Have you scheduled a medical appointment online? Or perhaps, you Googled “CareFirst.com” to identify in-network internal medicine physicians within five miles of home. When making an inquiry or appointment, what communication channel did you use: self-service, online chat, email, or text? Or did you resort to voice communication? Can you recall your experience? Was it easy to use? If you used more than one channel, did the various channels create a seamless experience? How did you feel about the company after the transaction? Did your experience strengthen your loyalty to the organization or did you feel dissatisfied and ready to seek an alternative?   

Organizations across all industries continue to innovate their consumer engagement strategies. The contact center, also known as a call center, has become a ubiquitous tool deployed to build organizational brands. A call center uses exclusively voice communication via phone with its customers. Meanwhile, a contact center uses voice communication, email, text, chat, and web interfaces to communicate with clients or customers. Contact center models typically take one of two forms. They are either embedded within an organization’s operations or are outsourced via a contractual arrangement.

Why Now?

Market and business drivers. Contact centers are increasingly inherent in an enterprise’s customer transformation strategy. Communication volume supported by new channels, regulatory considerations, increasing consolidation across industries, growing pressure for cost savings, increased share of voice, the proliferation of technology, and a mobile workforce create challenges of reliably connecting people to the information they need.

Contact centers have experienced tremendous growth. Within the United States alone, there are more than 60,000 contact centers with more than ten (10) agents. Industry trend watchers think the United States is becoming the epicenter of global contact center growth because of the need for a highly skilled, digitally savvy workforce, onshore technology resources, and support from sophisticated technical teams. 

Business leaders recognize that centralizing and standardizing customer communications is the response to this complexity. URAC believes that these business drivers lend themselves to certification.

Why URAC?

URAC has a well-established history in health call center accreditation. Originally developed as the 24-Hour Triage and Health Information Standards in August 1998, the program has evolved to the Health Call Center. Today, URAC accredits approximately 50 clients ranging from Optum Health Care Solutions, Carewise Health to Evolution Health. Through the validation of these organizations, URAC has gleaned insights into the operations of clinical call centers and plans to take this expertise to non-clinical contact center operations supportive to healthcare operations. 

The Product Development Team will be finalizing the standards and presenting the program to the Board of Directors in February 2019. Please stay tuned as the program develops and we organize the URAC staff to ensure an effective launch in Q2 2019.