Tatiana is a 42-year-old working mom of two with a demanding full-time job. Lately, she’s been dealing with persistent abdominal pain — enough that her primary care doctor recommended she see a specialist. That's when the frustration begins.
After reaching out to the clinic's customer support, Tatiana expects to hear back quickly. Instead, she waits. Days go by with no word. She checks her phone constantly between meetings, hoping not to miss a call. Finally, seven days later, the specialist’s office contacts her with an appointment for the very next day.
The timing couldn’t be worse. With no notice, there’s no way for Tatiana to rearrange her work commitments or childcare. She misses the appointment.
Trying to reschedule online, she’s met with another obstacle: The system doesn’t allow it. She's forced to call the office again, only to face another round of hold music, transfers, and repeating her story. Frustrated and exhausted, Tatiana gives up, for now.
Reducing Patient Effort: How Healthcare Heroes (Not Robots) Make It Look Easy
Let’s be honest: Navigating healthcare shouldn’t feel like trying to cancel a gym membership. If patients are trapped in an endless loop of hold music just so they can ask a basic question, they are experiencing "patient effort."
Forrester's 2021 "US Health Insurers Customer Experience Index" indicates that 34% of consumers with the freedom to choose their health insurer are likely to switch due to dissatisfaction, often stemming from difficulties in accessing care. This highlights how critical it is to reduce patient frustration and enhance customer satisfaction by making the experience as seamless as possible.
In the fast-changing world of telehealth and healthcare consumerism, patients expect ease, speed, self-service options, and the ability to get care without a scavenger hunt. But at the heart of it all? Real, live healthcare professionals — still the most important part of the equation, especially when it comes to managing customer interactions. Technology can and should make their jobs smoother (less chaos, more care).
The Case for Reducing Patient Effort
Patient effort is exactly what it sounds like: the amount of work a patient has to do to get care. Call-backs, transfers, repeating your story for the fifth time — it adds up fast. According to Gartner.
Meet Your New Favorite Metric: Customer Effort Score (CES)
The Customer Effort Score asks one simple question: “How easy was it to get the service I received today?” It’s the healthcare equivalent of asking, “Was that as painless as it could be?” More than just a satisfaction metric, the Customer Effort Score aligns closely with the goals of value-based care: focusing on outcomes, efficiency, customer feedback, and the overall patient experience rather than the volume of services. According to a report by PwC, 80% of consumers say that speed, convenience, helpful employees, and friendly customer service matter most in their healthcare experience — more than price. This underscores the importance of reducing effort and removing barriers in the patient journey.
By highlighting the friction points that cause delays, confusion, or repeated calls, the Customer Effort Score — along with feedback from patients — helps healthcare organizations identify where the system is falling short — not just for patients, but for the care teams supporting them. And for those teams, it’s not about micromanaging every interaction. It’s about removing the barriers, like clunky workflows and outdated processes, so they can spend more time delivering meaningful, high-quality care and less time explaining why the system still runs on outdated technology.
First Contact Resolution (FCR): Less Phone Tag
Ever called customer service and had to repeat your life story to four different people? Now imagine doing that while you’re sick. That’s why First Contact Resolution (FCR) is so important.
FCR measures how often a patient’s issue is resolved on the first call. When FCR goes up, frustration goes down — and satisfaction, trust, and staff sanity go way up. Plus, research by The Accent Group cited on TalkDesk shows that improvement in FCR can reduce call volumes by up to 30%.
Improving FCR means empowering frontline staff with the right tools and information to foster customer loyalty. It's not about asking them to do more with less; it’s about giving them a break from saying, “Let me transfer you ... again.”
Fewer Interactions = A Better Patient Journey
Ever wonder: “How many calls does it take to get a referral?” Spoiler: It shouldn't be 10. Yet, many patient journeys look like a convoluted relay race, with multiple handoffs and a finish line that feels forever away.
By reducing interactions — from 10 down to 4 in one real example — healthcare teams can streamline care, enhance customer satisfaction, and reduce frustration on both sides of the phone. With integrated systems and smarter workflows, patients get where they need to go faster, and staff avoid becoming human ping-pong balls. Healthcare professionals are at their best when taking care of patients; we don’t need to bog them down with tasks that could be easily automated.
Time to Resolution: Because Nobody Likes Waiting
We all know patience is a virtue, but even saints would get annoyed waiting for a call back. Long delays don’t just frustrate patients, they lead to no-shows, emergency room detours, and a general “ugh” feeling about the whole healthcare experience.
Fast doesn’t mean rushed — it means efficient. That’s where the digital front door becomes a game-changer. By giving patients seamless access to scheduling, messaging, records, and referrals through a single, user-friendly portal, healthcare teams can reduce back-and-forth communication and cut down on wait times.
With integrated systems and smoother workflows, customer service and support staff can resolve issues faster, and patients get what they need without picking up the phone five times. Imagine fewer callbacks, shorter queues, and fewer apologies for things that shouldn't have gone wrong in the first place.
The Bigger Picture: Use Metrics to Find, and Fix, Frustration
CES, FCR, total interactions, and time to resolution are more than just data points — they’re breadcrumbs leading to the places where patients struggle and staff get overwhelmed.
Measuring CES/FCR may require upgrades to your technology stack or workflow changes within your organization, but small steps along your master roadmap can make a big impact.
