Customer service | ZAVA app

Reducing time demands for ZAVA’s customer service team

Around 90% of German citizens have statutory health insurance. If an employee with statutory health insurance is off from work for more than six weeks due to illness, the statutory health insurance will cover up to 65% of their income. But this is only the case if the employee submits a specific sick note to their statutory health insurance provider every time they are off sick for longer.

 

What does this have to do with ZAVA?

Patients can only book private consultations through the ZAVA App. Regarding sick notes, this means that the doctor can only issue private ones, which statutory healthcare providers do not accept.

The problem this leads to

The customer service team (CS) at ZAVA receives many complaints from patients about private sick notes. A few examples of the complaints the CS team receives from patients:

  • didn't know that they would receive a private sick note

  • didn't understand that their statutory health insurance provider would not accept it

  • it caused issues with their employer, as they think the sick note is not legit

Measures we already took but that didn't show any effect

  • added additional information around sick notes to the how it works card in the app

  • changed the wording from sick note to private sick note

  • created an extensive FAQ page on the website

 

Our hypothesis

Providing patients with the core information about a private sick note before booking their appointment will reduce the number of topic-related calls for the CS team by 50%.

 

How we approached the problem

  1. Workshop to understand the problem and brainstorm solutions

  2. Ideation & sketching workshop

  3. Design & copy creation phase

  4. Feedback round with last amendments

 

First iteration that will go live with the next release

In the first iteration we will add a blue box with essential information around private sick notes to the appointment preview screen and track if this reduces the number of calls CS receives regarding sick notes.

 

The takeaway for now (to be confirmed)

This example shows that adding more details to existing screens is sometimes insufficient. Instead, core information needs to be provided at the right time in the user journey. With the additional information on the appointment preview screen, patients will be able to make an informed decision.

Possible risks

The additional information might impact the booking rate; therefore, we need to monitor it closely after release.