One day last week my phone rang. It was a number I didn’t recognize, so I let it go to voice mail.
The caller left a message, and a few minutes later I keyed up my messages to listen: Medtronic was calling for me, mentioning my name specifically. They were calling on a U.S. holiday, no less — the 4th of July — because of an apparent question I had about one of the devices I was wearing.
Huh?
I was confused. Not only had I not called my pump and CGM-maker anytime recently, I wasn’t having any diabetes device issue that needed attention, that I could think of.
Curious, I called back when there was a free moment. I told the friendly customer service representative that I really had no specific problem, but was just returning their call (weird).
He took my information and pulled my account up on screen, and transferred me to the division of the person who’d phoned me. A second rep told me a “customer support supervisor” had phoned me in response to a tweet I had put out there earlier in the day.
My first thought: WTF?!
“Really?!,” I responded, my interest piqued as I tried to recall what I had even tweeted.
Then, the memory of that tweet came back… and I almost dropped the phone laughing.
Hey, weak CGM sensor signal alert. STFU. Thanks.
— Mike Hoskins (@MHoskins2179) July 3, 2012
Yes, that was the tweet that Medtronic was responding to.
The day before, the Medtronic Paradigm 723 that I’m trial-testing was being all fussy with repeated weak signal alerts. No, it didn’t get to the point where it lost the signal, but kept losing and regaining the signal strength, and telling me all about it with incessant beeps, as I was trying to move about my normal routine.
I have this current sensor on my left arm (disclaimer: not an FDA-approved site), but I’ve traditionally had no problem when using a different manufacturer’s CGM on my arms. This Medtronic model, however, doesn’t seem to work as well for me on those spots. This wasn’t a big deal, and I just planned to switch sites at some point. In the meantime, I silenced the alerts to give myself peace of mind.
But not before tweeting my annoyance to all who might be watching in the Diabetes Online Community and beyond.
And apparently, Medtronic was watching! And they were “concerned” enough to reach out.
I know this happens. Other businesses and companies do this, far outside the diabetes and healthcare worlds. With varying results. There are also “bots” that essentially hone in on key words in tweets and ping you with a response tweet. I’ve read about this on forums like Children With Diabetes where parents have gotten calls or emails in response to posts they’ve made…. that’s the 21st century reality: that pharma and device companies “are where we are” online.
In returning the call, I explained that I wasn’t necessarily trying to “troubleshoot” anything and really didn’t have a concern worth a phone call. I knew how to navigate this issue. I got the simple explanations about arm sites not being FDA approved, that wireless signals can sometimes interfere with the CGM signal and cause these alerts, and that Medtronic recommends you wait up to 45 minutes after a “Weak Signal” alert to see if it re-connects with the device before changing anything on the body.
Uh, huh. Pretty much the same stuff my manual tells me. All stuff I know.
The rep on the phone told me they continuously monitor social media and reach out before an issue becomes an actual concern or problem where someone calls them for support, to basically be proactive and not reactive. But I was still confused, because they called me, based on a tweet that didn’t specifically mention the company name or any revealing product identification.
Medtronic’s PR director, Amanda Sheldon, expanded in an email the following day: “We monitor Twitter and other social sites for complaints and report them. In this case, when our team member found it, we happened to know you were on the trial. So, we reported it and asked them to reach out to you. We are doing a lot to advance ‘social support’ and help customers where they are and when they need it.”
She said the first priority at this point is responding to people who directly contact them via Twitter at @MDT_Diabetes, or who mention Medtronic or MiniMed in a tweet. The company’s also just trying to “listen” in as many ways possible in social media, and Sheldon says that after a while they started recognizing “a variety of people” by handle and can respond. That appears to be what happened in my Weak Signal alert situation. Medtronic is also responding to people who post on the company’s Facebook Wall, through private message and through the Contact Us app. But that’s different of course, because people go there intentionally to talk to Medtronic.
“It is a big breadth of content to go through,” Sheldon wrote. “We monitor and respond as quickly as we can. In the future, you will see a lot more of this…”
Hmmm.
