At 8:03 AM, Heather logs into her headset, already bracing for a full day. She's a healthcare call center agent, and she knows the next eight hours will be a constant barrage of critical decisions. She'll help a worried daughter find the right specialist for her father, guide a patient through post-op instructions, and calm a frustrated caller who's been transferred three times before reaching her. She takes one big gulp of coffee before starting. How will Heather's work be measured? Too often, it's reduced to a single number: Average Handle Time (AHT).
That's the problem, and it's not just a call center problem.
In a recent healthcare system review, leaders celebrated a 30% drop in AHT across their call centers. Abandonment rates came down. On paper, it looked like a win. But within weeks, patient satisfaction scores dropped, complaint volumes spiked and first-call resolutions fell off. The agents were faster—but not better. They were rushed. Stressed. Missing the moments that mattered.
The executives saw declining patient satisfaction scores. Marketing saw rising acquisition costs as word-of-mouth referrals dried up. Finance saw revenue impact. Every department felt the ripple effects of measuring the wrong things in the wrong way.
It wasn't their fault. It was the system's.
That's when the organization adopted a Balanced Scorecard approach—not just for the call center, but for the entire organization. And everything started to change.
What Is a Balanced Scorecard and Why Your Entire Healthcare Organization Needs One
The Balanced Scorecard allows managers to view call center performance across four interrelated dimensions:
- Staff Development: Are we training our contact center agents well? Are they staying? Are they growing? Effective agent performance tracking is essential in this dimension.
- Patient Experience: Are our patients satisfied? Do we resolve their needs the first time they call? These are vital customer service and patient satisfaction metrics.
- Operational Efficiency: Are our processes streamlined? Are agents available when patients need them? Improving call center efficiency and keeping an eye on cost per contact is key.
- Service Excellence: Are we compliant, thorough, and safe in every interaction? Rigorous quality assurance and call center management tools help keep the standards high.
Harvard Business School professors developed the Balanced Scorecard. It was designed to move companies away from managing solely by financial numbers and toward a more holistic evaluation that includes in-depth analysis, key performance metrics, and overall performance across the organization. They asked a bold question: What if we measured success from multiple angles, not just profits or productivity, but quality, learning, and impact?
For healthcare organizations, that idea has never been more relevant.
Here's the reality: Your entire organization needs a Balanced Scorecard as a clear way of communicating organizational priorities and how they're measured. Patient experience drives growth and profitability—organizations that focus on it grow 2x faster than those who don't. But you can't improve what you don't measure properly. (Learn more about building an organizational Balanced Scorecard for healthcare growth.)
Once your organization has established its high-level scorecard, each critical business segment needs their own Balanced Scorecard as a way to clearly communicate their performance and contribution to the whole. Your call center, triage operations, clinical teams, and administrative departments all need scorecards that align with organizational goals, while addressing their unique operational realities.
For healthcare call centers specifically, this approach isn't just about reducing cost per contact; it's a complete scorecard for call center agents that emphasizes both efficiency and customer service excellence. These teams operate at the intersection of care and communication. A single call may require clinical accuracy, emotional intelligence, regulatory knowledge, and seamless coordination. Reducing that complexity to one or two metrics like call volume or AHT misses the mark entirely.
The Danger of Managing by a Single Metric
Back in Heather's call center, she remembers when every agent had a target AHT pinned to their monitors. "Get them off the line in under six minutes," her former supervisor used to say. That narrow focus created perverse incentives: cutting short important conversations, avoiding complex questions, and transferring tough calls to someone else just to keep the numbers low.
According to industry data, 96% of patient complaints are tied not to clinical care, but to customer service experiences. Patients who experience poor phone interactions are four times more likely to switch providers. When you manage by speed alone, you lose what healthcare is supposed to be about: trust and connection. And while you might hit your key performance metrics, overall customer satisfaction plummets—taking revenue, referrals, and reputation with it.
In fact, according to DialogTech, only 1% of healthcare call centers reach first-call resolution rates above 80%, a sign that the industry is still catching up when it comes to truly effective service.
This isn't just a call center problem. It's an organizational problem that shows up differently in every department. When one part of your organization optimizes for the wrong metrics, the entire system suffers.
From Numbers to Narratives: What Happens When You Balance the Score
When Heather's center adopted a Balanced Scorecard model, the shift was immediate and profound.
They started measuring how well agents were trained and whether they stayed with the organization for more than a year. They looked at CSAT scores alongside resolution rates. They audited calls for quality assurance, safety and compliance. Instead of being told to "wrap it up," Heather was empowered to stay with the patient until they felt seen, heard, and truly cared for. This balanced strategy not only improved call center efficiency but also provided standards that informed agent performance tracking and call center coaching metrics.
Managers could now identify coaching opportunities based on nuanced patterns—not just outliers. A new agent might have longer call times, but if their CSAT and compliance scores were high, they got support rather than reprimands. Staff development was tracked, celebrated and encouraged, embodying the core of a modern scorecard for call center agents.
According to The Australian, one healthcare system using this balanced strategy saw a 15% rise in Net Promoter Score and a 20% improvement in first-contact resolution after redesigning their approach using these integrated call center management tools.
