11 January,2022 07:48 AM IST | Mumbai | Somita Pal
Call centre employees calm down callers anxious to know their COVID-19 test report. Representation pic
Amid rising COVID-19 cases and increasing demand for RT-PCR tests, call centres of private laboratories are doubling up as counsellors to customers, calling anxiously to know about their reports.
The private laboratories are struggling to meet the deadline of report delivery due to the surge in demand for RT-PCR tests. In such a scenario, the customer service providers are faced with frantic calls. To calm them down, they enquire about callers' symptoms and health conditions, and comfort them. The call centre employees have been trained to understand the urgency and severity of COVID-19 symptoms to prioritise it.
"We try to understand the symptoms of the patients and accordingly escalate their calls. If the symptom is mild or the patient is asymptomatic, we try to calm them down and assure them that the report will be sent as early as possible. In the meantime, we ask them to keep in touch with their doctor," said an employee of a private lab's call centre.
Dr Avinash Phadke, president of Mumbai-based SRL Phadke Labs, said that due to a surge, sometimes they have a wait list owing to the non-availability of the technicians. But urgencies are our top priority, he said, adding that the staff has been trained to be sympathetic to the callers.
"Our customer service team is trained to deal with the mindset of the patients who are anxious. A quick resolution in terms of timely delivery of report and empathetic listening solves the tension," he said.
Dr Srivatsa Prakhya, the deputy general manager, Technical and Advanced Diagnostics, Apollo Diagnostics, said a specialised training is being given to the staff to make sure the customers are handled appropriately when it comes to frantic and emergency calls.
"Besides, in our national reference laboratory in Hyderabad, we have set up a separate technical team as a call centre that is trained in handling such critical calls. At the same time, they also provide technical support because they connect you to our doctors. For example, if there is a frantic call that is critical, then the customer service team directly escalates it to our senior operations manager who tries to soothe the customer, and at the same time, there is a doctor on call who speaks to the customer," Dr Prakhya explained.
Psychiatrists, too, are noticing a surge in anxiety amid the third wave.
Dr Avinash De Sousa, the president of the Bombay Psychiatric Society, said people who have seen personal loss in the first and second waves are more anxious.
"We are getting frantic calls from families who have suffered loss in the first and second waves. Also, there is anxiety about contracting serious COVID-19. Some people are willing to get admitted as a precautionary measure. As symptoms with the Omicron variant are similar to that of the common cold, people getting cold are afraid of being quarantined," he said.
