I have been conducting “secret shopper” calls in the HME industry for about 15 years, and that adds up to 8,722 calls. These involve calling your staff as if I were a doctor, a referral source, or a patient. The calls are recorded, rated, and results tabulated to determine where remedial training is needed. Financial impact estimates are also made, because every mistake costs the company revenue and profits.

Computers make things easier in some ways, but they also pull the customer service focus away from patient needs and push it onto conforming to the mechanics of taking an order. Medicare policies change frequently, and keeping customer service staff trained and up to date is difficult.

A mistake handling customer information can produce a HIPAA violation and a civil fine or penalty. Poor handling of a customer complaint can cause a patient to leave your service and go to a competitor. A bad impression left with a referral source can dry up a revenue stream and cause your reputation to suffer. Errors during intake can cause bad debt and accounts receivable to soar. Passive sales efforts result in a direct loss of revenue.

Do the math and you will likely find each percentage point of errors made by a single staffer costs you $60,000 in annualized revenue. Do you know what your company’s error rate is?

During a HIPAA compliance call, we managed to get a patient’s credit card number from a staffer. At yet another company, we called wondering if our scooter batteries needed replacing, and a service department supervisor referred us to a local battery company that had been “kicking back” money to the supervisor for almost 2 years. At another company, a simulated referral source was told to “stop complaining about being on hold” because the company was short-staffed that day.

You train and train, but the only way to be absolutely sure is to call and test. If you want to do secret shopper calls yourself, you are going to need some hardware. Digital recording devices will plug into your computer and the phone system to record calls and create audio CDs. In most cases, the hardware costs are less than $500.

Henry Wolford

You will also need to develop a set of call scenarios or scripts. The secret here is good preparation and good acting. The Internet will help you find hospitals, addresses, doctor names, and telephone numbers that are plausible. You don’t want to use any real doctors and telephone numbers, because someone might call and cause a confusing situation, but the correct local exchange number will help. Call scenarios have to be believable and should be designed with an “out” for the caller—a way to shut down the call without sounding suspicious.

Watch out for caller ID. If your company has caller ID, you will have to use the *67 option on the dialing phone to block the ID, otherwise they will know from where the call is originating.

Once you are able to make and record the calls, settle on a rating system. My personal favorite uses five areas of skill to be judged, and then weighs them to total up to 100 points for a perfect call.

Customer Relations (20 points): How well do they handle customer transactions? Do they use a professional greeting when answering the phone? Do they sound cheery and eager? Do they show empathy for the patient’s situation?

Equipment and payor knowledge (20 points): Do they give accurate and complete information about equipment and qualifying rules for insurance payment? Do they sound sure or are they guessing?

Gathering and giving information (30 points): Do they strike a good balance between asking questions and giving information on how to fulfill needs?

Asking for the order (20 points): Do they ask callers if they would like to process the order now or do they give a lot of information without securing the order?

Offering something extra (10 points): Do they offer to call the doctor for the patient? Do they ask about other products such as sheets for a hospital bed or a cushion for a wheelchair?

Now that you know how to conduct the calls, do you have the expertise to do it? Creating and conducting a telephone survey without being caught is a bit of an art form.

Do you have the time to devote to this? There are good reasons to use an outside agency for secret shopper calls. Your people stay focused on their jobs, and a disinterested third party is also more likely to rate accurately and without prejudice. DP

Henry Wolford is a Lubbock, Tex-based consultant focusing on customer service and human resources challenges. He can be reached through his Web site: www.henrywolford.com.