Combining these into a unified dashboard gives leaders a bird’s-eye view of what’s working and what’s broken (hopefully more of the former). The goal isn’t to monitor people like a reality TV producer — it’s to spot patterns and support smarter decisions. Less guessing, more progress.
What Call Center Optimization Looks Like
Remember Tatiana? A few weeks after her frustrating customer service experience at a local clinic, a colleague recommends a different one. Skeptical but out of options, Tatiana gives it a try.
From the start, things feel different. The clinic’s website is clear, easy to navigate, and their customer service is responsive and helpful. She’s able to request an appointment online, upload her referral documents and receive confirmation within hours, not days. When she calls with a follow-up question, the first person she speaks to has all her information and schedules her appointment without transferring her even once.
There’s no confusion, no repeated storytelling, and no last-minute surprises. Just care, delivered clearly and compassionately. For the first time in weeks, Tatiana feels heard, supported and respected.
Now, she’s not just relieved, she’s loyal. Tatiana knows she’s found a clinic that values her time, reduces her stress and puts care over chaos. And as a working mom balancing everything else life throws her way, that kind of healthcare isn’t just appreciated, it’s essential.
Patient Journey Optimization is Here
Healthcare providers show up every day with heart, resilience, and a relentless commitment to their patients. They do more than what's asked — they go above and beyond, often in the face of unnecessary complexity.
But even the strongest teams need the right support.
Are you truly measuring what matters to your patients? Is your staff empowered to succeed the first time? And are your systems simplifying care — or just shifting the burden around?
You deserve better. Your patients deserve better.
It’s time to move beyond “good enough” and build a future where care is clear, connected and actually easy for everyone involved.
If you're ready to support your team with less chaos and more clarity, connect with us at Keona Health. Let’s empower your healthcare team to focus on what matters most — patients.
Customer Effort Score Healthcare: FAQs
1. What is the Customer Effort Score (CES) in healthcare and why does it matter?
According to Harvard Business Review, the Customer Effort Score in healthcare is a metric that gauges how easy it is for a patient to receive care or resolve an issue. It asks a straightforward question: “How easy was it to get the service I received today?”
The Customer Effort Score goes beyond general satisfaction — it measures the level of friction and pain points in the patient journey. This matters because high-effort interactions can significantly reduce patient loyalty. A study by Gartner found that 96% of patients who had high-effort experiences were more disloyal, compared to just 9% of patients who had low-effort experiences.
In the context of value-based care, CES helps organizations evaluate whether they are truly delivering efficient, patient-centered services.
2. How does reducing patient friction improve care and satisfaction?
Reducing patient friction, such as long wait times, repeated calls, or confusing handoffs, leads to smoother and more supportive care journeys. When the process is streamlined, patients are less likely to abandon their care or experience delays. With fewer obstacles in the way, patients are more likely to show up for appointments and follow through with their treatment plans.
Additionally, when these improvements are made, staff morale also rises as their interactions with patients become more efficient and less stressful. By eliminating unnecessary steps, systems allow patients to feel more in control of their care and reduce frustration. This sense of control fosters trust and encourages better engagement in their health journey.
3. What is the digital front door and how does it help?
According to Accenture Health, the digital front door refers to the online and mobile tools that give patients access to services such as appointment scheduling, messaging, digital forms and record sharing. These tools allow patients to navigate their care without unnecessary calls or office visits.
For example, in Tatiana’s story, her initial experience was filled with delays and disconnected systems. In contrast, her second clinic offered a cohesive digital front door that allowed her to upload referrals, book appointments, and communicate — all from one place. This type of system supports patient journey optimization and reduces administrative burden for staff.
4. How can healthcare call centers improve efficiency without sacrificing care quality?
Healthcare call center efficiency is critical to both patient satisfaction and operational performance. Optimizing workflows means:
- Equipping staff with unified patient data
- Automating routine administrative tasks
- Tracking metrics like First Contact Resolution (FCR)
FCR measures how often patient issues are resolved in the first interaction. Research by SQM Group shows that a 10% increase in FCR can reduce call volume by 30%, freeing up resources and improving patient satisfaction.
This isn't about rushing care — it's about making sure staff have the tools to resolve issues quickly and compassionately.
5. Do operational efficiency metrics make a real difference?
Yes, there is compelling industry evidence that supports the use of CES and FCR as reliable indicators of both patient experience and operational efficiency. Research has shown that CES is a strong predictor of customer loyalty, trust, and repeat engagement (Gartner, 2010). FCR, on the other hand, plays a critical role in reducing patient frustration and alleviating the burden on call centers, which improves the overall patient experience.
6. How do I evaluate if my organization is reducing patient effort effectively?
To begin optimizing patient experiences, healthcare leaders should ask themselves a few key questions: Are we effectively collecting and acting on CES data to understand patient effort? Are patients being asked to repeat their stories unnecessarily across different departments, creating frustration and delays? Are our systems truly integrated, or are we still relying on outdated manual processes that add unnecessary complexity? Finally, is our digital front door actively solving problems and improving efficiency, or is it creating new obstacles for patients and staff alike?
By using tools such as unified dashboards, healthcare organizations can track crucial metrics like CES, FCR, total interactions, and time to resolution. These insights reveal where bottlenecks occur and help guide smarter, evidence-based decisions that improve both the patient journey and internal workflows. With the right data, leaders can pinpoint areas for improvement, streamline care processes, and enhance the overall patient experience.
