The chatbot revolution is here, transforming one industry after the other. Gartner predicted that over 80 percent of businesses will implement some sort of chatbot by 2020. The healthcare industry is no exception.
With the rising costs of healthcare, industry players are continuously looking for ways to minimize their overhead. Chatbots might just be one of the much-needed solutions in addressing patients’ access to information. They also offer an opportunity to relieve hospital staff of repetitive tasks thus saving time.
With that in mind, this post will show how chatbots are being used in the healthcare industry and how platforms like SnatchBot are benefiting the healthcare sector.
How Do You Make a Good Chatbot?
Creating the ideal bot for your healthcare business depends on what you want it to do for your patients.
First, create the persona for the bot. It should have a name and personality to make conversations comfortable and human-like. Its tone should match your business. Typically, a more formal, serious tone is great than an upbeat and energetic one.
Take the time to learn your patients and identify the pain points they encounter while accessing your services and information. Try to figure out how you can address the difficulties and how chatbots can help to create long-lasting solutions. This way, you’ll make a chat that’s is useful to your patients.
You also need to identify the right platform for building the bot. A great example is Snatchbot, which allows you to build chatbots for free without learning to code. Each bot you build using the platform is automatically configured to work with most apps such as Skype, Kik, Line, Facebook Messenger, Viber, SnatchApp, and Slack.
Be sure to start small and simple. It might be tempting to add those features to your bot, but it’s sensible to get the basics right first. Basically, as long as the bot is getting the work done, you’re okay. Continue training the bot as you learn more about the features you’d love to use.
How the Health Sector Is Using Chatbots
Patient satisfaction is key to any successful medical practice. If your patients are contented with the care you offer, they’re more willing to recommend your service. Chatbots can streamline several tasks in your practice, allowing you and your team to focus on delivering treatments.
1. 24/7 Customer Service
According to Avi Ben-Ezra, CTO of SnatchBot, one of the main reasons for implementing a bot in your practice is to provide answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) quickly. Patients can also get information on non-serious conditions and appointment availability easily.
A bot is always available, meaning patients don’t have to way for a day or two to get a response to simple queries. Plus, they can complete tasks, such as booking appointments and buying products, without the help of your customer agents. This improves the overall patient experience at your practice.
2. Access to Medication Information
Patients spend a lot of time searching for information on drugs and medications online. Some complain about the difficulty of finding information on some top websites. You can create a bot that allows you to create an authoritative source of information on drugs.
The bot can help patients to find details, such as drug composition, expiry dates, recommended dosages, side effects, possible interactions, and drug FAQ. This bot basically completes what your medical chatbot it already doing, delivering a seamless experience for your patients.
3. Help with Medical Equipment
Patients’ issues don’t just revolve around symptoms and drugs. Sometimes they need help with their medical equipment, such as wheelchairs, blood pressure monitors, canes, oxygen cylinders, and bathroom aids.
They want help with buying new equipment or repairing damaged ones. You can set up a chatbot that allows them to find a solution to whatever problem they have with medical equipment. This case applies to medical equipment manufacturers; patients don’t need to make calls just to get answers to basic questions.
4. Lead Generation
Chatbots are also helping healthcare businesses to engage patients and generate new leads. This idea may seem out of place in the medical context, but medical practices are still businesses. They need to attract new patients to stay afloat.
The use of medical chatbots on your website can boost your engagement levels. Instead of people spending time on Google searching for symptoms, they can leverage human-like interactions to get answers to their questions. Bots can also ask them if they need to see a doctor and book appointments for them.
These conversations can occur at any time; not necessarily during your working hours. As such, you can easily have a calendar full of appointments.
The Role of Building Platforms
With the growing need for chatbots, being able to create and implement them quickly is important. Avi Ben Ezra notes that using the right platform allows you to add more functionality to your medical bot by allowing API integrations, ensuring machine learning capabilities, and creating flows.
Chatbot builders are making things easier for healthcare businesses, and one of the companies affecting this change is SnatchBot. The company serves over 40,000 clients from over 10 industries, including the healthcare sector.
The company provides a healthcare chatbot template, available in the bot store, that clients can use to build their own. This way, you don’t have to go into the finer details of building the bot. Basically, there’s no coding work and you publish the bot anywhere your patients are.
These builders provide access to several basic features, such as broadcast, Natural Language Processing technology, live chat, interactions, messages, and unlimited bots. You can also pay for premium features, such as advanced analytics, collaboration features, and translation functionality.
Final Thoughts
The use cases of chatbots are growing, and the healthcare industry can’t afford to left out of the bandwagon. With the perks offered by AI, it’s important to identify creative ways of deploying your bot to capitalize on every benefit.
Industry leaders like Avi Benezra are helping businesses across the world to implement their chatbot strategy. If you have a medical practice, deploying a chatbot can go a long way in improving your patient experience and service delivery.