CX

Customer Service Appreciation Week: Excellence Happens Here

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Healthy Living Medical Supply is once again participating in Customer Service Appreciation Week - this year’s version takes place from October 1-5, with the theme being “Excellence Happens Here.” Customer Service Appreciation Week is an internationally recognized event devoted to recognizing the importance of customer service and honoring the people who serve and support customers. It is celebrated in all 50 states and over 60 different countries.

Our goal as a company is to take pause and thank the everyday heroes who are working hard to provide a great customer experience to our customers living with diabetes, health plan reps, providers, and partners. We have a saying around here: “You have to take great care of the people who take great care of our customers.” With that in mind we have a week of activities planned that include lunches, a team dinner, chair massages, and fun games for everyone in the company.

And it isn’t just about the work that our forward-facing customer care agents perform; all employees at Healthy Living are charged with providing outstanding customer service. This includes our shipping team which strives to provide accurate packing of orders, our pharmacy team, our billing team, and even members of our administrative team. We’ve worked hard through the years to build a culture of customer service throughout our company. While we don’t always get it right, we hope that your overall experience with Healthy Living has been a positive and want you know that we are always working to improve.

If you happen to call, text, email, or chat during customer service appreciation week, feel free to show your appreciation to the agent that you are working with - positive customer feedback is a great way to celebrate the everyday heroes here at Healthy Living Medical Supply who work hard to provide outstanding customer service!

Healthy Living Medical Supply Wishes Our Pediatric Patients with Diabetes a Great Start to the School Year!

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Healthy Living Medical Supply wishes all of our pediatric patients and families a successful start to the new school year! We know that the start of a new school year brings a mixture of excitement along and anxiety for many families - this is the case, perhaps even more so, for children and families impacted by type one diabetes.

Healthy Living Medical Supply understands the unique needs of pediatric diabetes patients better than any other durable medical equipment (DME) supplier - we offer a unique pediatric program featuring free meters to be left at school and a hassle-free supply refill experience that ensures children always have the necessary supplies on hand to be successful living with diabetes. We work hard to ensure that our patients always have enough pump supplies, CGM supplies, and diabetes testing supplies available. 

The new school year is also an opportunity to consider beneficial diabetes technologies that can assist parents by helping them stay better connected to their children throughout the day. Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems from Dexcom and Medtronic help parents stay connected to their child throughout the day via an app on their smartphones - this helps parents monitor blood glucose levels remotely while their child is at school. You may learn more about our CGM systems via our CGM page and by calling a member of our CGM/insulin pump therapy team at 866.779.8512 (option 2) to learn more. 

Check out these additional resources on our website to help children and college-age students living with diabetes at school: 

Getting Ready for Back to School with a 504 Plan

The College Diabetes Network Helps you Live Well at School and Beyond

Healthy Living Medical Supply, based in Detroit, Michigan, is in network with all major insurances in the state of Michigan including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Health Alliance Plan of Michigan, Priority Health, Medicaid, and Medicare. Contact us today at 866.778.512 or via website chat to start the simple enrollment process.

Introducing the Healthy Living Medical Supply Pediatric Program for Children with Type 1 Diabetes

At Healthy Living, we understand the unique needs of our pediatric members and their care teams. Call us at 866.779.8512 to learn more about our Pediatric Diabetes Supply program and to enroll for the great customer service that you deserve.

At Healthy Living, we understand the unique needs of our pediatric members and their care teams. Call us at 866.779.8512 to learn more about our Pediatric Diabetes Supply program and to enroll for the great customer service that you deserve.

Our team consistently works to better understand the needs and challenges of people of all ages who are living with diabetes (members of our team even wore insulin pumps filled with saline solution to learn more about the ins and outs of using an insulin pump!). We believe that working with a durable medical equipment provider for diabetes-related supplies should involve compassionate customer service with an experience that is EASY for patients. We know this is even more important for pediatric patients living with diabetes and members of their caregiving teams. As a result, we have created a program to support the unique needs of our pediatric diabetes population. You can read more about the program on our pediatrics page, but here are a few highlights: 

  1. Healthy Living Medical Supply provides extra meters for pediatric patients to leave with the school nurse, in the backpack, or in their school locker so that their primary meter may remain home.

