A day in the life of a Customer Service Advisor

The following is an account of an average day, written by one of our Customer Service Advisors with 2 years experience, based in a busy Hospital near London.

The average content of a day for an advisor revolves around the following:

• Close customer contact with the patients in the hospital
• Communicating with patients and their relatives sensitively and effectively covering all the issues that are raised.
• Relationship building with NHS staff in the Hospital

The rules to remember about being a Customer Service Advisor are:

• Two days are never the same
• Our aim is to ensure patients have every opportunity to use the Patientline system and thereby improve patient care and reduce hospital staff workload

What follows is a typical day for a Customer Service Advisor based in a busy Hospital.

“What does the day in the life of a Customer Service Advisor involve? In short, the Customer Service Advisors are key individuals within the company and within the Hospital where they work. We turn our contact with the patients into a positive outcome, with the main focus on interaction with patients in hospitals, and providing excellent customer service, these goals are paramount to the success of both the company and myself.

The site team has briefings in the morning with the Site Manager to allow quality time to review the previous days events and catch up on any new business developments that we need to be aware of. By doing this in the morning, it keeps the team informed and also allows time for any queries that the team might need to have addressed.

The first task entails dividing the wards between the site team to allow us each to concentrate on targeted areas. As the hospital is so large and I have responsibility for a number of wards. I log on to a bleeper system which enables me to be on-call throughout the day.

My day continues with making contact with patients within my targeted area who have contacted our out-of-hour's service. This allows me to respond to patients within 24 hours. Dependant on how many patients require assistance, this will determine how long this particular task takes to action.

When this is complete, I will manage my own time throughout the day by ensuring that I visit my target areas. The majority of my time is spent speaking to patients as well as their friends and family to inform them about the Patientline service and answering questions. On a day-to-day basis I am expected to make contact with a specified number of patients with whom I would help guide and instruct on how to activate our systems and make the best use of its services. We also assist patients, friends, family and hospital staff who have general enquiries. This is the part of the day I enjoy most because each customer has a different personality and you learn to adapt your interpersonal skills to suit each individual by building rapport. This is where my customer service, product knowledge and sales training really come into play.

As a team we have our objectives and targets, which are displayed in the office, and each advisor has a role to play in achieving the targets set for them. To help each team generate these opportunities we have excellent incentives that everyone likes to win. We achieve these by selling Patientline cards to our customers as well as encouraging patients to use our services, which in turn builds revenue for the site.

The key points to remember are to stay focused, stay positive, work hard as a team and believe in yourself, your company, your products and that you are making a difference to the patients who ultimately benefit from using your products. What will tomorrow be like?”

Is this the challenge you are looking for?

Then send us an email to: recruitment@patientline.co.uk and we will send you a list of any current vacancies, or check your local Job Centre where we regularly advertise any vacancies in your area.