It started as an idea. Then a plan. And finally, reality. Launching a new product can be exciting, but at the same time demands insight and flexibility. When Molina Healthcare was contracted to participate in the launch of MyCare Ohio, the state’s Medicare-Medicaid Integrated Care Delivery System, these were the challenges for our team.
The product launch involved Molina rolling out a business model combining two complex programs. It had to be flexible enough to work for many audiences — employees, providers and community-based organizations. Adding to this challenge, we also had to meet state and federal regulations and enhance health outcomes for thousands of members.
To ensure the success of this implementation, we employed several tactics, which may be specific to our business of health care but can be translated to help any business or product launch.
Know your customer
During a launch, it’s important to have insight on how the product will benefit each customer segment. The message needs to be tailored and specific.
At the same time, the message has to be crafted to anticipate the objections that may be raised by customers. Then the message needs to be adapted to overcome these objections.
Fortunately, we were able to leverage our knowledge of Molina’s existing product lines to understand this new customer base. In our case, we’ve had separate Medicaid and Medicare products for many years so we were able to draw from our experience to apply to these new audiences.
With this knowledge, we built our workforce to match the needs of these new customers. We also expanded personnel by almost one-third, hiring and training multilingual support staff and personal care managers.
Have a back-up plan
Because of the complexity around the new MyCare program, we anticipated questions and challenges that our target audiences would face. As a result, we provided convenient online training and education.
We still, however, saw customers experience confusion with the new product.
This led us to tweak our approach to supplement the online training with live demonstrations and one-on-one meetings. This allowed us to not only resolve our customers’ issues immediately but also prevent additional issues from becoming more widespread.
Put customer service first
As we know, customer service is key. We also know it can be expensive and time consuming. But it’s worth the investment. It builds trust and retains business. That, in turn, leads to growth.
Today, our focus remains on our customers. As part of the launch, we sought continuous improvement. We surveyed members and advocacy groups to solicit feedback, which allowed us to make necessary changes to improve our processes in real time.
New business launches have challenges, but the rewards can be far reaching — customers gain access to new products that make their lives easier and companies continue to grow market share. So don’t be afraid to turn your idea into a reality.
