Back in January when I had the pleasure to attend the Medtronic Diabetes Advocate Forum, one of the focus areas was the Medtronic Customer Service and their StartRight program. During the presentation, I was very excited about how much effort was being put into the Medtronic customer service team. In the past, I have had some bad experiences with customer service. However, Medtronic was the first medical company that actually would allow an individual rep to email me directly, and for those that know me, email is my ONLY form of communication.
When I started back up on the pump trial a couple of weeks ago, I received a phone call, voicemail and email follow up from the StartRight team to make sure that I had all of my supplies delivered, I prepared for my training and to see if I had any additional questions or concerns. After the training occurred and I started on the pump, I received another follow up a few days later to see if there were any questions or concerns again about being on the pump or Enlite sensor.
I think that this is a great way to handle a new customer being on a product. First, making sure that they have everything they need to get started and then provided some follow up support after they have been using the product for a few days.
Obviously, I live on social media and when I have complaints or issues that I need taken care of, I use social media to attempt to communicate with a company. I actually prefer doing business with a company that will communicate via social or email instead of those that always just want to call and discuss things over the phone. Have I mentioned I hate being on the phone yet?
Medtronic has been doing an amazing job with their social media customer service. After the first few days of being on the sensor, I mentioned on Twitter that I didn’t tape the sensor down properly, so I received a reply on Twitter asking if there were any specific questions that I had, and then was provided a link to the Medtronic support page that provided more details about the taping of the sensor….perfect.
Then, it got better the next day. I then had an email from Medtronic titled – Additional Tape Tips.
This is customization at its finest. Although this was a pre-formulated email, it was addressed to me and made it feel customized and unique to my situation and my issues (PR companies, take note!)
I have said this before and I’ll say it again — I think Medtronic’s PR/social media/outreach are best-in-class and miles ahead of the second-best. I do think they have some work to do in making similar leads in their products, though, which still seem to run a very close race with their competitors. It won’t take much for someone else to overtake them in that department.
I have found Medtronic’s customer service to be the best around, in anything. Any time I have called, they have always been helpful and respectful. And it’s not limited to their diabetic supplies, my father has a deep brain stimulator made by them and he has had excellent customer service as well. Their reps are really the reason why I stay with Medtronic.