NPS typically improves because no one stays on hold for 20+ mins anymore.

People have no ideas have pharmacies work. Pharmacies don't control how much they pay for drug, or how much they get paid. The margins are terrible and you can't hire enough techs to answer the phone at peak call volume. So - most people experience are terrible as they wait on hold for a really long time.

EVEN if the AI is a little rough around the edges with relational calls, just solving for transactional calls with no hold is a massive win.

▲

drewg123 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I'll gladly take a 20min hold after having to resort to screaming "give me a fucking human" or driving the the pharmacy JUST TO TALK TO a human in the exceptions, which seem to be about 75% of my interactions with CVS/Walgreens AI agents.

	▲	Scoundreller 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> or driving the the pharmacy JUST TO TALK TO a human It’s nice that this remains an option. It’s a dying one. So much is better handled and more easily handled in person than over the phone/mail/web/fax/email/blah, even if they’re 1:1 with a human. It’s why I stick with my credit union instead of moving everything over to an online bank even tho I’ve managed to get 99% of everything done with the CU without going to a branch.
	▲	fusslo 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I recently had an AI chatbot lie to me. SiriusXM's ai bot INSISTED that the weather notifications were NOT a siriusxm feature. But, I had called ~4 months previously and the human confirmed it WAS a feature and she very kindly turned it off Just as you said, I spent 20 minutes YELLING at the AI before it would transfer me to a human. Oh, and the entire time it was spewing ads for their programming. When I got to the human she, once again, confirmed it WAS a feature and it re-activated during 'free weekends'. My father had cancer. After he was diagnosed he retired. His full time job became managing his health: medicare, state benefits, doctors appointments, medications, talking with billing people. He was on firstname basis with multiple providers. He invited some nurses and their families to the first 4th of july when he was cancer-free (they politely declined to keep the relationship professional). I just imagine my father, or my 75yr old mother (whose health is beginning to decline) trying to navigate this new AI world. It must be an absolute nightmare. I can imagine how frustrated and disempowered they'd feel after a lifetime of reasoning with other humans.

▲

chrisjj 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> EVEN if the AI is a little rough around the edges with relational calls, just solving for transactional calls

So "AI" treats relatonal as excluding transactional??

	▲	intothemild 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		It's 100% this for me too. If I hear an AI voice, I hang up and try somewhere else.

▲

reaperducer 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

EVEN if the AI is a little rough around the edges with relational calls, just solving for transactional calls with no hold is a massive win.

You keep saying that reducing call time is the "win." It seems like that the only metric you're measuring. If so, your product is a failure, not a success.

This is HEALTHCARE. You don't get to do "rough around the edges." You don't get to dismiss edge cases.

I also work in healthcare tech. My company doesn't permit such things because people die. I'll write it again because it's a point that tech fetishes can't get into their heads:

People die.

▲

jonathan-adly 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Do you know what NPS is? That's how the comment started. Patients like it. Because the alternative is to stay on hold for 20+ minutes, and then get it wrong. (Or have no pharmacies except Optum's and Express Scripts).

Good for you - I want in the ICU delivering care during COVID as a frontline clinician. You don't get to pull this line.

▲

taurath 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

I find it hard to believe that patients like it given how sales work for these sorts of services - customer satisfaction is often the lowest priority given it’s ultimately a cost cutting service.

I live in a major metro and there are no pharmacies left except the largest ones. All my problems have to do with insurance not covering things, and insurance asks me to ask the pharmacy, pharmacy asks me to ask the insurance, and often insurance then asks me to ask my doctor to adjust the dosage cause they won’t cover that many days. Customers are batted around and I don’t see any AI that will solve this problem which is structural. The only value I see in AI is cost savings to replace humans, which is to say practically none as a customer over a website to check status and try to refill things.

	▲	FireBeyond 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Not to mention my insurer will only authorize >30 day scripts if you use their own wholly owned mail order service. Want/need to get in person, locally? 30 days or less.

▲

drdexebtjl 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

NPS is notoriously unreliable. When I’m frustrated with a stupid support clanker, I don’t wait for another different clanker to ask me how it did. I hang up.

If that’s how you’re measuring patient satisfaction, you’re completely clueless.

▲

Scoundreller 2 days ago | parent [-]

It’s probably how their payor measures performance.

But I thought the issue with customer surveys was how biased they could be toward negative experiences cuz nobody else is angry enough to respond.

▲

drdexebtjl 2 days ago | parent [-]

They have so many possible biases that are hard to control for.

They can be biased toward positive experiences too, if customers feel the job of the person that helped them is on the line.

▲

Scoundreller 2 days ago | parent [-]

What’s better for a manager/executive wanting insight into “how happy are my customers” other than their accounting numbers?

	▲	drdexebtjl 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Their accounting numbers, sure. NPS is asking your customers "how likely are you recommend us to a friend or colleague?". That's definitely not an accounting number. If you care about this, you can instead ask your _new_ customers if someone recommended you. Or you could hire a third party to do an independent survey among your target demographic.

▲

chrisjj 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> You keep saying that reducing call time is the "win."

"AI" reduces call time here... as I hang up and look for an alternative supplier.

▲

SoftTalker 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

As if the techs making $15/hr answering the phone don't make mistakes?

	▲	hvb2 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		But at least he's responsible. And we accept that humans make mistakes. However, when the mistake is made by the replacement that cost one of your community members their job for a few pennies gain... The bar for these systems is higher than the bar for humans.

▲

2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]