Boundaries Surgery
Boundaries Surgery benefits from a cloud-hosted telephone system from swcomms to provide a feature-rich solution that improves patient experience.
Boundaries Surgery is a three-GP practice located in Four Marks, Hampshire. The surgery had been using a tired and dated BT Versatility telephone system, which was no longer manufactured and was therefore unsupported. It totally lacked modern features, so there was no visibility of the quantity of inbound or outbound calls and patients had complained that it was often difficult to get through to reception.
Our communications consultant met with the practice manager to fully understand the practice’s requirements and demonstrated the web-based portal of our recommended cloud-based solution. We deployed the scalable Gamma Horizon hosted phone solution to deliver all the functionality the surgery required including:
- Automated attendant: to handle all incoming calls with routing options to choose from, e.g. “appointments” and “emergencies”. The surgery can also broadcast announcements to inform callers of details, such as opening hours and emergency numbers, when they are closed.
- Call queuing: with a customised welcome, on-hold music and comfort messages at timed intervals to let the patients know their call is important. The Horizon queuing solution can handle up to 25 calls so the chance of patients hearing the engaged tone has been drastically reduced.
- Voicemail: to enable users to share messages and to streamline the message-taking process with voicemails delivered via email.
- Call statistics: to give the practice manager a clear understanding of call traffic so he can adjust resources accordingly.
- Administration portal: to very simply add new users, change automated attendant messages, alter number of phone rings, etc, to alleviate engineer call-out costs for everyday tasks.
- PC integration: has been installed for reception and other key users to enhance their desk phone use. They can view their own call traffic, use click-to-dial and view details of incoming callers.
swcomms migrated the surgery’s telephone lines and call billing to our care; still retaining their main numbers. We increased their line capacity to enable extra simultaneous incoming calls to again reduce the risk of patients being met by an engaged tone.
We provided our Fraud Management Service to protect the surgery from the devastating effects of phone hacking. We monitor their telephone lines for fraudulent activity but also limit their liability, so they will never have to pay a financially crippling bill.
The entire solution is paid for on a monthly basis, with no upfront costs, with all system updates and support included.
Kevin Evans, practice manager, said: “At last we have a telephone system that works for us with flexibility and control built in.”
