AI Virtual Agents vs Live Agents: Who Serve Your Patients Better?

Do you remember how much time you have wasted while waiting for an agent to connect and hear you out? And how many times have you gone forth without telling you that you are on a waiting list queue?
Don’t remember? No one knows the exact answer to this question. 

Fill up the form and get the healthcare solution consultation!

It is quite frustrating for both patients and health staff, and disturbs the business operations as well. 

Businesses are continuously splitting up their functions by adopting agents or AI virtual assistants, but do you even think about which of them performs the best?

Live Agents can understand your problems and handle hurdles appropriately, but they are expensive and not even available 24/7. On the other hand, AI chatbots are available every time and even cost less, handling the stuff quickly, but they are not good at understanding human emotions (which is very important). 

So, what’s the right call? Let’s break it down and understand the difference between them clearly. 

Reduce Healthcare Support Cost: 7 Best Practices

Who are Live Agents?

A live agent is a real person who works on delivering customized data as per the user’s queries and provides them better assistance. They connect with users over a phone call, listen to their issues, and answer them. 

Live agents have been considered the primary choice in delivering customized customer service for years with high accuracy. 

For instance, a customer is facing an issue with an insurance claim, so he connects with the hospital health department and tells them. Next, the customer staff themselves call the insurance provider for the data and solve their query, and then only the customer will get their issues resolved.

Honestly, only a live agent can understand this complex situation; a virtual bot will only say, Please connect to the insurance team.

What is an AI Virtual Agent?

A Virtual AI Agent designed with some smart technology, including Natural Language Processing (NLP) and ML algorithms. The AI technology is built in such a human way that we can talk to it and it responds sensibly. 

They are available 24/7 and quickly answer questions to help you with tasks or just chat about various topics. 

The AI bots can be used in many different places. For instance, let’s say you want to book an appointment with the doctor, you can call and then bot will ask what type of help you need, you will say i want to book an appointment, bot will then ask for the doctor specialization, and then after you say, it then ask the date and time, once you confirm everything, the bot will schedule the appointment. Additionally, it also sends you the notification 1 hour or 2 hours before the appointment. 

These AI chatbots help users worth their way through the website better and overall improve the performance. The best part of the utilization of chatbots is that they can solve more patient queries at a time than a real human can. 

Why Should You Adopt for AI Virtual Agents and Less Human Staff?

Considering AI virtual agents as a part of your healthcare environment comes as a strategic advantage by automating the repetitive and time-consuming tasks. This allows human staff to focus more on complex and emergency cases. But the adoption of virtual agents does not mean we don’t need healthcare professionals. 

Of course, we need them, but in smaller numbers so that they can pay attention to how things are running and what kind of attention a patient needs. 

Just like human staff, AI virtual agents cannot understand the emotions of patients or how much pain they are going through. 

AI Medical Call Center Vs In-Human Staff: A Complete Guide

Hence, the simple phenomenon is that it is necessary to adopt virtual agents so that we can run as per them around the clock and make sure that no patient query goes unanswered, even outside of business hours. They can handle appointment scheduling, FAQs, reminders, and initial triage instantly without any delay. This 247 presence not only enhances patient engagement but also reduces the wait time and admin bottlenecks. 

The adoption of AI Virtual Agents and Live Agents offers organizations the right balance between cost-efficiency and exceptional patient service, making them a smart investment for the future of care delivery. 

AI Virtual Agents vs Live Agents: A Comparison Table

‍

How Voiceoc’s AI Virtual Assistant Enhances Patient Support?

Choosing Voiceoc’s AI-powered virtual assistant, especially designed for health professionals to manage patient-doctor communication. The Voiceoc AI bot, built with advanced NLP and customized health workflows, automates the regular interactions with patients with proper FAQs, follow-ups, and reminders, all in real-time and across multiple channels like WhatsApp, Website, and more. 

And do you know what makes us different from others?

It’s our team who are there for you to assist with the features, issues, and other complex situations. And the other is our healthcare-centric design, ensuring HIPAA-compliant conversations, multilingual support, that easily integrates with hospital systems. 

Get a 30-minute free consultation with us!

Conclusion

Both AI virtual agents and live agents play major roles in delivering patient support with quality, but the future of healthcare focuses more on automation and efficiency. 

Also, the human agents bring empathy and critical thinking, and on the other side, virtual health bots or assistants offer unmatched scalability, availability, and cost-effectiveness that make them a powerful asset for modern healthcare providers. 

By integrating AI Health assistants like Voiceoc, you can automate your business operations by relieving the human staff of emotional patient needs. And you know what, the result is more responsive, accessible, and patient-centric care experience. 

‍