There is a word for something you have to do day after day, month after month: a chore. And while most of us think of “chores” as doing the laundry or mowing the lawn, for many people with diabetes ordering the medication and supplies they need in order to live healthily is exactly that.
Forced to get on the phone each and every month, taking up their time and the time of the customer service agent on the other end of the line, people with diabetes often report having a horrible customer experience but with little to nothing they can do as recourse.
Matthew Montagne, the Director of Innovations at the Detroit-based business Healthy Living Medical Supply, has changed that.
Aware of the problems that people with diabetes face, Montagne set out to improve more than just their customer experience.
He set out to improve their lives.
Over 29 million people in America suffer from diabetes and, unfortunately, nearly 1.5 million new cases are diagnosed each year, according to recent numbers released from Healthline.
And, to make matters worse, the CDC estimates that there are nearly 70 million people in this country alone that are living with pre-diabetes.
In order for people with diabetes to manage their disease, they must administer the proper tests and medications, which is where companies like Healthy Living Medical Supply come into play.
In most states, the law demands that patients re-request their subscription for supplies and medications every month, making it difficult to automate like you would other recurring transactions.
So, because of the “chore” mentality that so many individuals have when needing to reorder, many diabetics go too long without their supplies, no longer adhering to the treatments they need in order to manage their oftentimes critical disease.
Montagne’s idea, then, to improve customer experience for all Healthy Living customers, is monumental.
Not known for moving quickly, healthcare companies tend to stay stagnant for years, which often leads to them missing out on ways to improve their customers’, who are also patients, experience. This has become especially true with the advent of so many new digital and tech innovations.
But Montagne, living up to his innovator title, refused to give in.
By implementing chatbots in his call center, he not only took the burden off of the company’s customer service representatives, who were tired of asking the same old slew of redundant questions, but he made the process much easier for the customers who were tired of answering those same questions.
Through his chatbot innovation, Montagne managed to boost operational efficiency, revenue, and morale
– both for Healthy Living’s employees and its customers.
Today, Healthy Living’s call center representatives tackle more complex needs, allowing chatbots to automate the reordering process, ensuring that its diabetic patients adhere to their treatments while receiving the supplies and medications they need to do so. It won’t come as a shock, then, that Healthy Living’s revenue, since the introduction of its chatbots, has hit an all-time high in revenue – and an all-time low in call center employee turnover.
“It’s easier to be an effective call-center agent when you aren’t bogged down by redundant requests, and you have the right tools to engage customers,” says Montagne.
And Montagne isn’t done. Healthy Living’s bots are becoming more sophisticated, integrating natural language processing and artificial intelligence to enhance the user experience. By adding third party systems that can read customer data, open payment gateways, and smooth the shipping and inventory systems, Healthy Living is exponentially increasing their value, both in numbers and relationships.
