The Queen Mother Hospital is the small animal referral centre for the Royal Veterinary College, which has been working with Vetsec since a successful trial in March 2015.
During this trial, in which Vetsec took over call answering and overflow call services, Vetsec reduced waiting times by more than 80%. Replacing the existing queuing system, Vetsec’s Virtual Veterinary Receptionists reduced the average call waiting time from 2 minutes, with some unlucky callers staying on the line for as long as 8 minutes before speaking to an operator, to just 20 seconds per call.
The Queen Mother Hospital has now been a client for more than six months, with our operatives taking around 900 calls on behalf of the Royal Veterinary College every month. Jordan Scott, of the Royal Veterinary College, talks about the Queen Mother Hospital’s experience in using Vetsec’s unique veterinary support service.
“Before Vetsec we just had six phone agents answering the phones and were experiencing problems with the amount of calls coming through. We found them quite difficult to keep up with.”
“Vetsec take our overflow calls from our appointment and referral lines. Using the service has allowed us to improve phone times, respond to clients quicker, keeping them off hold for longer and improving their experience.
So far so good, but how easy was implementing the new system? “Vetsec came and spent a few days with us training in how we do things. It runs quite well within the hospital. We’ve had a few customers happy with the professionalism they’ve received on the phone from Vetsec.”
While the customer experience is improved, Jordan reiterates that the biggest impact Vetsec is having is reducing call wait times. “Wait times have gone down from over 100 seconds to 20 seconds. We respond to our clients quicker,” which, as well as improving customer experience, has enabled the centre to answer more calls and increase customer numbers. “By picking up calls quicker, we have been able to speak to more referral vets and increase our number of clients.”