On one hand, this seems like a good thing. There’s the obvious customer support element to it, which I certainly do appreciate. Look how wonderfully responsive these companies have become to their end-users! Going the extra step and appealing to consumers, while tapping into their concerns in this way, is the kind of phenomenon that’s starting to occur more in healthcare, and so I almost feel obligated to say thankful and be grateful for their desire to help me with potential problems.
But on the other hand, I’m uncomfortable with this on a few levels. There’s something all “Big Brother” about it, like I’m being cyber-stalked by my pump and CGM company. Now I’m starting to wonder if there’s a need to self-sensor my tweets and emails (more than the usual reasonable amount) just in case Pharma is watching.
Even on the customer service aspect, if I start thinking about it too much… I get a little peeved.
In my case, someone out there obviously knew I was using their device. I’m basically on a list somewhere, so I got the call when others might not have. This isn’t the first time I’ve ever tweeted in frustration about my pump or CGM, and have even used this particular company’s name in past tweets and blog posts… and never received a response.
So why now? Is this a custo
mer service perk of being a part of the ‘Mine, or after attending the Medtronic Diabetes Advocates Forum back in March? Would my tweet have gotten the same response if I hadn’t attended, or if someone didn’t recognize me as a Medtronic user? We can hope so, but we may never know.
Basically, this is like my tweet going into a huge virtual Inbox on someone’s desk. But instead of it getting buried, someone walks by the cubicle (or open work space) and places it on top and flags it for immediate attention.
And I’m not OK with that. Not at all. Particularly if it was done for marketing purposes and I was getting treated in ways that others weren’t!
OK, maybe there’s nothing shady going on here. Maybe my initial skepticism and cynicism about all this is unfounded… This simple little response to my tweet-venting at first made me feel like Medtronic was just trying to make an impression on someone who might be more likely to share that “good customer support response” story with other PWDs. In other words, it was a good PR move for them. And that irks me.
But maybe it’s just a matter of them doing their best to recognize and respond to at least some individuals in a whirlwind of online activity — like a sparkling needle being spotted in a haystack. Medtronic is trying, and that’s a good thing, right? I guess we should appreciate the fact that at least one device manufacturer is take a proactive customer support stance like this.
Still, to be clear, I would say to Medtronic and all other companies that might be using these social media support methods: Do it for all your customers, or don’t bother.
Customer support through social media may be fine for some people and less fine for others, but regardless of our philosophical feelings about the practice we all deserve the same kind of customer support.
And clearly, I’m willing to blog and tweet that.
)
I agree it would make me feel a little uncomfortable and like Big Brother is watching.
We all know that many diabetes supplies are used off label. For instance the CGM we are currently using isn’t FDA approved for children, but the company supports pediatric patients whose physician prescribes it. If someone were to tweet (or blog or FB) something about their device that was off-label could it void their warranty?!
I’m all for pharma listening to their customer base in general, but unless a response from the company is actually solicited from a customer, I think a call from a random person at the company might be over-stepping their bounds.
I left a comment on a blog about how frustrated I was with my CGM and they called my house. I was out of town and my daughter conveyed the message. I called them back and talked to customer service for about an hour, trouble-shooting, then talked to them some more the next day when I was back. They looked over my CareLink reports to try to figure out why I was having so much trouble.One thing they stressed was that I call them much sooner at the first sign of trouble, rather than enduring it. [My healthcare team has expressed the same wish. I'm learning, but after dealing with apathy, it's hard to switch gears and learn to rely on others]
I know they are anticipating that the next model will be an almost closed loop artificail pancreas. New algorithm that will be able to take the data from the sensor and determine how much insulin is needed or if the pump needs to be suspended.But that means the sensor needs to be much more effective, which is their motivation to get as much feedback to ensure it does work. I would love to upgrade to this dream system when my warranty expires, but, after all I went through to get my insurance to approve this CGM, I’m afraid if I stop trying to make this work, they won’t approve the better model.
Some days I wish I could pitch it all and walk off free like my non-diabetic friends. But I can’t. I have to rely on these people and on some manufacturer’s technology to survive. Communication, learning from each other, gives me a better chance of doing so.
