How Artificial Intelligence Will Impact Your Healthcare Website

Your kid wakes up with an earache on a Saturday.

“Alexa, where’s the closest Urgent Care?”

You ask rather than type because your voice assistant is faster than your nimble thumbs. And even better: Once Alexa gives you a result, you see the website has a virtual assistant ready to help.

Score! No digging through the website looking for a list of accepted insurances. You’ll just ask the chatbot.

Speed Up Your Search with AI

Finding the information you need online is faster than ever with artificial intelligence (AI). AI makes the web more convenient in all kinds of ways, including:

• Chatbots: They’re available 24/7 on websites.
• Voice assistants: Alexa and Siri, for example, help you find what you need, quickly and easily.
• Personalized content: AI curates and recommends additional content based on what the users like.
• Search engine optimization: Google’s RankBrain is a machine learning algorithm.
• Web design: Some applications already use AI to design websites.
• User experiences: Improved UX is built on data and insights.

There’s no doubt artificial intelligence and machine learning are here to stay. The question is: As a marketer, how will you use them to your advantage?

An Artificial Intelligence Case Study: Piedmont Healthcare

During a recent webinar from Forum for Healthcare Strategists, Chief Consumer Officer Matt Grove shared Piedmont Healthcare’s story of AI implementation and its impact on the hospital’s website.

The problem: Patients were not getting the answers they needed. 70 percent of users left within 10 seconds of visiting the site.

The Piedmont team implemented a chat feature — and had plenty of research to back up their decision:

• 92 percent of customers feel satisfied when they use a chat feature, compared to other options.
• 9 out of 10 consumers say they want to use messaging to interact with businesses and brands.
• 73 percent of consumers say that valuing their time is the most important thing companies can do to provide them with good customer service.

AI + live chat = the perfect team

For Piedmont, AI facilitated a seamless transition to a live person. It’s responsive 24/7, even when a real person can’t be there. And by outsourcing FAQs to AI, customer service agents could spend more time on complicated patient calls.

When users visited the Piedmont website, the chatbot asked one question: “Can I help answer something for you?”

Questions from users came rolling in.

• “Where is the cafeteria at Piedmont Newnan?
• “Do you take PeachState insurance?”
• “I need to talk to someone about my bill.”
• “Do you have a daycare?”

27,000+ conversations took place across 15 pages on the Piedmont website since September 2017. That led to massive engagement increases, 1,300+ calls driven through chat, bounce rate improvements and even $5 million+ in billing questions addressed via chat.

Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

As Piedmont proves, AI can make user experiences better. It improves productivity, efficiency and profitability. It provides information on our audience we may otherwise never know, which enables us to make smarter decisions.

When used intelligently (pun intended), AI can help us unleash strategic, creative potential we never knew we had.

So now you’re convinced that you need AI — but are you overwhelmed by the idea of incorporating it into your marketing? Getting your content ready for voice search is a practical place to start.

Why start with voice search?

We’re probably still in the early adoption phase for voice search, but it’s likely to spread quickly, due to:

• Growth and improvement: The range and number of devices involved, the ease of use and the improved accuracy of voice recognition will make it more and more popular.
• People’s comfort level: People are getting more comfortable using voice in public, not just in their homes or cars. As their comfort grows, they’re likely to spend more time with it and dive deeper.
• Ease of use: Voice search can help those who don’t see well, have limited dexterity or have repetitive strain or motion injuries.
• Feeling connected: Voice offers a more intimate experience — unlike typing in a search bar, speaking to a virtual assistant is almost like talking to a healthcare provider.

Healthcare marketers sit at the unique starting point — patients begin their journey with the content you create. Voice is only going to amplify that experience. Our latest eBook will get you ready for the challenge ahead.

Download Getting Your Content Ready for Voice Search today.

Sources:
“Zendesk Benchmark: Live Chat Drives the Highest Customer Satisfaction”, May 20, 2016.
“Understand How Consumers Use Messaging,” Twilio Global Mobile Messaging, Consumer Report, 2016.
“Trends 2016: The Future of Customer Service,” Forrester, January 5, 2016.