Site's Interactivity Pays Off for Home Med-Equip

Company Name: Home Med-Equip; Location: Concord, Calif.; Main Products/Services: home medical equipment, respiratory services, sleep management, enteral/supplemental feeding; No. of Branches: 1; No. of Employees: 27; Accreditation: JCAHO

CLIFF WOOLARD'S PHILOSOPHY about Web sites is simple and clear: If they're not changing, they might as well be dead.

That's not what Woolard, general manager of Home Med-Equip in Concord, Calif., thought when he launched the home medical equipment company's Web site in 1997. "The whole idea behind it at the time was strictly to be informational," he says, noting that the company included information about its services and products, Medicare guidelines and references.

Driven by word of mouth, the Web site generated some traffic -- but it "certainly wasn't Amazon.com," Woolard jokes. Customers, he soon discovered, wanted more than basic data. "We started getting e-mail from them with questions about their supplies, our services, the whole gamut," Woolard says.

So Woolard began adding more interactive features to the site. "That's the key, it really is," he says. "After a while, the information is static. We've carried the same products for years. But by having a way that our referral sources and customers can communicate with us, [the site] is constantly changing. It makes us a lot more dynamic."

Since the interactive features were introduced, the site has attracted more hits. "We're very pleased with the results we've seen so far," says Woolard, noting that the site averages 30-35 visitors a day -- without being listed on any search engine. What's more, few of these users are Internet surfers, he says. Just about all are referral sources or customers.

Going Interactive

WOOLARD, WHO TOOK on the development of the Web site as a hobby, first added a form for existing customers to request service, such as reordering oxygen and enteral nutrition supplies.

Then, he set up a page for customers to ask questions of the two respiratory therapists on staff. "This has really worked out for us because our therapists are here in the morning planning their day," he says. "By the time the patient gets around to calling us with questions, our therapists are out in the field."

So customers had to call multiple times or wait for the therapist to call back, which was a hassle particularly for people who work. Now, Woolard says, caregivers and patients -- who usually ask about their continuous positive airway pressure devices or about getting new masks -- can send questions to the therapists at any time and get answers within a day.

The interactive features don't end there. Sparked by the fact that many of its oxygen customers like to travel, Home Med-Equip devised an online form for them to fill out two weeks before departure. Armed with travel dates and destinations from the form and using a broad network of independent companies across the country, Home Med-Equip devises an itinerary so the patients can get oxygen on the road.

And, because "we're in California, the land of managed care," the company also posts a form on its site so people can notify it when their insurance changes. That happens frequently, Woolard says. "We noticed a trend where people are changing insurance plans every year."

Woolard doesn't intend to stop there. "Our next goal is to offer online ordering for referral sources," he says. Many of Home Med-Equip's referrals come from home health nurses, he says, and they often don't have time to call on the phone because they're moving from patient to patient. He plans to enable them to make a referral online in a secure area to ensure privacy.

Woolard expects that the e-referral system, which was scheduled to be in place by the end of March, will become popular among Home Med-Equip's referral sources. One-third of those the company surveyed before deciding to implement the system said they would be interested. And Woolard plans to garner more support by offering in-office training on the system for physicians.

To Sell or Not to Sell

WOOLARD HAS MANY more ideas for the Web site but has stopped short of selling products on it. "I think health care as an entity is lagging behind when it comes to technology," he says. He's not sure the HME industry is ready for online ordering, although he acknowledges "there's a lot of cash business out there that would sell well on a Web site, just as well as it would in a retail store."

Someday, he says, the company might offer aids to daily living for sale online. But "that bears so much thought," Woolard says, noting that decisions must be made on how products will be distributed as well as on processing credit-card purchases. "That's a huge issue, a huge expense," he says of the latter.

There's another concern: service. "Anything could possibly need service," Woolard says. "We want to be able to help the people we provide products to. We don't go out of our [four-county] service area because we can't help them. We can't get to them soon enough."

Selling products online would likely mean having customers throughout the United States. "I think you have to be fair to your patient," Woolard says. "If you're going to service a patient, you have to be prepared to take care of them."

As much potential as he sees in the Web, Woolard believes its strongest attribute is communication. "We're trying to offer another means by which people can communicate with us other than the telephone," he says.

He is well-aware that many people prefer to communicate by phone. "But for some people, customer service will be not having to use the phone and being able to place an order online."

The Web, he adds, "is a helping hand to customer service, but it's not the end-all. I think the future is in customer service. That's the guiding principle behind anything we do or offer, be it a Web site or a brochure or anything. The Web can complement customer service by offering people another means by which to communicate with the company."

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Keys to Web Sucess

Cliff Woolard believes the five most important features a successful Web site must include are:

• Statement about the company, its mission and philosophy
• List of products, services and resources
• Interactivity -- a feedback form, online ordering, information request form, anything that encourages interactivity
• Constantly changing information -- latest company news, new products, etc.
• Content targeted to a specific customer base -- managed care patients, respiratory patients, etc.

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What's in a Name?

"Our Web site URL is www.greenhouseservice.com," says Cliff Woolard, general manager of Home Med-Equip in Concord, Calif. The logo of a greenhouse -- representing life -- has been on the company's trucks, uniforms and stationery for years, "so it is identifiable in this area. That's why we named the site that. It's more of a tag line."

The company wanted at first to name its site customerservice.com. "But it was taken by no less than [upscale department store] Nordstrom," Woolard says.