CT partners with Salesforce in a time of need for Health Care providers

By Jim Goldfinger - April 6, 2020

The right solution, now more than ever.

As I think about the benefits that the Salesforce COVID-19 Response Package can bring to Healthcare providers, I am reminded of the early days of CRM for other industries such as Manufacturing, Chemical, Financial Services, Consumer Goods, and others.

Before CRM, those companies were typically reliant on their ERP systems to service their customers. Customers would have a single channel (voice) to call into those companies and make inquiries along the lines of:

• Setting up an account
• Placing Orders
• Tracking Orders
• Complaining about products and services
• Asking technical support questions about their products

And customer service agents were able to assist by directly entering or searching for information in their transactional systems.

What those ERP support systems did not do is:

• Track statistics on those calls
• Determine whether their answers solved the problem
• Allowed for a structured follow-up opportunity
• Closed the loop on those complaint calls
• Allow for measurement that would lead to improved processes

If companies wanted to track those in any way, they did so in spreadsheets, Sticky Notes, or Notepads.

Over time, their needs evolved, and they realized the benefits of layering a proper CRM solution on top of ERP. Doing so allowed for measuring effectiveness, improving operations, and opening additional channels of communications such as portals, emails, and Mobile. Companies could then adapt to new business models and customer and partner channels.

Over the last several years, Salesforce has become the undisputed leader in CRM due to some key distinctions that customers have come to appreciate and benefit from – including:

• Easy and fast to implement
• Easy to use and configure
• Supports all channels of communication in a well-orchestrated manner
• Open to integrate with back-end internal and external systems
• Highly scalable and secure in the cloud
• Extensible to allow for custom capabilities specific to industry or organization

Healthcare providers are now quickly faced with the same need as those industries like never before.

Before this crisis, the support needs of a Healthcare provider did not change day to day and looked a lot like those other industries before the introduction of CRM systems of engagement.

The kinds of calls they took from patients included topics along the lines of:

• Scheduling or rescheduling appointments
• Getting test results
• Checking what services (and at what levels) they are covered for by their insurance
• Check hours of operation and addresses for facilities

And other topics related to their services. But the topics and answers did not generally fluctuate regularly – in many cases, only a few times/year at most. So, the traditional Healthcare EMR and equivalent systems served them well. Like the traditional ERP systems, they were not very flexible, but they were never meant to be. There wasn’t a need.

What Salesforce has been bringing to those other industries and has continually evolved at a dramatic pace, is exactly what Healthcare providers need today – a system of engagement that sits on top of their systems of record to address the incredibly fast-moving changes facing this industry that has turned it on its head in a blink of an eye.

For example, a few short weeks ago, providers may not have had to check whether there was a hospital bed available in real-time for an appendectomy. Or direct patients if they feel sick and may have the virus. Those messages and tracking of data are a new phenomenon, and the answers are changing daily if not hourly.

To summarize, there has never been a more critical time for a patient and physician-focused solution that is:

• Agile
• Quick to implement compared to other healthcare-related technologies
• Intuitive for rapid time to proficiency
• Easy to configure and adjust as patient-related rules for behavior continue to change
• Multi-channel (call, patient and physician portal, Mobile)
• Open to integrate with back-end EMR systems
• Measurable with insights that lead to a continuous improvement process during this dynamic time

The Salesforce COVID-19 Response Package solution incorporates all of these attributes. That’s why Salesforce created this offer to provide this solution to Healthcare providers free of charge in this time of need.

Customertimes is proud to partner with Salesforce to help Healthcare providers implement a base system providing initial services free of charge as well. We are ready to be a partner in this critical mission, all remotely and in short order.

To learn more about the Salesforce COVID-19 reach out to me directly at james.goldfinger@customertimes.com

This post was originally posted on LinkedIn.