In a study conducted to study the influence of the call center phenomenon on the medical sector, it was revealed that most healthcare firms didn’t choose a BPO to handle their calls. The reasons are numerous. Many firms don’t believe that an answering service can correctly explain the medical aspects of a product. However, some medical firms decided to go ahead by outsourcing their answering services to an external outfit.

The results have been satisfactory. The trend started to drift in favor of external call answering services. It made sense to do that because not only did the inbound call center agents know how to handle the calls, they could also cross and up sell. From a marketing perspective, it made more sense to let the experts do the talking.

The more conservative medical firms chose to strike the middle path. They were willing to outsource their answering service but only to the old products. They feel that since information and FAQ about old products are easier to prepare and answer, an external inbound call center can do it effectively. For the new launches, they continue to depend on in-house call answering services.

It could be that many of these firms are insecure about sharing their data and product information with an external telephone answering firm. The features of a medical product are its USP and the firms will not like it if the ingredients and formulae are leaked in the market by some operational error.