lot of people make this mistake. They start with outsourcing, it grows, it's, it's generating business. Then they want to bring it in house, but they're not ready for the drop that that's going to create in order to increase the flow again.
You know, so how do you, you plan that out and just make that decision?
[00:03:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree with you on that point as well. I mean, it really comes down to control versus speed. You know, I think, you know, in house there's definitely much more control over operationally what's going on in there and making shifts and pivots is needed, but you can definitely scale more without sourcing. So, you know, I think that's part of the, part of what needs to be clear in the infant stages as well, you know, is where, where you're going with this and the goal and direction so that you can determine, you know, if it is going to be a better option to, you know, take it in house or to outsource.
Right?
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people that, you know, tend to make that mistake. You know, they, they don't plan for the, the pullback and then they, you know, you know, step in and they don't plan enough time and then they want to, you know, pull back and make more decisions that are going to cause more problems. You know, so you really want to probably gauge where you're at and plan for a pullback of revenue so you can then grow that revenue because it's going to take time, you know, to get everything in place.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Agreed.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: What compliance concerns are there, you know, in the behavioral health space? That's different maybe in other industries.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the first obvious one is HIPAA compliance. Right. So ensuring that, you know, your admissions representatives are trained on HIPAA and what that means for them specifically. But then also as a company, as a whole, also within the technology that you're using, making sure it's compliant, HIPAA compliant.
You know, obviously HIPAA and the healthcare space is a pretty big concern.
And then also there are state restrictions as well. So you definitely want to be clear on, you know, any kind of compliance that would be mandated by the state specifically.
You know, that's definitely one thing you don't want to skip on, skimp on when you're creating this thing.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Right now.
This is unique to the behavioral health space, you know, in the mental health space. But when you have a call center, you want people that are like sales oriented.
How do you balance the empathy that goes into treating like a healthcare specific problem and its effectiveness in agent hiring?
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah, so this is a point that I, you know, not only in call centers, but any, anywhere in behavioral healthcare. I, I typically hire for empathy. Right now there are some positions that, you know, do take a lack of or take more knowledge and experience, but you Know, within most skill sets you can, you can teach things. Right. And people can learn. Empathy isn't something that you can teach someone. So as we're going through the hiring process, we want to ensure that they do have empathy. Right. So gauging questions that are going to help us determine their level of empathy, you know, where that line is between being overly empathetic, which could get in the way of closing the deal, you know, so we, we definitely want to make sure the representatives have empathy and then from there we gauge, you know, how that's going to present when they're on calls with either someone seeking help or a loved one.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. And some of that empathy can also play into, you know, promoting and talking about the programs that you offer and making it a sound decision for somebody that's struggling or, you know, has to call.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, a lot of people that are calling, especially, you know, first time callers, they, they don't even know what questions to ask. You know, they, they haven't done this before. So having someone empathetic that can guide them through that process, you know, and making sure that they're very clear on what this person is looking for, you know, it's, it's not only will it help close the deal because they can feel that realness, you know, the sincerity of the individual who's answering the phone call, but there's also, you know, there's a lot to go over on the phone. Right. So making sure that they are compassionate, there is empathy.
It's, it's really plays off both on the moral side and on the business side as well.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Sure. What kind of tech stack is essential from day one when you're playing this?
[00:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah, so there's a, there's a lot going into this day one.
You know, it's, it's not a one size fits. All right. So depending on the size of the operation, what the goals are with the call center, you know, on a basic level or more basic level, there's a CRM needed. Obviously we want to keep up with who's calling in the status of the calls, you know, where they're at in the, in the process of admission.
Also, you know, we monitor the calls as well. So it needs to be some kind of call monitoring service, some kind of platform that we can go back and listen to the calls to ensure quality assurance is there.
Those two on the more basic levels would be necessary. And then from there, you know, it depends specifically on the organization and what.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Their needs are right now. What's your approach to defining like the call objectives, the information, the conversation.
[00:08:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
First things first is you want to build rapport, Right? We want to build a level of rapport, specifically in behavioral health. You know, there's this, there's this timing essence, you know, there's this window of willingness that an individual has when entering treatment. Right. There's a sense of urgency with whether it's substance abuse, if it's mental health. You know, there's a lot of questions on the level of care and the acuity that you're able to handle. So first things first is making sure that you build a good rapport with them. You want to build a level of trust and then from there it's, it's qualifying, you know, making sure that the individual, you know, works for the organization, you know, seeing what kind of out of pocket resources are available to cover the cost of the treatment.