  2. We stay in routine contact with the parents/primary caregivers to ensure needed supplies are on hand so patients can be successful in living with diabetes.

  3. We know CGM (continuous glucose monitoring) technology - wouldn't it be great if parents could monitor their children's blood glucose levels while they were sleeping, at school, or on a sleepover at a friend's home? Healthy Living carries all major brands of CGM systems that not only provide pediatric patients with greater insights into their blood glucose levels, but also allow parents and caregivers to have access to the metrics via their smartphones.

  4. When the time comes to consider insulin pump therapy Healthy Living has you covered. We're able to supply insulin pumps and and pump supplies from both Tandem Diabetes and Medtronic Diabetes with excellent customer care in the process.

  5. We provide pediatric-friendly meters with Bluetooth capabilities so data can be easily viewed and shared. More about our pediatric friendly meters here and here.

  6. Order processing is simple for refills when working with Healthy Living - it shouldn't take weeks to receive your child's needed diabetes supplies. Our warehouse is located in Troy, Michigan and our Customer Care Team is located in downtown Detroit, Michigan, so your order will arrive fast, typically within 2-3 business days after receiving your approval via a simple text message.

If you are tired of poor customer service and fighting with your current DME supplier for diabetes supplies, give us a call at 866.779.8512 or chat with an agent live to start the simple enrollment process. Healthy Living Medical Supply is in network with most major insurances in the State of Michigan, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Health Alliance Plan of Michigan (HAP), Priority Health, Michigan Medicaid, Children's Special Health Care Services of Michigan, and many more. Keep your business local! Healthy Living Medical Supply is also the only Michigan-based DME focused entirely on diabetes. 

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Now Shipping: Medtronic Guardian Connect CGM System

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Medtronic's Guardian Connect is composed of three key components: the sensor, a bluetooth transmitter that lasts a year, and a mobile app

Medtronic's Guardian Connect is composed of three key components: the sensor, a bluetooth transmitter that lasts a year, and a mobile app

We're excited to share that Healthy Living Medical Supply is now shipping the Medtronic Guardian Connect CGM system! This is a great technology option for any patient who is taking insulin via injections and who isn't quite ready for an insulin pump. Read more about the Guardian Connect CGM system at the Medtronic website. 

What is CGM? CGM stands for Continuous Glucose Monitoring and is a small, half dollar sized device that goes on your body and measures blood sugar levels every five minutes or roughly 288 times per day. 

What are the benefits of CGM? We've written about this here on our blog before, but in short CGM reduces the number of daily finger sticks while giving patients much greater insight into what is happening with their body's sugar levels. Medtronic Guardian Connect's stand alone CGM system takes readings every five minutes or 288 times throughout the day and night - this is significantly more information than is yielded through finger sticks alone.

What are the top benefits of Medtronic's Guardian Connect CGM System?

1. The data is automatically uploaded directly to the physician's office via Medtronic's CareLink platform. 

2. Predictive alerts for highs and lows are sent out 60 minutes in advance. Predictive alerts are sent out 40 minutes faster than the competition.

3. IBM Watson integration creates actionable trends from user CGM data.

4. Last but not least, Medtronic's Guardian Connect CGM system is significantly less expensive for the patient and health plan in comparison to the competition. Why? Because the transmitter lasts for one year, no receiver is needed, and a month's supply comes with five sensors for a total of 35 days of wear time. This means lower copays for patients, longer sensor wear time and a lower spend for the health plan. 

Most major commercial insurances, including Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and Health Alliance Plan of Michigan (HAP), will pay for CGM. Contact Healthy Living Medical Supply today at 866-779-8512 to learn more and to begin the easy enrollment process.

Michigan Residents: Keep your business local! Healthy Living Medical Supply is the only locally owned and operated diabetes speciality provider in the state of Michigan...and we provide world class customer service!

Submit Co-Pays FAST with Online Bill Pay from HLMS

One of the feature requests we receive most often from our customers is the ability to submit co-payments for insulin pumps, insulin pump supplies, CGM supplies, and other diabetes supplies online. While not widely known amongst our customers, this is a service that we currently offer - and once paid, you'll have a copy of your receipts and payment history for future reference. 

Get started with secure and easy online bill pay from Healthy Living today! Simply request to pay your bill online the next time you are working with an agent to submit a co-payment for your order. 