We blog & tweet because we want SOMEONE to listen. And this is a case where they are listening and reaching out.
I understand that you feel like this is special attention given to someone with a louder mic…but I feel like this is good progress for a company. Finding and resolving issues by those with the proverbial loud mics can help them find and resolve issues for their other customers that may never speak up.
Mary-You are right that you need to be careful about quitting the system. I hated the Medtronic CGMS (though I love my Revel Pump) and when I tried to switch to the Navigator after more than a year of use and several months
of not using it, one of the reasons insurance denied me was that I hadn’t been using the CGMS that I ha. Obviously in retrospect it was very good I didn’t get the Navigator because it stopped serving the USA very quickly after that.
A few years later after continuing to struggle with the Medtronic system, I successfully tried to get Dexcom. I wrote a three page justification to the insurance company with several photos of bruises, blood, and lumps from the Med-T sensors. Also documented crap results.
Even with the Dexcom which is often spot-on, there are enough rogue readings that I am a long ways away from thinking I’d ever trust a closed loop system. But someday maybe….
We should all remember that the internet is public space. The more details we post about our lives te less anonymous it becomes. I don’t mean bloggers who aren’t usually anonymous and are almost celebrities in our communities, but regular ppl go oline to be anonymous and then spill every detail of their lives. This is a good reminder that when you post publicly, it’s well, public.
The other day I tweeted (and did include the @MDT_Diabetes) about an issue I was having uploading my data to Carelink. I received a call on my cell the next day, but missed it. They immediatelly called my work phone, and when I missed that one, too, they called my cell again to leave a message. I do appreciate the effort on Medtronic’s part to take care of the customers. I’ve blogged before about a short stint in which I switched companies and came back mainly FOR the customer service. But I hear what you’re saying. And as always, appreciate your candid honesty.
I left Medtronic because I started getting the impression that they care a whole lot more about their image now than they do their customers or their products. And they know that once a diabetic chooses a pump, changing is a pain in the butt. New pumpers may not even realize the differences available when it comes down to the features and the supplies, including total monthly cost. I was with them for nearly 20 years (started pump thrrapy with them when they were just Minimed), but their products are having more and more issues and are not made nearly as well as they used to be while the prices keep going up. Changing insulin pumps and supplies was a life changing event and I was terrified, but I am glad I made the change. I wish you’d have posted, “Medtronic, STFU, Stalker.” It’s one thing for them to monitor sites to improve their products or service, but not to make people feel like not posting about them to prevent weird phone calls. The truth and people’s opinions are important.
I tend to agree with Denise. When we post these things in public, any responses we get are fair-game. That said, when I recently tweeted about a Motor Error that I had, and like Shannon I did include Medtronic’s twitter handle in my post, I never got a call. In honesty, that could be for two reasons: either they didn’t know who I was (I only use my last initial, not my name), or in my tweet I said that I was going to call them, so they expected it.
When I did call, the rep, who was extremely friendly, did mentions something about being careful about what we say online. It was more in a HIPAA than a DOC context, but in hindsight, I wonder if she knew that her company was starting to troll the web and wanted to subtly ask me to be more careful.
Honestly, I don’t mind if they reply or don’t reply to these types of tweets and other social-networking media, but there has to be guidelines — maybe even an “opt in/out” option when you sign up for the pump in the first place. Otherwise, if I posted that I was considering switching to Animas (I’m not, by the way), Medtronic might start to bombard me with solicitations and special offers, and that could be irritating.
You guys seem to hate everything.
yeah i hate it when business are proactive and try and help me out *after I broadcast a complaint across the internet*. If it was truly private… put it on Facebook. The whole point of twitter is that you’re sharing that message with *everyone*.
You can hyper analyze everything to death, and guess motives, but at the end of the day they are trying to provide better service. I won’t fault them for that, even if I don’t think they were sincere enough and were trying to garner better PR.
Between you and Amy DiabetesMine is a firehouse of “whaa-whaaaa”. Mega-bummer.
[...] don’t have an online presence and don’t have that channel of communication. Mike wondered about this very situation after a Tweet led to customer-service, as he described on DiabetesMine back in [...]