And then from there it's closing.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
Now do you plan out a script?
And like, how do you. Which, and this brings me into another question because a lot of the stuff with AI is coming out, you know, know, what's your thoughts on AI bots that are answering phones? And you know, you get, I think it's that one area that kind of requires, and you can't kind of fake the natural empathetic person that needs to answer the phone when people are calling in.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah. So we'll start with the first part. Yeah, I.
A script.
And I think it kind of ties in with the second part. Exactly. I think a script sounds good in theory. I would say more of talking points, you know, talking points that are necessary to get through the conversation, to close the admission.
That's, that's more what we're guiding our admission reps on and, you know, training them to be able to handle.
And I think that's why AI, at least currently where it's at, it's, it's not going to have that, you know, know, you can give it talking points, you can tell it to be empathetic, but at the end of the day with all of the variables of dealing from person to person, it's just not suited yet to, to handle the requirements that this position would need.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I've listened to a few, you know, representations of, you know, some examples of calls being done not in the healthcare space, but.
And they do great. I mean, they're really answering questions and flowing with the conversation, but you still can tell that there's that level of like, balance with it that's, you know, kind of a person that's struggling with something is not going to want to be talking to, you know, a robot. You know, I think it'll get better.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, a lot of the questions that come up, you know, with our admissions reps is, you know, are you in recovery yourself? You know, and if the bot is going to speak truthfully to that question, the potential patient or potential loved one will quickly realize that they are not, you know, and that level of rapport guiding someone through the process of recovery, whether it's substance or mental health, is big for. For a lot of these patients.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Well, we're out of time for this segment.
When I come back, I want to talk about building teams and systems, you know, that convert.
So we'll be back with street level Marketing after a word from our sponsors.
Welcome back to street level Marketing with your host, Mark Lamplu. I'm talking to Samuel Epstein, and we're talking about, you know, call centers and what it takes to, you know, get them started, scale them. And I, you know, I kind of want to talk about building teams up and systems that convert, you know, saying, you got the call center, you know, start it. When's the right time to scale it?
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah, when we're looking at scaling, we really want to see does the.
The flow.
Does the flow that's currently coming into the call center exceed the team's ability to handle the flow, essentially?
[00:13:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Whatever that may be. You know, that could be, you know, needing more reps due to volume?
It could be, you know, that we're seeing a lot more volume. Whether it's inbound calls, web submissions, whatever it may be, it could be more outbounds.
But whenever that flow exceeds the current team's ability to handle, we're gonna. We're gonna start looking into scaling and what that's gonna look like.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: What do you look for when you're hiring your next wave of it? Like, you know, call center reps or admissions coordinators, as we call them in the mental health space.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Yeah. In this role, really, coachability, that's a big one. You know, a lot of times you'll get applicants and new hires that are coming, you know, traditionally from the call center space. Right. They have experience. So from all one call center to another, the processes are going to. They're going to be different.
So the coachability is really important there. Like how. How can I ensure that they're going to adapt and change to our processes?
Emotional intelligence, that's another big one. You know, meeting the patient or potential patient where they're at you know, so knowing, you know, when you need to kind of slow down and be more empathetic and, you know, so there has to be some EQ there as well.
And then also consistency. Right. Just like any role, we want, we want them to show up consistent. You know, when they come into the door and they sit down in their chair, if they're working remote, when they're getting their headset on, you know, we want to make sure that they're leaving everything at the door so that they're consistent day in, day out.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Right.
You know, this is one of those things, and I think you and I probably have that knack or ability that when we're doing interviews, we usually can tell very quickly the ones that are going to be able to do it and the ones that are not going to be able to do it.
And then you, you have that fine line of the ones that are just rock stars regardless.
You have that kind of middle ground that may be trainable or teachable. And then you have the ones that are, no matter what you teach them, there's no way they're going to be able to do it.
How do you do your onboarding and train reps for both healthcare knowledge and the sales skills?