The Healthy Living Promise: Delivering World-Class Customer Service

It is that time of year again when Healthy Living participates in the Net Promoter Score survey to collect feedback from our customers. This feedback helps ensure we are delivering on our promise of providing world-class customer service. What does this promise mean for our customers? It means that each and every time you call, text, or email, you will find that:

1.     Our agents are friendly. Was the agent polite and welcoming?

2.     Our agents are knowledgeable. We pride ourselves on a deep level of product expertise and understanding of diabetes. Was the agent insightful about the products you inquired about? Did the agent show empathy in their interaction with you?

3.     Our agents are helpful. Did the agent actually help you solve your problem or answer your questions?

If the answer to any of these questions is ever a “No,” we want to know about it immediately. You can always call us at (866)779-8512 and ask to speak with our Director of Customer Care, George A., or you may write an email to managers@myhlms.com with a description of your concern. You can be assured that we will do everything possible to make the situation right for you.

We know that living with a chronic disease such as diabetes can be a challenge. And while insulin pump therapy and continuous glucose monitoring technology provide a tremendous benefit to our customers, we also know that having the correct supplies delivered in a timely manner is critical to patient success. It is our goal to make sure that working with us is easy and that we’re delivering world-class customer service.

Please take a moment to visit our website, myhlms.com, and complete the 30-second survey that pops up from the bottom of the page – and please leave a comment if you have specific praise or feedback for improvement. Thank you for helping us to continuously improve and serve our customers better and better, every day.

-Matt Montagne, Vice President of Strategy and Innovation

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5 Ways to Improve Customer Service & Their Meaning for Healthy Living

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The Healthy Living Medical Supply team recently reviewed the blog article What’s the Best Way to Improve Customer Service? 63 Influencers Weigh In. The introduction of the article notes that the most frequent suggestion from these industry-leading experts to enhance customer service was to improve the employee experience.  Let’s check out the top 5 favorites from Healthy Living employees.

Suggestion #1

Nail the basics – drive product knowledge throughout your organization, fix processes that create pain for your customers, design service processes such that customers get their needs met the first time, and ‘make it right’ for affected customers when you inevitably have a breakdown. – Dr. Joseph Michelli

         Employee Response:

Knowledge breeds confidence.  The more we understand our jobs, products, and services, the more confident we will seem to customers.  If customers feel confident that we are always in control of their situation, they will keep coming back.

Suggestion #2

The #1 way to improve your customer service is to first CARE for your employees: Communicate. Appreciate. Recognize. Empower. Truly CARE for your employees and they will do the same for your customers.  – Bill Quiseng

 

Employee Response:

 

This stood out to me because if the company employees are not happy, then they will not relay the feeling of happiness or put their all into their job, which can result in bad customer service. I feel that programs like Slack and Bonusly, as well as corn toss, ping pong, workouts, and food days are a few ways that this happens here are Healthy Living. The quarterly meetings and team meetings help with communication as well.

Suggestion #3

First of all, you have to recognize the fact that customers hate to wait. And they really only want two things: a speedy response, and accuracy in the answer. – Matt McConnell

Employee Response: 

This stood out to me because if a customer is given a fast response with a wrong answer, or a correct answer with a long response, they will only remember the negative part of it. We need to always make sure we are giving fast, but correct/accurate responses. It saves frustration for the customers.

Suggestion #4

Any organization can improve the Customer Service by improving their customer centricity. It isn’t just about the call center or customer service department, but every department in the organization. – Colin Taylor    

Employee Response:

This one stands out to me because even if a customer has a great experience on the initial contact, there are still things that can go wrong. Items may not ship on time, or the customer could get an unexpected bill because we were given wrong information. Yes, the customer service team is important because we make the first impression, but we always need to work together as a whole. 

Suggestion #5

The best way for a company to improve its customer service is by taking a walk in the customer’s shoes. We make too many assumptions about what our customers want and how they interpret the things we present to them. – Tema Frank

Employee Response:

We have already started doing this by doing the "Wear a Pump" challenge, and listening to a person with diabetes express their frustrations at our quarterly meeting. This is a great start.

At Healthy Living Medical Supply, we are always trying to serve our customers better and improve as a team.

Check out the original article from OneReach to see all 63 recommendations and decide which ones resonate with you!