You Built It; Will the People Come?

You Built It; Will the People Come?

November 11, 2024?4 min read

Everyone who plays in the health management space pays significant attention to the "User Experience" (UX). For employers, vendors, and consultants alike, that UX is a critical part of the "member journey."

So, it's not surprising that comprehensive UX strategies seek to orient technology in terms of user engagement which, in turn, rests heavily on effective communication. We've written elsewhere about nudges and AI chatbots, but the next wave of tech will put even more emphasis on "intelligent agents." Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), and Large Language Models (LLMs) have already become crucial for providing personalized experiences and in driving adoption.

The combined knowledge of "everything, everywhere, all at once"

Intelligent agents can perform tasks autonomously, learn from data, and interact with users to provide personalized support and guidance. As access to ever-increasing personalized data from multiple sources expands, in real time, a user's needs are more quickly understood.

Recommendations are becoming more precise and nuanced. Facilitating such cumbersome tasks as actually scheduling appointments with health coaches, nurses, and even physicians or physician assistants and nurse practitioners, is becoming a reality:

• Ada Health: This Berlin-based company has developed an AI-powered symptom checker and care navigation platform. Their intelligent agent uses a vast medical knowledge base to ask users relevant questions, analyze their responses, and provide personalized health assessments and recommendations for next steps, such as seeing a doctor or self-care advice.
• Wellframe: This company offers an AI-powered care management platform that uses intelligent agents to provide personalized support for patients with chronic conditions. The agents engage with patients through a mobile app, offering reminders, educational content, and tracking tools tailored to each individual's care plan and preferences, ultimately facilitating better self-management and communication with healthcare providers.

But there are still lots of challenges and pitfalls. Babylon Health was a telehealth startup darling that saw its valuation hit $2B before plummeting into bankruptcy and being "sold off for parts."

The nature of tech, however, has always been that it gets its sea legs, and brings transformational dynamics into its sphere of influence. Deeper and more accurate personalization is already happening, real-time support keeps getting better, and the UX keeps improving.

From helping orient a new hire to their employer's core benefits programs, to getting them enrolled into relevant vendors' health-targeted platforms, to generating personalized, engaging content at scale, an emergent vision of the employee "being seen and understood" is a key to ongoing engagement.

Personalizing motivation using psychographics

Our benefitpersonas? model offers a fast and high-confidence way to frame personalized messaging in the language of users' values. With 5 distinct categories:

• Self Achievers: “Puts you in charge”
• Balance Seekers: “This is a good choice”
• Priority Jugglers: “People are counting on you”
• Direction Takers: “The experts agree”
• Willful Endurers: “Living for today...”

...it doesn't matter what guidance is being offered, or what the call to action is. Delivering the messages using words and phrases that an employee has already decided reflect the way the world works for them can increase targeted adoption rates by 10% - 25% - very quickly.

By resonating both logically and emotionally, this approach addresses the "What's in it for me?" and "Why should I care?" questions that every employee asks. So any recommendation or invitation not only "makes sense," it also - and crucially - "feels right."

AI-powered content creation and outreach

GenAI can continuously update, revamp and improve marketing and educational content, which can be vital to effective year-round outreach that feels fresh and dynamic. Plus, because of this is increasingly automated, it reduces the burden on HR teams and benefit program vendors of ensuring that ongoing communication are consistent and timely, while also reducing "messaging fatigue" and information overload.

Beyond content creation, AI enhances the efficiency of employee and member support. Response times can be significantly reduced by better routing incoming inquiries, so service reps can focus on more complex issues, reducing administrative and operational costs.

Data analytics to inform strategy

GenAI and intelligent agents learn continuously from user behavior, which enables companies to identify popular app features and areas needing improvement. This data-driven approach allows for real-time adjustments and helps ensure that the platform/app evolves alongside users' needs.

Analyzing usage patterns, such as employee engagement with wellness programs or financial planning tools, helps identify features that need better promotion or development. Understanding cost drivers also enables employers, consultants and vendors to make informed decisions about coverage and program offerings, optimizing user satisfaction and financial efficiency.

The last word

The entire field of service and app/platform design will keep demanding more personalized and supportive experiences that are revised, updated and improved in close-to-real time. By layering in psychographic profiling to keep the content and communications personalized, relevant, and motivational, companies, consultants and vendors can foster deeper connections with employees, sustain engagement over time, and increase long-term success.

You built it, now let's say, with high confidence - like James Earl Jones' Terrence Mann, in Field of Dreams - "Oh, people will come, Ray! People will most definitely come!"

~ Mark Head

? 2024. All Rights Reserved.

"Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

~ Steve Jobs