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the best way I've seen is real call shadowing experience. You know, it's getting them on the call, walking them through the call. You know, I'm more on the old school side, I think, and dual headsets. Right. So having someone literally sitting next to them, their supervisor or trainee, whoever it may be, and doing like a mentor type training, you know, so they can listen to the call in real time, you know, it could be muted, they can go over different responses or different ways to handle it, shift, pivot, whatever's necessary.
Yeah, I think it's, it's one of those things where it. With experience, right. If we're talking about a mission rep coming in to this new role with experience, throwing them in the water and, you know, watching them learn how to swim, that's gonna be most effective.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah, but the ones that really had the experience, it doesn't really matter where they're at, you know, they can pick up and, you know, jump right in usually, you know, and it's the thing with scripts too. And I found this something that works for one person.
Script may not be working for somebody else.
What's your method for developing scalable call scripts?
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's important to test, retest and then iterate.
If we're going the script route, we want to make sure that it's, that it's flowing. Right. It can't sound scripted. You know, if it sounds scripted, the patients are going to know it's scripted. You know, they're, they're real people. Right. I think that's what's most important to remember here, that this type of admissions rep is, you know, a lot different than, you know, calling in and you know, getting a customer service or you know, even other sales jobs. You know, behavioral healthcare specifically is. There is that EQ piece we've talked about the emotional intelligence and empathy that's needed. So testing to make sure that these reps, you know, have this more free flowing, you know, talk point style script, you know, is going to pay off dividends in the long term.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
How do you ensure consistency, you know, with multiple agents?
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I think regular audits. Right. I think it's number one, you know, making sure that these calls are monitored. You know, we're, we're taking a look to ensure that they, what they're telling the patients doesn't vary from one to another.
You know, that that's probably number one from there, the metrics. Right. We taking a look at, you know, large variety of different metrics to ensure, you know, that the consistency is there, is very easily trackable.
The data doesn't lie. You know, so that, that's, that's usually, those two places are usually good starting points.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, when you're talking about the workflows and this is one of the things that I've learned, especially when you're starting to open a call center or you hop in the one that's already running when you're deciding what the, you know, to choose as your, your, your phone system or your CRM that the cheapest one that might work for you right now when you grow might not be the one that's going to be the best suit. And once you get going, it's very hard to switch, you know, because you have, you know, websites with phone numbers going into them and you know, all kinds of routing involved.
You know, how often should the, you know, the scripts that you create and the workflows be updated?
[00:19:44] Speaker A: Yes. It's going to depend on the organization.
You know, I definitely think they should be looked at every 30 to 60 days. You know, I think that's fair as, especially as like marketing channels develop and unfold and different campaigns are ran and you know, there should be an evolution of the processes in the call center. You know, what's working today isn't going to work in 30 days, you know, for whatever reason. So, you know, I don't know necessarily about if there's a certain metric to put on how often they should be changed, but I would say they should be looked at every 30 to 60 days to ensure that they're still effective.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
What CRM, you know, or tracking tools are you using or recommend right now?
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it all goes back to, you know, the, the size of the facility, you know, what their goals are, what they're trying to accomplish.
Exactly. Like you said, I mean it's better to start out stronger up front in preparation for your goals, you know. So, you know, and I've seen that happen before, right. With you know, smaller, cheaper CRMs. You know, the company wanted to save money so they started that route but they inevitably had to change.
With that change came, you know, a lot of back end changes which were time consuming and also, also not financially, you know, advantageous for the company as a whole.
You know, the processes had to change. So you know, I, I personally like to right now for behavioral healthcare specifically, Dazos is a good one.
I'll give a shout out to Dazos. They're great, excellent team, very customized Salesforce is very good. Right. It's very customizable to the specific entity that's using.
Can be a little bit overkill for what we're trying to accomplish in behavioral healthcare. But you know, I've seen some builds that are very effective as well. It really depends on the organization and what kind of goals they're trying to accomplish.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Yeah. How do you scale without losing the human touch, you know, especially in healthcare.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Yeah. So I, I think what's really important here is to stay true to integrity. Right. I think, you know, when you, when you are scaling it's very easy to miss out on who, what, what's really important in this business, you know. And there's this quote by, he was a gentleman who worked for American Airlines in the early 80s and he said the, I believe he was the VP at the time. And he said in any service business, the most, the biggest asset. And I'm probably butchering it a little bit, but the biggest asset is our staff, you know, so as we're going through day to day operations, right. We want to make sure that, you know, our staff has autonomy. Right. I think that's really important for staff. You know, obviously there needs to be structure as well. But in any areas where you can deploy autonomy for your staff, that gives them a sense of purpose, it builds their self esteem, their worth.
