A digitally enabled customer (and worker) is your best customer (worker)
As organisations we are all trying to do more with less. That means that whatever we invest in needs to pay the dividends we need in terms of return. Digital innovation is a key driver of this whether it's finding ways to improve the customer and/or employee experience, driving the efficiency of our processes or expanding into new areas of service delivery.
Whatever our focus, there is one question we need to ask ourselves - “What percentage of our success will rely on the users of the process doing something different?” The answer has to be 90% or thereabouts. For each new digital process we design or new service we make available online, we need our end user to actually ‘use’ it for the return on investment to be achieved. Based on this, our statement makes good sense - the more digitally enabled your customers and workers are, the more likely you are to succeed in achieving the experience and efficiency returns you’re seeking. The foundation for this is digital confidence.
The recent ACIITC report had a powerful opening in that it said,
“improved uptake of technology and innovation is critical to assist service providers to deliver the high quality assistance older Australians want and need, now and into the future. Equally important is the role that a digitally included and digitally mature workforce will play in achieving this vision.”
Having trained over 3,500 seniors, carers and care workers, our view is that the value of having digitally enabled customers and workers has not been fully recognised. When deploying software some enduring assumptions are still present which in turn get in the way of achieving the impact, leaving program leaders frustrated at not reaching adoption targets.
These are:
All target end users have access to the technology they need to use the process
If they have the device, they know how to use it to use the process
We see evidence everyday of this not being true - lack of access is one thing, but for the thousands of seniors, carers and care workers who have devices but do not know how to use them, the impact is disheartening. They feel excluded and overwhelmed when it’s assumed that they will be able to easily engage online. Many organisations are still not addressing this root cause of why they have limited uptake of their online services.
If you do have digitally enabled care workers and customers you will have increased uptake and adoption because of a base level confidence in using technology and adapting to anything new. The payback in terms of efficiency will also be true - with higher adoption, reduction in bottlenecks often associated with manual processes (e.g. paperwork) and achieving efficiency targets to increase capacity for high value care activities.
If you’re interested in a program to build the digital confidence of your carers, care workers and/or seniors call us and we will share some amazing stories of success with you.
In this case study we share how VMCH and YourLink created a digital inclusion program that 100% of participants would recommend.