The ‘Wear-a-Pump Challenge’ Teaches and Inspires the Healthy Living Team

Healthy Living strives to understand the challenges that people with diabetes experience every day. In the last year, seven Healthy Living Medical Supply employees walked in the shoes of their customers in the ‘Wear-a-Pump Challenge.’ Members of the team wore Medtronic and Tandem pumps for a week to take their training and empathy to a new level.

"Wearing the pump for the past three days has been an illuminating experience to say the least – my understanding of insulin pump therapy is MUCH better even after these few days." – Matt

Before wearing a pump, each employee went through extensive online and in-person training, and later in the week learned to place a new pump site and fill the pump reservoir. The greatest challenge for most participants was carb counting.

"Entering carbs was the hardest thing for me as I am used to just eating and not worrying about it, or I am just hungry and want to eat." – Crystal

The Healthy Living team found there were logistical considerations to take into account with the pumps, from showering and sleeping, to exercising and dealing with tubing.

"My tubing was too long and I got caught on many of the items in my house. On Sunday night, my tubing got stuck on something and ripped the infusion set out of my side and that did not feel good."   – Crystal

Matt had the opportunity to teach his own community about insulin pumps and raise awareness about living with diabetes.

"Just like me prior to starting at work at Healthy Living, most all of my friends/family had no idea what an insulin pump was prior to seeing one on my belt. It definitely provoked some good conversation." – Matt

Everyone had great feedback to share about this enlightening experience!

"It would take some getting used to." – April

"Overall, it is a great experience so far!" – Crystal

Learn more about insulin pump therapy from Healthy Living Medical Supply.

• Reach us through online chat at myhlms.com.

• Call us at (866)779-8512 or text us at (248) 577-9903.

• Check out our new online store at myhlms.com/shop for accessories and over-the-counter medications.

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

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!