So that as you're scaling, they feel a part of. Right. They feel like the scaling has a lot to do with them. And it does. Right. In the service business like this and behavior healthcare specifically, it does have a lot to do with them. So they should feel that way. So I think that's really important.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, we're out of time for this segment, but when we come back, I want to talk about, like, the marketing fuel, you know, feeding the funnel that grows the calls.
So we'll, we'll come back with a word from our sponsors.
Welcome back to Street Level Marketing with your host, Mark Lamplugh. We're talking about call centers here with Samuel Epstein.
This segment, I want to kind of get into the, you know, the marketing aspect, you know, the fun stuff, you know, where we were building campaigns to start driving up calls and then you have the call center that their job is to convert those campaigns. You know, what market, Sam, what marketing channels have delivered the best ROI in the behavioral health space that you've seen?
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the main three paid, paid search, you know, pay per click.
Second search engine optimization, SEO.
And then third would be social media marketing as well. I mean, if you can really tap into the social media, that's definitely going to be, you know, the, probably the most advantageous route of going. It takes a very specific type of, you know, not only person identity, voice and brand to really get into that. But, you know, that's one that's, you know, that's growing rapidly as social media marketing in general grows rapidly. But specifically in behavioral health care, I see that more and more.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah, the social media, it's, especially in the healthcare, behavioral health, mental health, it's, it's tricky to, to get it right, but if you can get it right, you know, it can be very lucrative as far as generating, you know, calls.
How do you align the call center messaging with the ad campaigns?
[00:25:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I think really what we're trying to do there is use, use as close to exact language as possible, you know, of the brand, of our agents identifying pain points. You know, I think that's really important.
They has to, it has to make it so that handoff from the ad is seamless. You know, we don't want, you know, them coming in thinking they're, you know, getting this, but then it's that.
So any way we can adopt a more seamless handoff?
You know, we're going to try to make the voice of that content align with that.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it's one thing that's unique in the mental and Behavioral health space is, you know, some of the rules and, and regulations that go into creating Google PPC campaigns. And now Facebook has, you know, legit, you have to be legit script certified.
Google, you can't run them now unless you're legit script certified.
You know, so that's another pretty much like a unique aspect to, to the healthcare or behavioral health space.
That is something you really got to think about, you know, when you're, when you're launching these campaigns, you know, and I, I know you're on the operational end of this, but what is your approach to launching and testing the PPC campaigns?
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Yeah, so when we're launching and testing, we, you know, first want to do like pre launch briefings, you know, we want to make sure that it is a seamless handoff like I spoke about before.
So any kind of pre launch briefing that we can have amongst our team, you know, that, that kind of gives us an idea once it is launched, you know, are, are we seeing the effectiveness through the conversations? Right. Like, you know, we can kind of gauge our or more or less script based on the response, you know, so making sure that our team is ready, suited up can provide direct feedback as soon as possible. That way we can make quick adjustments as needed.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: Right.
How do you track a lead or a caller from the click to the conversion inside the call center?
[00:27:52] Speaker A: Yeah, so we, we use dedicated tracking numbers.
We, we connected our CRM through call tracking metrics, you know, and that's usually the route that I recommend. You know, it's, it's a very easy tracking platform.
So through call tracking metrics we can see exactly where the numbers coming in from, you know, and of course, you know that that's going to help us, you know, pivot or you know, hit the gas on the marketing efforts.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: This is, you know, I'm thinking about this when we were, you know, rolling out the call center that we had and I think we were probably one of the only ones that hired a third party vendor to answer calls on off hours and they fired us after two weeks because there was too many calls coming in. You know. So how do you build a call center readiness, you know, when you're launching a campaign?
[00:28:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I think rehearsal. Right. I think that's, that's really important. You know, I think like I said, you know, from one company to another, it's not, it is the same. Right. We're definitely selling the same process, but it is very entity specific. So I like the rehearsal method. Right. Let's, let's get them in There.
