The answer really isn’t so obvious. Yes, telemarketers need their data to make the calls everyone seems to dread. Yes, the need it to reach quotas and pitch products you may or may not need.
However, neither should it be a cause for relief that their contact lists are of sub par quality.
Telemarketers aren’t the only ones who need info on doctors, hospitals, and other medical practices. Take the case of Covered California and its current crisis with its online physician directory.
Now, information is available to the public and sure, telemarketers could probably find some way to use that information for their own practices. That doesn’t change the fact that bad data is bad data to begin with.
So the next time you think that poor information means fewer telemarketers, even that ‘benefit’ is hardly worth the cost to the entire healthcare industry! Misinformation is a plague, whether you’re a telemarketing company, a big pharmaceutical, or a health insurance exchange. So if any single area is negatively impacted by it, expect the disease to spread.
Besides, do you really think that bad data is actually going to keep them from calling? More likely, it’s just going to make things worse. They’ll be misreading names, calling people that aren’t there anymore, or even commit the crime of dialing emergency numbers.
Ironically, a good telemarketing company has a few practices that other areas of the healthcare industry could consider implementing if they need to clean up a directory:
- Call Notification – Technology has made it easier to not just access but also manipulate information. That is why don’t be too quick to trust what’s been submitted online. If you want to verify a doctor’s identity, you should let them know that an incoming call is the final step.
- Follow-up Calls – Even if they don’t remember filling up a form or signing up for something, a call is your quick way to follow-up and remind them. Telemarketers might use a call to check if a prospect’s still with them. That doesn’t mean you can’t use the same methods to verify for more urgent reasons.
- Quality analysis – It takes more than one person to make the calls and at the same time, maintain and update information on a database. It’s why the best telemarketers come in teams, not just individuals.
Of course, there other things they implement as well (such as software security, privacy compliance etc). That’s beside the point though. The fact is when medical telemarketers are struggling with bad data; it’s not a cause for celebration. More likely you’ve got a plague on your hands.
