Self-service can ease healthcare pressure

Self-service and call centres can play a crucial role in alleviating pressure on an overburdened healthcare system, writes CCF Online.

Clinical Solutions, a customer service software provider specialising in healthcare, says minor alignments account for 39% of GP workloads and urges the expansion of self-help facilities and call centres.

Xavier Flinois, COO of Clinical Solutions, says: “Directing the patient to the most appropriate level of care (including self care) is not only the single biggest lever to contain the economics of the health ecosystem, it is also a necessary step to provide the correct quality of care.”

Verizon has enhanced its In-Home Agent customer self-service offering with a series of videos that can be accessed via FiOS TV, says Connected Planet.

The videos, available in the 'help' tool of the on-screen FiOS TV menu, aim to give customers a new dimension of setup help.

They will also lessen the likelihood that people will need to call the carrier's customer service help line to ask questions or clarify other instructions.

Supermarket chain Sainsbury's says it will make a multimillion-pound investment in additional check-out technology that will cut customer queue times by more than 500 000 hours a year, states Computing.co.uk.

The supermarket chain will continue its ongoing partnership with technology provider NCR to introduce self-service check-outs to a further 330 stores. Sainsbury's deployed its first self-service check-outs to more than 240 stores across the UK last year.

In addition to the check-outs, it will introduce new barcode scanning technology for manned and unmanned tills in each of its UK stores.