Let's go over some different scenarios. You know, especially, you know, when, when we know we're having more targeted marketing efforts, you know, we have an idea of what we're, what we're going to bring in. You know, we know it's going to be, you know, loved ones versus direct patients or, you know, this age versus that age. So it's very easy to rehearse. And I, I've seen that be the most, most effective.
[00:29:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's a. There's also the third aspect in the call centers for behavioral mental health, and that's referrals.
And it's also a big process on creating successful campaigns, is utilizing those referrals to help drive in new admissions.
Because, you know, it is really hard to target a particular person's insurance.
You know, when you're creating these campaigns, whether they're going to be a. And insurance that you can take at your center or, you know, it's going to work for a facility, you have a good relationship with that, you know, has another good program that works with that insurance, you know, so that's, that's unique into, I think, this space and other health care than, you know, generalized call centers.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: You know, what makes a great landing page from a call center perspective?
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great question.
I think clarity is probably number one.
You know, it needs to be clear on the message, you know, of what you're providing and, you know, what, what that looks like in regards to how to contact. Right. There needs to be a very strong CTA call to action.
Also, the emotional resonance, you know, does it, does it attract them emotionally? You know, does it, does it. Does the CTA invoke some emotion to them that's going to give them a sense of urgency to pick up the phone and call?
And when you're, when you're doing this, you want to do this with minimal distractions. You know, we want to make sure that, you know, yes, we want to, you know, make it attractive, you know, you know, depending on, you know, what level of care, what type of facility, the different level of attractiveness. But we definitely don't want to miss out on this sense of urgency, which is going to be, you know, really that strong call to action, you know, so, you know, maybe some pictures, you know, minimal pictures, but to highlight, you know, some, some of the more important things that your specific demographic are looking for, you know, so if you're, you're more, you know, trying to attract more like a clinical driven, like a mental health space or more of Just like comfort on more of an inpatient level. You know, we'll have that, but with doing that with minimal distractions.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Another thing too, I, I think on the, the landing page front, and this is something that happens, I think, in every behavioral mental health call center across the country, is making sure what you offer at your facility is clear on the landing pages, is clear with the call center reps. The. Because, you know, how many times after somebody admits into the program do they say, oh, well, they told me this was going to happen, or this, you know, it was five days a week instead of four. Or I had my, I had my own private room and we, we're allowed to have our cell phones.
So, you know, making sure we're on top of that. Yeah.
You know, how do you respond when PPC leads aren't converting iPhone?
[00:32:49] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a few different ways. I mean, we want, definitely want to see the, the source quality. You know, is it aligning with the, the quality that we're going after, going back to listening to calls? You know, I think that's, that's a pretty big one as well. We want to make sure that our reps are handling them properly, you know, and then from there revising any necessary scripts or talk points, essentially as needed.
But sometimes it's a fun. It's a funnel issue. You know, it's not a phone issue. It's more of a funnel issue. And, you know, we kind of need to go in there and redirect those efforts. So I think, you know, just identifying which one it is first and then taking action based on that.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: Yeah. What type of KPIs are you monitoring daily?
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah, so there's a, there's quite a bit of different KPIs we're monitoring. But, you know, we want to ensure talk times are or down. Right. We want to make sure that we're sitting at a good number of time on the phone. You know, too much time can be a little bit much, especially for the substance abuse patients. You know, someone's struggling, they don't want to stay on the phone.
They really want to get this thing done. You know, whether it's through assessment or building rapport, part of the admissions process, they want to get in and off the phone. So, you know, measuring talk times also conversion rate specifically. You know, how many people did we talk to and how many actually converted within the conversion rate. You know, how many were good to go, meaning that they were qualified, you know, whether good to go, meaning for the, for the facility specifically, or referrals out.
You know, that list goes on and on. There's a lot of KPIs that need to be measured on a daily basis with a call center. Not even just behavioral healthcare specifically, but just call centers in general.
Those two will kind of give you a good idea of the effectiveness of the reps. Everything else, everything else is just a matter of just slight adjustments.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: Yeah, well, when we come back after, you know, the break, I want to get into like the retention of the calls, the referrals that we talked about that are specific in the mental behavioral health space and you know, the relationships, that's one of the key aspects I think many forget and don't spend enough time kind of molding. You know, they, they want those hot calls right away. They don't want to work the back end and it, you know, typically, you know, fold you sometimes. So when we come back after a word from our sponsors, let's get into talking about that.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: Welcome back to Street Level Marketing with your host Mark Lamplugh here with Samuel Epstein. And we're talking about scaling call centers more specifically in the mental and behavioral health space. But a lot of what we're talking about can apply in any type of call center.
