In the mental health field, administrative and communicative work stand as a fundamental aspect of a successful practice. Professionals in the space are often busy for numerous hours a week with this work, and turn to local staff to delegate and specialize in these roles. Retention rates, costs, and performance are generally halting growth for businesses in the space. We’ve prepared a guide on how to transition from local staff to a virtual front desk for psychology practices, to improve operations and conversion rates.
How to Establish a Virtual Front Desk for Psychology Practices
Assessing the Core Skills
Communication: Your virtual front desk is the first human touchpoint between you and your clients. They should have strong communication skills, a clear spoken English, and the right communication style to engage correctly with your current and future clients in order to optimize your conversion and retention rates.
Attention to Detail: Every piece of data they manage is fundamental to your service and the regulations you abide by. That being said, every staff in your virtual front desk must have high attention to detail, and organization.
Critical Thinking: Every client is unique and every interaction requires critical-thinking to create the best outcome. This skill is what often separates high performing staff from the average performers. The objective, is for staff to perform highly in their role with independence and confidence. Critical thinking is what drives this desired dynamic in a virtual front desk for psychology practices.
Soft Skills to Assess
Ability to Work Well Under Pressure: Being in a client-facing and internal facing role, working well under pressure is a priority. Front desk staff must be willing and able to respond and attend to several people at once, and resolve inconveniences that may arise in the daily operations.
Collaborative Nature: Staff within the virtual front desk for psychology practices must be collaborative given their role within the client-facing side and operational side of the business. They often handle client-facing responsibilities in conjunction with their peers, making it a paramount dynamic to remain collaborative and easy to work with.
Initiative: Performance success is fundamental via consistent initiative. This includes the initiative to learn new things, problem solve, discuss a specific case with team members and more. The staff that wait to be told what to do are often not performing as actively as staff with an integrated sense of initiative.
Willingness to Learn: Every single business has unique dynamics, whether it be their internal operations, their niches serviced, or their tech stack. That is why, a staffs willingness to learn is essential for their seamless integration into their role. They should be open to learning processes, and the specific dynamics of the company they become a part of it. Additionally, they should be interested in learning new things and adding value to the company they work with.
Our Insights on Getting Started
Using our guidelines for assessing the core technical and soft skills of a front desk staff, you can give yourself the best opportunity of building your virtual front desk. The benefits of higher staff retention rates, performance, and significantly improved costs make this dynamic a powerful resource to take advantage of. Given that up to 47% of employees in healthcare aim to quit their position by 2025, building out a virtual front desk for psychologic clinics is a clear way to get ahead of the curve.
If you are eager to ask a question on this topic, you can comment below and we would be happy to share our thoughts with you.
To learn about the positive impact virtual staff are having in the psychology space, read our blog post on the topic.