Why It Matters Now More Than Ever
Healthcare is personal. It's emotional. And it's increasingly virtual. Today, one in three patient interactions begins or ends in a call center. These conversations are no longer "just scheduling"; they are the front door of care and a critical component of customer service.
To treat call center agents as mere cogs in a machine is to misunderstand their role entirely. They are triage nurses in headsets, navigators of chaos and interpreters of policy and empathy alike. Their performance directly impacts patient satisfaction, revenue, referrals, and your organization's reputation.
To truly support them, and the patients they serve, we need tools that reflect the full scope of their impact.
The Balanced Scorecard is that tool.
Ready to Build Yours?
You don't need to start from scratch. Many healthcare systems already track the right data, they just haven't connected it in a meaningful, strategic way.
Start with Keona Health's ready-to-use Call Center Balanced Scorecard template. This Excel-based tool helps you track individual agent performance across all four critical dimensions: People, Production, Patient Experience, Quality, and Revenue. It automatically calculates weighted scores and provides a clear, at-a-glance view of where each agent excels and where they need support.
Download the Call Center Balanced Scorecard Template
The template includes:
- Pre-built metrics across People, Production, Patient Experience, Quality, and Revenue categories
- Weighted scoring that lets you emphasize what matters most to your operation
- Individual agent tracking for monthly performance reviews
- Easy customization to fit your specific call center needs
Implementation takes careful planning, aligning multiple data sources, gaining buy-in, and ensuring agents understand the why behind the metrics. But with the right template, you can start measuring what matters in weeks, not months.
Involve your team in the process. Let them see the metrics that matter. Show them how their individual scorecard contributes to the department's success and the organization's mission. When agents understand how they're being measured and why, engagement and performance both improve.
Because when we manage smarter through thoughtful evaluation and strategic analysis, we serve better. And when we support the heroes on the phones, we build a healthcare system worthy of the people who depend on it.
Ready to transform how you measure call center performance?
Download Keona Health's Free Call Center Balanced Scorecard Template
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Balanced Scorecard in the context of a healthcare call center?
A Balanced Scorecard is a strategic performance management tool that evaluates success across multiple dimensions rather than relying on a single metric like average handle time. In healthcare call centers, it typically includes staff development, patient experience, operational efficiency, and service excellence. This more holistic strategy helps leaders make better decisions that improve both patient outcomes and agent performance, while also optimizing call center performance metrics and cost per contact.
Why is average handle time (AHT) not enough to measure call center performance?
AHT measures how quickly agents complete calls, but it does not account for quality, empathy, or comprehensive issue resolution. Over-prioritizing speed can lead to rushed conversations, unnecessary transfers, and unresolved issues. According to McKinsey & Company, improving first-call resolution has a greater impact on customer satisfaction than simply shortening call duration.
What evidence supports the use of a Balanced Scorecard for healthcare call center efficiency?
Healthcare organizations that use a Balanced Scorecard have reported significant gains. For example, a healthcare system in Australia saw a 15 percent increase in Net Promoter Score and a 20 percent improvement in first-contact resolution after implementing this model.
How does the Balanced Scorecard improve patient experience?
By tracking metrics like first-call resolution, CSAT scores, and quality assurance audits, organizations ensure that patient concerns are addressed effectively the first time. The Beryl Institute notes that communication is a critical driver of patient experience, and poor service during phone interactions can lead to dissatisfaction and provider switching.
Is the Balanced Scorecard difficult to implement in a healthcare setting?
While it requires planning and a shift in strategy, most healthcare systems already collect the necessary data. The challenge is organizing those metrics into meaningful categories and using call center management tools that facilitate an in-depth evaluation. Keona Health's ready-to-use Balanced Scorecard template can help you get started immediately—no complex setup required. Simply input your agent data and the template automatically calculates performance scores across all critical dimensions.
Download the template and start measuring what matters
Healthcare Call Center KPIs: What are some examples of Balanced Scorecard metrics for a healthcare call center?
- Staff Development: Agent retention, training completion, internal promotions (enhanced through continuous agent performance tracking)
- Patient Experience: CSAT scores, first-call resolution, complaint rates—key measures in customer service and customer satisfaction
- Operational Efficiency: Average speed to answer, schedule adherence, call abandonment—all crucial for improving call center efficiency and tracking cost per contact
- Service Excellence: Quality assurance scores, compliance audits, and documentation accuracy—vital elements in a robust call center management strategy
When should we adopt a Call Center Balanced Scorecard?
With virtual care on the rise, call centers are becoming the front door to healthcare. Accenture reports that 32 percent of healthcare interactions now start or end in a call center. Managing those interactions well is essential to maintaining trust, improving care coordination, and reducing patient churn. There is no better time than now to adopt a Call Center Balanced Scorecard.
Does Keona Health offer Balanced Scorecards for other healthcare operations?
Yes! In addition to our Call Center Balanced Scorecard, Keona Health provides specialized scorecards for:
- Organizational Growth: Track how patient experience drives 2x growth across your entire healthcare organization (learn more)
- Nurse Triage Operations: Specialized metrics for triage performance, clinical accuracy, and patient safety
- Multiple Department Templates: Customized scorecards that align each department's performance with organizational goals
Each scorecard is designed to clearly communicate departmental performance and contribution to the whole organization's mission.
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