So I want to get, you know, get in talking about how does the call center play a role in the patient retention, like post intake?
[00:36:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's a few different ways that they ensure that there's patient retention. Also, you know, if a patient is to become an alumni, you know, we want to make sure that there's regular follow ups.
So creating a guideline on follow ups, you know, traditionally I'd like to set, you know, day one, day three, day seven, two weeks, one month, every month thereafter for at least a year.
You know, I think, I think that's like a good starting for the follow ups, regular checking calls, even, you know, post admission, you know, as soon as they get in there, they're going to, you know, they're going to have the strongest rapport. Right. So, you know, as the patients are admitting, making sure they're getting on the phone once again with the admissions rep and you know, going over expectations and you know, any kind of additional questions now that they've made it on site and then, you know, more of the alumni outreach. Right. So more regular, regular follow ups, ensuring that, you know, they're staying in contact with the people on site becomes less about the sale at that point, it's more about the support.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think especially with behavioral mental health, when you're doing the admission, that admission very well could be into another facility for some sort of stabilization before they come to you.
And I always found it's very important that when you built a rapport up with that patient to send somebody, if you can, as a provider, go meet with them in that stabilization program, because there's a potential that they might not make it back to you because of, you know, circumstances with other programs and things like that, you know, so that's very important.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely the hands on approach. Right. The, this is the case of, you know, the more the better.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:54] Speaker A: It will definitely pay off. Doing, doing more to pay off more in the long run. Dedicating that time up front.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: Yeah. What systems are you using to manage referral relationships?
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Yes, we, we have, we've used designated CRMs. That's traditionally what I've seen be the most effective. Right.
You know, referral relationships don't necessarily look like, you know, one for one. Right. That's not, you know, that's not always going to be the way we're looking at that, especially when we're talking about reimbursements from healthcare providers. Right. So, you know, gauging, you know, the quality of the referral, whether it's, you know, length of stay with the patients that we're referring out or we're receiving on the referral end and also, you know, the reimbursement, you know, is it in network, is it out of network?
Traditionally though, we can, we can monitor and log all that into CRM.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: Yeah. How do you train agents to qualify leads and build trust with referral sources?
[00:38:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it comes down to being aligned, you know, having shared values, you know, as long as there's that shared value.
Right. And you know, just like traditional, you know, even like Roman Catholic vows. Right. They say these two came together.
Right. And I think emphasizing that togetherness with our referral partners, you know, and we're on the same page, we're in it for the same reasons.
We have the same goals outlined.
Making sure that's very clear from the front, you know, rather than having that conversation later on when, you know, someone feels like they're, you know, being.
They got the short end of the stick, I guess is the best way to put it. You know, it's harder to clean that up. So we want to be clear that we have shared values and goals on the front end.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Yeah. How are you handling the follow up calls without being pushy?
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an interesting one, you know, because I've definitely seen where we have reps that aren't pushy and the patient takes it as pushy.
So I think, you know, I think it starts with emphasizing honesty on those calls. Right. That they're there for support. You know, yes, this is a job. Being human and telling them that like this is a job, but we're here for support.
It's more or less like a value based approach, you know, so it's, we, we're, we're letting them know that, you know, this is a part of the process as well. You know, this is, this is good for you, you know. Yes. As a business, we, we do want to make sure that you come back to us because we're giving you great care. You know, we're going to emphasize that as well. But also, you know, no matter how you're doing, you know, because, you know, we're not only looking for the patients to come back to the facility that they went to. Right. Birds of a feather flock together and personal advocacy is the best marketing in the world. So by doing this follow up with these patients and offering that support, you know, the hopes are that they do succeed and they don't need to come back to treatment ever again. And you know, they, they really value that support and are willing to refer others, you know, that they know need some more help.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: That, that's a really good point. It kind of goes in my next thought.
You know, what are some of the strategies that you use to turn clients into referral sources?
