Medical Angel
Why would I trust a stranger with my personal safety?
Realigning corporate policy with the organization’s mission statement by improving onboarding and device set-up to emphasize the relationship between call centers and medical emergency device wearers
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Context:
This was a two-week design sprint to help a medical alert device company improve and enhance its device and services.
The unit is worn around the neck and uses a cellular network to maintain 24/7 connectivity to a call center.
It was a concept project based on a real organization.
Design Team:
Yvonne Bouligny
Kyle Brown
Let Roces
My Role:
• Creating project timelines and documenting daily progress
• Conducting secondary research and final research synthesis
• Editing final written deliverables
Tools & Methods:
• Competitive/Comparative Analysis
• User Surveys/Interviews
• Social Media Listening
• Wireframing & Prototyping
Problems (from Client Brief) & Our Hypotheses:
Confusion around setting up the device
The caregiver (or primary point of contact) is often the individual who not only selects and purchases the device but also sets it up. Set-up is delayed when the device wearer is expected to be overly involved: currently, a physical form is mailed to the device wearer’s home. In order for activation to be complete, the form must be completed and mailed back. If we make this an online form (directed at the caregiver), we can reduce the activation delay.
General reluctance to push the button on the device
The lack of personal connection between the call center and device wearer has led to a general hesitation around asking for help, especially in situations where the patient is concerned but not in immediate danger. This could be the right moment to intervene to avoid further complications. If call center representatives felt less like “strangers”, the device wearer would feel more comfortable relying on them for assistance.
Caregivers are requesting more timely notifications of device activity
There is a misunderstanding between the call center and the caregivers around what kinds of non-emergency notifications will be communicated. If we explicitly ask the caregiver what they would like to receive and set up automatic notifications for certain scenarios, we can bridge the communication gap.
Solutions:
Improve the onboarding and device set-up experience via the website. Allow the caregiver to provide more information about the device wearer during onboarding. This form will replace the mailed-in version (unless a specific request is made). The call center will have more individual details about the client, providing them a better opportunity to develop a personal connection with the device wearer. The caregiver will also elect (during onboarding) the type of non-emergency notifications they receive and how (e-mail or text). Also, remove or make more transparent certain policies around billing/cancellation in order to rebuild trust with consumers.
Our initial steps were to begin primary and secondary research to get a better understanding of the types of individuals using these devices and their experience doing so. As a group, we drafted a survey that we could use to target device wearers and/or caregivers. We knew it would be too challenging to find individuals who were using devices from the specific company we were working with (plus we were interested in people’s experiences with other products), so we made it clear that we were open to users of any medical alert device.
Each member of the group used their own social network to see if they could find individuals who would be appropriate recipients of the survey. We found 3 individuals and received their written responses. We also made a printed version of the survey and used this as a template/script for in-person interviews at a care facility. We did 7 of these in one afternoon.
We looked into several other competitors. We quickly realized that our company did not have a technical edge on its competition. What it did have was a good reputation for being reliable due to emphasis on high-quality customer service. Although, this was something that had been slowly declining in the last few years. I’ll touch more on this later.
We looked into baby monitoring devices and home-alarm systems to see if there were any features that we could integrate into our solution. We also looked briefly into a few large financial institutions to see how they tried to convey dependability through their use of language and their general approach to web interfaces.
We investigated the kinds of intake forms used by hospitals and other care facilities to gather personal details from patients. One of our guiding questions was "what brief set of questions would give us the broadest sense of a person’s general disposition?" This would be something we would integrate into our online form.
Our primary and secondary research suggested that most device wearers (from our company and others) never end up needing to push the help button. In fact, a large number of device activations happen by accident. On the other end of the spectrum, there were instances where the device was thought to be working properly but the battery was faulty or had not been charged. Where was the phone call from the call center alerting the caregiver and/or the device wearer that something was malfunctioning? When we spoke to customer service, they told us that the call center can remotely read the battery level of the device. If the battery was not charged, did the call center just assume the device wearer had decided to no longer use the product (even though they were still getting billed for it)? Is this something that is not continuously monitored and then communicated to the device wearer (or caregiver)? As we dove more deeply into these questions, we created archetypes of the two individuals associated with using the product.
Forgetful Independent
Device Wearer
“I want things to be how they were.”
• Experience with a previous emergency
• Value their independence and mobility
• Doesn’t want to feel like a burden
• Doesn’t want to be seen as helpless
• Not looking for overly-technical solutions
• Forgets to charge or test the device
Worried Watcher
Primary Point of Contact
”I just need to know they’re safe.”
• Expects consistent and reliable monitoring
• Does not live near the person they watch over
• Emotionally invested in device wearer’s safety
• Lives an active and busy lifestyle
• Looking to be notified when issues occur
• Expects easy device set-up
We started to realize that we were largely dealing with a service design problem. The customers were buying a form of insurance: the real value of the company was their ability to instill confidence and trust. Clients were purchasing this device assuming they could rely on the company with their safety in an emergency situation. It occurred to us that there would be two ways for the customer to gain that confidence and trust: hearing positive stories about how the device had successfully prevented harm for others (through product reviews and related content) or through their own personal interactions with the company (by way of the call center). Due to the very limited amount of interaction that occurred with the call center, it was very clear that the company wouldn’t have a whole lot of opportunities to gain or maintain that trust in the current paradigm.
In order to understand more about our client’s particular situation, we focused on reading product reviews on their website and on other online platforms where their devices were sold. We went on YouTube and watched product reviews, paying very close attention to the comments. We also spoke to the sales team numerous times via the website’s online chat function. Although the reviews were largely positive, there was still a fair number of complaints, mostly centered around billing.
