As the Easter bank holiday period approaches, you’ll hopefully be looking forward to putting your feet up for a well-earned rest (if only for a couple of days!). However, if you work for a veterinary or doctors surgery then you’ll likely have the headache of how best to communicate a wide range of information to your patients; updated opening hours and appointment times, who to call in the event of an emergency, perhaps even call forwarding to an on-duty resident.

These are fortunately all common problems that could be solved at the click of a button if you have the right phone system in place. Here’s what your phone system should allow you to do in a matter of minutes this bank holiday…

Updated out of hours

If your surgery is currently closed, or is going to be due to public bank holidays, then it’s important you communicate this to those that are going to be calling you. Your phone system should easily allow you to record and switch on an automated message when someone rings, allowing you to easily update them on surgery opening hours.

Remember that it pays to be proactive, so don’t wait until the last minute to advise your patients of opening hours. Our systems allow our surgery clients to communicate messages to their customers well in advance, giving them plenty of time to make any necessary arrangements.

Emergency contact forwarding

For most surgeries, you’ll need someone to be available to handle emergencies, no matter whether it’s a standard bank holiday, Christmas or Easter Sunday!

Your phone system should allow you to handle this in whichever way you want; you can provide the phone number of the person on call in the message mentioned above, or make it easier for those calling by allowing call forwarding or the click of a button on their phone to be transferred to the emergency number.

We know that this won’t always be someone that works in the surgery itself; it may be a locum or an external emergency service you’re transferring to, so your system should also allow you to do this with minimal fuss.

Our experience and systems…

We offer bespoke systems to meet the ever-changing needs of surgeries and clinics whilst providing a local and personal service. When combined with more than twenty years of experience in working with clinics of all sizes, we’ve got one of the highest client retention rates in our industry.

To discuss how we could help your surgery improve phone communication whilst even reducing costs, please give our experienced team a call on 01237 420010.