[00:41:21] Speaker A: Yeah, so alumni testimonies. That's a big one.
You know, we use the traditional ways to Google reviews. You know, that definitely helps family outreach. That's a really big one. You know, setting up like a, a multifamily group. You know, whether it's weekly, bi weekly, monthly, whatever that may be, that, that's really important when people feel seen, they want to share. That's just natural about just human nature in general.
I've just found that to be true with any kind of population. So, you know, we want to make sure that they do feel seen and you know, we, we have the expectation that, you know, by providing them that they'll, they'll want to share their experience.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: Plus, you know, that really comes down to the, the care that you provide too. I mean the, you provide a really good product.
They're going to want to refer to their friends and family. Totally it. You know, I was, I've been thinking about this and this kind of goes in, you know, into my next thought.
But especially with the behavioral mental health space, callers may have that kind of Spur the moment. They want to get help, but then they kind of fall off because they're not ready. They don't, you know, they got obligations that they, you know, you know, don't want to overcome at the moment. You know, how do you manage a call cadence for re. Engaging leads that, that you may have not got in?
[00:42:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it's important that, you know, when you're launching the call center or even scaling that you set up these structured sequences. Right. So as, as the, you know, if they're saying they have, you know, a rebuttal to why they can't come in now, you know, as of today, that we have structure sequences to follow up. So, you know, oftentimes you'll hear, you know, we have to talk to our wife or our husband. Right. And instead of putting the ball in their court and letting them decide when they're going to call back, you know, you definitely want to have the reps trained to ensure that they're, they're going to set a time. Right. So if they're saying, for instance, you know, I have to talk to my wife, she gets home from work at 5, it's a great time for the admissions rep to step in and say, okay, perfect. So, you know, it'll take you about 30, 45 minutes. I'll give you a call, like 5, 30, if that works for you. Right. So we, we definitely want to keep, keep the momentum moving, you know, so that they don't go cold.
Because once they go cold, you know, it's definitely going to be harder to pull them back in. You know, especially with advertising, you know, when we're talking about like paid search. Right. They might not even remember how they originally got in contact with us. They're just clicking the ad. So we don't want to, we don't want to put the ball in their court.
And if they do go cold, more stretched out, softer touch points. You know, obviously if they're going cold, they could have gone somewhere else. Right. So calling them every day, if they're in rehab and they don't have their phone, that's not going to help. Right. So identifying where they're at, how cold it is and then establishing a sequence.
[00:44:35] Speaker B: Now, are you involving alumni or former patients in the call process?
[00:44:41] Speaker A: Selectively, you know, peer voices, they could be powerful.
You know, like I said earlier, especially in testimonials, but it's a very selective thing. Thing, you know, if we have a potential patient who, you know, would wants that, you know, it's definitely worth, you know, including that in the training of the call center to be able to manage what that would look like.
But it's, it's got to be selective. And then there's also, you know, the, the privacy part of it. Right. So we have to ensure that, you know, we do remain compliant on the privacy end.
[00:45:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, Sam, I want to thank you for coming on the show and, you know, sharing your expertise. I know that you do, you know, independent consulting through S and Z Enterprises or SC Enterprises.
And I know personally, I've worked with you, you're very knowledgeable, be one of the first person that I ever would hire if I was deciding to go back into mental and behavioral health space or run a call center or program.
So why don't you tell the viewers or listeners how they can get a hold of you, you know, your contact a little bit about the, what you do?
[00:45:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, SC Enterprise, we do consulting in the healthcare space like Mark says, specialize in behavioral healthcare. You can go to my website, Samuel Z. Epstein.com.
you can click on my calendar book like a quick consult. It's free, right? No, no requirement needed, no commitment needed, anything like that. You can also reach out to me, email, contact Samuel Z. Epstein.com.
those two ways are probably the best ways to get a hold of me. We do everything from, you know, the marketing side consulting like we were talking about, to startup to licensing, credentialing, all of that. So yeah, if you want to get a hold of me probably through my website, it's probably going to be the best way.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: And is that national?
[00:46:39] Speaker A: National, yes, sir.
[00:46:40] Speaker B: Okay, great. Well, thanks again for coming on the show. We're out of time this week for street level marketing, but we'll be back next week with another show, so stay tuned.
[00:46:50] Speaker A: Thanks for having me.
