Heaton Eye Associates

Communication is a core value at Heaton Eye Associates, one that King says plays a critical role in everything from scheduling sequences to visits with counselors and patient communications.

“When our team is communicating with a patient to schedule an appointment, it’s very involved,” King says of the communication workflow. “Fast, speedy, and reliable communication is strategically important to what we do daily.”

Their call center is consistently staffed with 15 to 18 representatives and is constantly growing. Each day, they answer 800 to 1000 calls between three locations. Needless to say, answering every call promptly and effectively is essential.

Nextiva is known for its Amazing Service promise, which connects internal teams with a high-touch project manager and single point of contact throughout the integration process. As King conducted his research, he found Nextiva’s positive reputation kept popping up and decided to reach out.

“From start to finish, my project manager kept me informed, educated, and as invested as I was,” King notes of his experience with the Nextiva team. With a single Project Manager heading up the implementation team, his one point of contact kept him going in the right direction every day.

Another core value at Heaton is being “Motivated to Grow,” that’s why having a communications partner that can grow with them was so important. King found Nextiva attractive for many reasons, but one stood out.

“Growth,” King says of the key reason they chose Nextiva. “We know if we grow, Nextiva can grow with us with very little infrastructure needed to get the right service to our location.”

One aspect of Nextiva that assured Heaton they could grow was NextivaONE, a communication and collaboration tool that combines email, phone, and calendar capabilities in one app. With ten staff members currently using the desktop application and multiple users on the mobile app, it became instantly clear the tool could grow alongside the Heaton team.

Beyond one cohesive application, a partnership with Five9 brings the Intelligent Cloud Contact Center to the table providing data-rich metrics at the management level. The Cloud Center uses workflow automation and practical AI to deliver tangible business results — not only does this help the call center, and ensures a more human experience across the board.

For example, King loved the feature-rich addition of Live AI, which helps build qualitative data and ensure a smoother patient interaction. The Heaton team can use keywords like “promotion” or “LASIK surgery” to see if agents are pushing specific promotions. As Five9 tracks these keywords, call center managers can gauge when and how agents present special promotions or offerings to their patients.

But for King, it goes beyond pushing promotions and sales numbers. Understanding a caller’s sentiment and gaining qualitative data about patients’ feelings was a significant selling point — especially in the healthcare industry. “We loved that Five9 can take a call recording, listen to the words, and get into the customer’s sentiment. How angry was he? What’s the anger probability of the [customer]?”

Running a call center that revolves around helping patients feel comfortable and safe is the touchpoint of Heaton’s customer service. When they combined Nextiva and Five9, they found a communications partner that could handle their growth and technology-forward approach alongside a platform that amplifies the patient experience and provides quality feedback to foster call center improvements.

NextivaONE’s advanced communication options saved Heaton time and energy while enhancing customer communications. With a contact center team that primarily works from home, having reliable tools to answer every patient call promptly makes a world of difference. Even when employees are away from their desktops, they have the tools to continue assisting patients remotely. NextivaONE, puts it all in one place.

Meanwhile, the contact center platform offered through Five9 made improving the caller experience possible by providing in-depth data and analytics. When 68% of patients want to see improvements in their interactions with their healthcare provider, tools that boost communication options are paramount — and Heaton knew that. “Providing reassurance to our patients is number one,” he says of ensuring every phone call is treated the same way. They want every patient to feel important and have a good experience. Five9 has provided the tools for them to do just that.

But most importantly, working with the two partners gave Heaton a streamlined team with one single point of contact, one bill, and one support number. No matter what obstacle they come up against, there’s always a reliable contact troubleshooting alongside them.

“The teams at Nextiva have done everything they said they would do. Perfect doesn’t always mean perfect in the IT world,” King reflects on the Nextiva Amazing Service team. “But it’s been a perfect experience.”

There’s no doubt in King’s mind that issues have improved since switching to Nextiva. “Phone issues have virtually evaporated,” he expands. “Our older phone system had periodic downtimes that we couldn’t solve with Nextiva, that’s not the case.”

With Nextiva, King finds they only engage with the phones to set up new employees or reset a voicemail password.

“I’ve gained a lot of time back,” King says of the switch.

In the fast-paced world of ophthalmology, knowing you can rely on a partner to get you through each day stress-free is a heavy burden lifted off your shoulders. At Heaton Eye Associates, the partnership between Nextiva and Five9 was a crystal clear decision.