When the platform erases friction: lessons from a transformed healthcare journey. Platforms that succeed don't sell technology: they methodically eliminate obstacles in the customer journey.
Published on 2020-01-06 by Nathalie Lamborghini Dumas.
When the platform erases friction: lessons from a transformed healthcare journey
Platforms that succeed don't sell technology: they methodically eliminate obstacles in the customer journey. Feedback on Qare, and what every leader can learn from it for their own ecosystem.
"Consumers are attracted by what platforms can do and facilitate, not by the platforms themselves." (MIT IDE 2019)
Some of you will immediately recognize yourselves when I mention the obstacle course of parents who need speech therapy for their child. A journey full of difficulties and friction points. The perfect journey for imagining a trust platform.
The journey and friction points
From a platform modeling perspective, the first questions to ask are: what is the user's journey, what are the friction points, and what are the alternatives?
Let's assume my speech therapy diagnosis is already established. Rehabilitation is necessary : now I need to find a practitioner for weekly sessions over several months.
I ask around, my GP, friends. Some timidly give me names while telling me it won't be easy. I call. No availability. Internet search: I start with my town, then surrounding towns. I call, leave messages. Nobody calls back.
I expand to 35 km. That's far. The very rare availability is during school hours : the least requested slots. I search on Doctolib, nothing either. And then I come across Qare, a telemedicine portal.
A brief aside: Doctolib is perfect for finding a first appointment, but could more difficultly erase the other problems in my journey : schedules and especially distance. You can address an entire customer journey or only one step, leaving room for future competitors in the same ecosystem. That's probably what Qare understood well, gradually nibbling at the healthcare journey ecosystem.
Making onboarding easy
Since I've been practicing remote work for 15 years, the promise of consulting by video appeals to me. But will it work for speech therapy?
And there, miracle: in one click, several speech therapists with availability in the coming days. Account creation is very easy, ergonomic. In a few clicks, I have my appointment.
This is what's called easy onboarding: the first contact with the platform is crucial. If this point is not ultra-simple, short and intuitive, the customer risks abandoning. But carried by this ease, I start looking at what other specialties are accessible. There are many. For sure, I'll come back.
Eliminating friction points
First friction points eliminated: I found a speech therapist available in two days, on a Wednesday morning, outside class hours. Then I receive a call from Qare: the practitioner, after reading my assessments, alerted the platform : she doesn't specialize in my child's pathology.
A moment of doubt. And then my contact tells me: "We found another one, available on the same slot, specialized in this subject."
Not only did Qare eliminate my first friction points (finding an available professional quickly, outside school hours) but they ensure I don't waste my time with an appointment without follow-up. They handled all verifications for me.
First appointment: the speech therapist works with specialized software for videoconferencing. The experience is conclusive. We schedule follow-up over several weeks. I send an email to Qare, they schedule all upcoming appointments. I had nothing to do.
And obviously, payments and all administration related to social security or mutual insurance are automated. This makes my life easier, allows practitioners to be paid faster, and strengthens the platform's control, governance and monetization.
Am I willing to surrender part of my data in exchange for this ease? Without hesitation.
It's already been three weeks. What comfort! And if on a Wednesday my child is at their grandmother's, no problem: the appointment can take place (subject to a quiet place and a computer with video).
What every leader can learn from this
Qare has obviously studied friction points well and made everything very easy: onboarding, journey, incident management. Easy for me, for my child, and for the practitioner. Because even though I analyzed here the journey from the end-user side, it is essential to analyze it also from the service provider's side. At no point did I wonder where the speech therapist was based: somewhere in France, it doesn't matter.
The platform completely transformed the journey and the experience, but with only one goal: to precisely and efficiently address our respective needs.
For a leader, the lesson is clear: technology is just a means. What matters is the meticulous mapping of frictions (those of all ecosystem actors) and the ability to eliminate them one by one. Platforms that win are not those that stack features, but those that make the journey so smooth that you forget they exist.
That's where the real competitive advantage lies: becoming invisible by being indispensable.