TMI, TDQ: Speed & technology in hospital marketing automation
Agency CEO dishes on poor customer service experience
I recently had a poor customer service experience, caused by marketing automation, that could easily be replicated in the hospital marketing world.
My son backed his (my) car into another parked vehicle, damaging a portion of the rear bumper, right rear wheel well and light. I sent him to a body shop nearby that I’ve used before (my kids have had a few accidents, so I know which body shops are good). When he dropped the car off, they told my son it would take two weeks, due to the holidays, to finish and he’d have the car back on New Year’s Eve.
Every day after he dropped the car off, I received an automated text message from the body shop keeping me updated as to the progress of the repair. I thought this was pretty cool: a body shop using marketing automation to add another level of service to the customer experience. Imagine if a hospital could do this to keep patients in the loop regarding the progress of their diagnostic tests, treatments and progress (there is technology to do this available today).
At 4:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, I received a voice message from the body shop telling me the repairs were finished and I could pick the car up, but they were closing for the holiday weekend at 5 p.m. I was in a meeting when the voicemail came in but was able to call back at 5:10 p.m. The woman I spoke to confirmed that the repairs were finished and that I could pick the car up on my way to work on Monday morning. I didn’t have to wait the weekend, worrying about the car. Everything was all set.
On the Monday morning after Christmas, while I was eating my breakfast, I received another text telling me that my repairs were 60 percent done. This is where the marketing automation broke. Since I had taken the morning off to go pick up the car, I immediately called the body shop to find out what was going on. The person I spoke with told me that they have this text problem regularly, and it causes a lot of customer anxiety (why haven’t they fixed it?). When I asked her to confirm that the car was ready for pickup, she told me the repairs were done, but the insurance company had not agreed to pay the bill – so I couldn’t come get my car.
Imagine for a moment that instead of a person with a car in need of body work communicating with a body shop, I’m a patient in need of healthcare in communication with a hospital. I am worried that something is seriously wrong, and my provider is, too, because she ordered some tests to find out (blood work, a biopsy or something else). Since the tests were going to take a bit of time, and patients hate the wait, the hospital uses a marketing automation text messaging platform to keep me up to date as to the progress of the tests.
On Christmas Eve, I get a call from a nurse telling me she got the test results and everything is fine, then a text message on the following Monday telling me my labs are just 60 percent done. Something is clearly wrong. Did the nurse get the results for some other patient? Am I not out of the woods? I call frantically to find out, only to learn that while my test results were indeed normal, my health insurance might not cover the costs.
In this very real scenario, speed and technology have turned what was once a waiting game into a misinformation game, and I, the customer, am the one who suffers. TMI, TDQ (Too much information, too damn quick).
Implementing a marketing automation platform is a complex undertaking, loaded with potential pitfalls if not well thought through. When used in a clinical setting, it’s vital to consider whether or not a particular strategy has the potential of improving the customer experience. Just because we can, doesn’t always mean we should. Faster is not always better.