Like it or not, we live in a 24/7 world in which communication is expected to be constant. That might be perfectly reasonable for customers wanting to know when their pizzas will be delivered. But what about if they want to check on when their new complex rehab wheelchairs will be arriving, or when replacement parts are expected to be delivered?

Numotion has an innovative new answer: There’s an app for that.

It’s called MyNumotion, and it’s an app that’s currently rolling out across the country. The app is currently deployed to more than half the regions that Numotion serves and by end of January will be fully deployed for all customers across the United States. Eventually, Numotion hopes that more than 20,000 consumers will register and use the app.

In describing the new app — its goals, its functions and the core reason for its existence — Numotion Chief Operating Officer Bud DeGraff and Chief Information Officer Dan Prestegaard repeatedly pointed back to optimizing each customer’s overall experience in working with Numotion’s team.

“Our number one goal in this,” DeGraff said in an interview with Mobility Management, “was to improve our customer experience. So we looked at this [project] through a customer lens. We’ve been listening to our customers for quite a while with Numotion Listens and through other ways that they can contact us and let us know about their experience. So we really have thought about the kinds of things they’ve asked us about.”

A CRT Command Center

A key component of complex rehab is its customized approach to assistive technology, and the MyNumotion app mirrors that aspect of the complex rehab technology (CRT) industry. Each client who registers gets a personalized page (pictured) that includes information ranging from upcoming appointments to order status, active invoices and current client contact information. On this page, clients see their ATPs and their Customer Care Coordinators. Clients can also contact those Numotion staffers, or make a request for service or equipment. The page can also serve as the client’s CRT command center: The app can keep track of the client’s equipment, including serial numbers and purchase dates, and can even suggest educational articles on topics specifically recommended for that client.

The “myOrders” section — which tracks a client’s order from Evaluation and Medical Docs to Funding, Assembly and Delivery — is front and center on the client’s page. And that was by design, DeGraff said, explaining that the app was intended to prioritize the information and questions that were typically most important to clients.

“We get many, many inquiries about their order status, and when their chair or part would be delivered,” he said. “So we wanted to be sure we offered real-time visibility online. As we continued to look at [designing the app] through a customer experience lens, things like being able to request service or paying an invoice, having good contact information, and also making ourselves available 24/7 with live chat functionality during office hours just to increase our transparency and communication — those were the building blocks on which we built this app.”

In addition to understanding and prioritizing the functions that were most important to their clients, the Numotion team who designed the app also wanted to optimize it for their colleagues.

“We brought our initial list [of questions and functions] that our customers identified and said, ‘If we are able to do this, does this help you as a Customer Care Coordinator or as an ATP?’ We wanted to make sure first and foremost that we were taking care of customers through this experience. But if that also freed up time so we could take care of more customers on the support and operations side of things, then there’s a dual benefit.”

Customer-Centered Design

In today’s expect-it-all, expect-it-now world of communications, even a very robust app capable of a multitude of functions isn’t necessarily enough.

Prestegaard noted, “Order visibility is key; that was one of the main things we wanted to get out of [the app]. But we also wanted to make it simple and intuitive. We took our cues from, of all things, a pizza delivery app: Simplify the process into a few presentable steps, and then present the steps clearly. We wanted simplicity and we wanted transparency: Where am I and what’s next?”

Motivational speaker and Numotion blogger Scott Chesney, and August de los Reyes, current Director of Customer Experience at Google, are both wheelchair users and were among those consulted on the app’s design. “We had a number of customers who told us what type of experience they’d like to have,” Prestegaard said. “We put a design together, showed it to them, got their feedback, improved it, and did that a number of times so we were hitting the mark of what their number one priority was, their number two priority, etc.”

“We also wanted to make it accessible to anyone, anywhere, and that meant designing for mobile [platforms] first. We knew that if we could get it to work well on a mobile phone with a small screen, we could serve more customers. We wanted a design that responded really well in a mobile environment, and also worked really well in a full-screen setting. That was the path of the design: Simplicity and intuitiveness. We wanted it so as soon as you get into the app, you know what’s being shown to you.”

A word about security, which Prestegaard described as “a fundamental, foundational concern for us” — MyNumotion was built using the Salesforce platform, which has been used for multiple healthcare-related apps and focuses intently on data security.

Prestegaard also cited Numotion’s existing “discipline and approach to HIPAA compliance and also our security framework. That includes things like multi-factor identification, which customers need to do when they log in for the first time. It’s also making sure the information we have is always safe and always handled appropriately. We won’t send any personal health information in any of the forms, even if you ask for it to be texted to you. We understand completely how sensitive our customers’ information is, and we want to safeguard it.”

An Easy Learning Curve

While MyNumotion is designed to be intuitive, Numotion also created a video tutorial that — in less than six minutes — demonstrates how the app works. There’s also a live-chat function — staffed during normal business hours — to help consumers who have specific questions about the app. Part of the reasoning behind the app’s phased roll-out is to gather consumer feedback along the way and to ensure Numotion is properly staffed to keep up with consumer questions.

“Right now,” DeGraff said, “we have over 3,500 registrants already in the app and using it today. We expect that number to grow to well over 20,000 by the time we get this rolled out across the board. There is a survey after using the app — what features and functionalities would you like to see, what is the ease of use — and right now, we’re at a 93-percent positive user rating on ease of use. People are saying it’s very easy to use and that they will continue to use it.”

How will Numotion ultimately measure the app’s success?

“Seeing it being used and getting that positive feedback,” Prestegaard said. “If we see that repeat customers are having repeat visits to the site and giving us repeat feedback, that will be a start. Eventually, we expect to see not as many calls coming in to our branches, which hopefully will allow our people to focus on delivery and getting orders through the system and shortening the amount of time it takes to get customers [their product].”

“For me,” DeGraff said, “it’s customer engagement. Plus to Dan’s point, having more people on the site, and having them really looking at order status. We want to drive customer engagement, whether that’s the number of people using the app and how they’re using the app, to their feedback and continuing to make it better and enhancing that customer experience.”

“It’s all customer-focused,” Prestegaard added, “and all leading to an experience that is better for our customers. It’s an innovative app, but it’s innovative with a purpose, and that’s to make things better for our customers. It’s leading in a way that’s customer focused. That’s the theme you’ll see for everything that Numotion is doing.”