There were two main instances where the billing issue came up: when the device was activated and when the service was to be canceled. All of this was readily available to be seen by the public via the Better Business Bureau. As we stated to the client during our final presentation, we looked at all of these sources of information because this is precisely the method that a consumer might use to decide whether or not to trust the company. Apparently our company was beginning to charge the subscriber from the day the product shipped, not when the device was actually activated. This resulted in multiple individuals stating that they had been billed for a device they had never set-up. The service was difficult to cancel because the subscriber was not aware they would need to (immediately) send the device back in order for the billing to stop. There were also instances where clients were unable to reach customer service, leading to them being unable to initiate cancellation. Similarly, this same issue of not being able to contact somebody in the company had been encountered by others during device activation.
In the comments of videos and product reviews, we repeatedly heard about how the sales teams were overly aggressive and that people regretted having provided their contact information. We had also experienced this ourselves as we had several missed calls from one individual who contacted us after we completed a product guide questionnaire on the website (note: we had to give our contact information to view the results!)
We started to really wonder what was going on internally at our business. We then sought out employee reviews of the company through Indeed and Glassdoor. This revealed that employees felt there had been a cultural shift in the last 2-3 years, placing more emphasis on expansion and sales. The call center team was not growing fast enough to maintain the company’s previous level of service.
Again, the technology itself wasn’t novel, it was their customer service that was the differentiating factor from other competitors in the market. We would need a solution that wouldn’t put added strain on an already short-staffed call center. At the same time, we felt there needed to be more rapport between the call center and device wearer in order to address the hesitancy around device use in non-emergency situations.
The cultural shift that would need to happen must be championed by those in the business itself. What we could do is support those efforts by providing them a new onboarding and activation process via their website. In addition to this, we recommended that they remove the required “fill out contact information” step to receive the results of the product guide quiz. The number of products offered by the company made the buying process quite confusing. The quiz was there to address that, but the fact that they made you provide your contact information would lead many consumers to abandon the shopping process. We discovered that we could get the same information by using their live chat feature and asking the chat operator for the same information, which meant we were further diminishing their amount of resources available for meaningful/significant interactions — better to simply remove the personal details requirement.
In the end, we made sure that the caregiver was able to fill out all of the information themselves (and no longer had to intercept the mailed form that was previously going to the residence of the device wearer). If there was to be no caregiver on file, the device wearer could use the same online form to fill out the necessary information. We made it a point to ask more personal questions about the device wearer during the onboarding process -- they weren’t required, but encouraged. We made it clear what kind of non-emergency communication the caregiver would receive and how. An example of this would be a low battery warning or that the device had been activated by accident (as confirmed by the call center). This is something that could be automated and wouldn’t require a phone call. A phone call to the caregiver should really only happen when there is a true emergency. We also added more questions related to what would be useful for EMT’s in the case of an emergency situation — the call center would be able to relay this information. In our new onboarding/activation process, the only thing that the device wearer has to do is unbox the device and push the help button to speak to the operator as a final step. Everything else can be done and coordinated remotely by the caregiver.
The New Onboarding Process:
The caregiver profile with the ability to opt-in to non-emergency alerts
The New Activation Process
All testing is done to ensure the company has the right contact information and to allow the caregiver to witness everything is working as intended (including the GPS during the “Test Device” stage).
This is the general approach we took to complete the project and how we divided up our overall efforts over the entire two weeks. During the week, we spent an average of about 4 hours per day.
General Timeline:
Day 1: Research: Business Analysis
Day 2: Research: Business Analysis & Outline Survey
Day 3: Research: Survey Draft 1 & Recruitment Methods
Day 4: Research: Finalize Survey (Send Digital Copy)
Day 5: Research Interview Users (Survey Served as Discussion Guide)
Day 6: Define Archetypal Users & Problems/Hypotheses
Day 7: Ideate Functionality and Feature Changes - Onboarding
Day 8: Ideate Functionality and Feature Changes - Activation
Day 9: Prototype Onboarding and Activation Prototype (Figma)
Day 10: Prototype Finalize Prototype & Begin Organizing Deliverables
Day 11: Testing Make Final Changes after User Testing & Begin Creating Slidedeck
Day 12: Presentation/Deliverables Finalize
Day 13: Presentation/Deliverables Finalize + Rehearsal
Day 14: Presentation to Client
Our focus was to create a service design solution (supported by appropriate interface changes) that would really humanize the call center. Our primary target was the caregiver, allowing them to remotely set-up the device and provide additional details about the device wearer. This would be used to create a “profile” of the device wearer and serve as the starting point for more meaningful conversations. This way, checking in to see how the device is operating would feel more like a quick chat with a friend.
Our biggest epiphany occurred after we read the employee reviews of the company. We learned that a cultural shift in the company had led to a degradation of service and an overemphasis on sales. This seemed to explain many things: why the call center was unresponsive (due to lack of sufficient resources), why billing was not transparent, and why the cancellation process was not straight-forward. We communicated this concern to the client and offered an interface solution that would allow some of the work to be removed from the call center staff. When a company is primarily service-oriented, the success of the product relies heavily on its personnel.
In our case, due to the fact that the device wearer typically doesn’t need to push the button (and interact with the call center), it made the situation a little more nuanced. The bulk of their interactions have been around the time of the device set-up. Therefore, it’s very important to get that piece ironed out. We would like to see there be more interactions (or check-ins) from the call center, as we really feel that this would provide an unprecedented level of quality.
It would have been beneficial to be able to visit a call center and observe some of the interactions with the device wearers. Similarly, I imagine it would be useful to speak to members of the sales teams in order to understand how they are trained, how their incentives are structured, etc. The call center staff have a very difficult job and I wonder what their value is perceived to be within the company. This is something that I would have liked to explore if we had more time.
Above all else, I hope that our work serves as a reminder to revisit and stay true to their stated mission: treating everyone as they would their own family members.
