Trend Report

Healthcare check-up: How teams build trust

We analyzed data from 700 healthcare teams currently using Help Scout. Here's what we learned about how they build patient and client trust through better communication.

Collage artwork featuring correspondence in the Help Scout app and a doctor using a tablet device with medical gloves.

For healthcare teams, trust is won or lost with every interaction.

With so much pressure to be present and accountable, what do healthcare organizations do differently? To find out, we dug into data from 700 customers in the healthcare space who have been using Help Scout for an average of 5+ years.

We found that for the teams who prioritize building trust, accountability isn’t an add-on—it's built directly into their communication systems. They monitor satisfaction ratings, lock down access to sensitive conversations, and document context on nearly every thread.

Here are some of the trends we uncovered related to how our customers in healthcare consistently deliver positive client experiences through email and self-service.

01INBOX + ROLES

Privacy is top priority: Healthcare teams manage an average of 4 separate inboxes

Email is one of the most popular communication channels in healthcare, and for good reason. Whether you’re dealing with patients, vendors, or insurance companies, email—when done right—is an accessible, cost effective way to connect.

But email isn’t inherently private, especially when multiple people are managing requests. Beyond choosing Help Scout for its HIPAA-compliance, we found that teams in the healthcare space go several steps further to keep patient data safe. They use separate inboxes for separate teams, and one-third (32%) of healthcare teams on Help Scout also use advanced, role-based permissions for their staff, which is 6% higher than Help Scout customers in other industries.

02WORKFLOWS + CUSTOM VIEWS

Nothing important gets missed: 67% have automated routing built into their workflows

One of the easiest ways to lose patient or client trust is to lose track of important requests. Healthcare groups that manage a high volume of contacts bake in guardrails using Help Scout’s automation features to tag and automatically route incoming conversations. The most common tags on these accounts? “Billing”, “urgent”, “request”, and “refund”. These are the kinds of messages that can’t afford to get lost in the shuffle.

More than a third (35%) of healthcare teams in Help Scout also rely on setting up custom views in their inboxes, which helps to proactively surface requests from clients who have been waiting the longest for a resolution.

03PRIVATE NOTES

Document everything: 73% leave private notes before closing a conversation

Continuity across conversations and requests can be a huge pain point in healthcare. To ensure personalized, contextual support for patients and clients, healthcare teams leave internal notes on a majority of threads to ease handoffs between staff. They also rely heavily on saved replies to keep answers consistent—42% have used one in the last 30 days.

Plus, 30% of healthcare teams have a Slack integration enabled, so they can surface key conversations and collaborate where they’re already working together.

04SURVEYS + TAGS

Every experience matters: 75% track satisfaction on all conversations

To prevent the voice of the patient from getting lost, people-first healthcare teams stay proactive. Healthcare has prioritized patient satisfaction tracking at higher rates than almost any other industry—75% of teams track satisfaction across all touch points, which is 6% higher than the average across all 10,000+ teams using Help Scout.

Healthcare teams send satisfaction surveys after each conversation, with some teams (15%) using specific tags to identify feedback outside of those surveys, and another 8% automating follow ups so patients know their feedback has been received.

05FAQS + SELF-SERVICE

Empower self-service: 54% have an active knowledge base

Adoption of knowledge bases to handle FAQs and relieve strain on busy teams is strong in the healthcare sector. More than half of our customers in healthcare have a regularly-updated knowledge base with 5+ published articles. Practices are also starting to use AI tools like chatbots to provide answers outside of business hours, though at more modest rates than other industries. Among our customers, 7% use AI Answers, signaling an interest in modern self-service that is balanced and focused on patient privacy.

Nearly 20% of healthcare teams also operate multiple knowledge base sites, which is 3% higher than the Help Scout average. When patients and clients need fast answers, healthcare orgs deliver key info in several easy-to-find places.

Help Scout has allowed our team to better visualize and address problems—leading to greater collaboration, knowledge sharing, and ultimately, better support.

Intentional processes, happier patients

Building good systems around communication is about more than just protecting privacy and meeting HIPAA requirements. These strategies also support your patients and clients as people, ensuring that they always receive fast, personalized care and that their voices are always heard.

Customer Service

Help Scout for Healthcare: Build Patient Trust

See it in action

Learn the Help Scout platform in less than an hour. Become a power user in less than a day.