Amy Brown: 0:00

We've seen C suite CFOs tear up and cry. We've seen public apologies from the, you know, CEO to the CEO saying I had no idea what your people are dealing with emotionally from our patients like I now get it. I mean, it's been it's been incredibly powerful.

Rick Denton: 0:26

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode we’ll talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. Today's guest is on quite a mission, on a mission to help humans understand humans. That's quite a mission indeed. Now try that mission one of the most complex, most frustrating, most challenging industries that at its core is truly a life or death industry. That's not hyperbole when you're talking about the healthcare space. This is a space that is special to my heart as I grew up the son of a physician and a nurse. It's special to today's guest as well. Having also grown up the child of a physician. She then went on a heart transplant with her father. Well, today we will talk with Amy Brown, CEO of Authenticx, a leading speech analytics software for the healthcare industry. With a 20 plus year career in health care, Amy advocated for underserved populations, led and mobilize teams to expand health care coverage to 1000s of Indiana residents and learn the nuance of corporate operations. Taking that corporate healthcare industry experience into an entrepreneurial vein, me founded authentics with the purpose to bring the authentic voice of the patient into the boardroom and increase positive healthcare outcomes. That's being on a mission to help humans understand humans. This will be a fun episode. Amy, welcome to CX passport.

Amy Brown: 2:13

Thank you so much, Rick, I loved listening to your intro there. That was awesome.

Rick Denton: 2:19

Well, my intros are very easy to write when it's such a great story to tell. So I'm looking forward to amplifying that story today. And let's start right with the authentic story. Right when I'm talking with a guest, who has that new idea, that new product, that new company, I'm always curious, what was the problem you were trying to solve?

Amy Brown: 2:38

Well, the problem, you know, that I that I saw, a evolved over the years, you know, I in my career spent the majority of my years in the business of health care, mostly in the health insurance side of the equation. And my roles were always operational. So I lead teams that were talking to healthcare consumers or providers, physicians every single day. And we largely, you know, most cases that organizations I worked with, recorded those conversations, we've all made phone calls into customer service, whether it's healthcare or not, where we hear that, you know, infamous recording, this call may be recorded for quality and monitoring purposes. Well, the companies I served for doing the same thing, the problem was we were only recording it but not really doing anything with that data source. And as I got, you know, closer and closer to the data itself and started listening to these conversations with my own two ears, I realized that these conversations held so much meaning and and insight that could be leveraged by the entire healthcare enterprise, if we would only listen and and be able to harness that data source in a way that was actually effective. And so that was the problem that I saw as wasted data source of have literal customer voices who were desperate to be heard.

Rick Denton: 4:18

Oh my gosh, well, longtime listeners of this show will know that you have hit right at the heart of who I am and what I do and what I care about that idea of listen and act that is the true epicenter of voice the customer that is the true Epicenter and foundation of creating great customer experience, great patient experience, great guest experience, whatever it is. It's that listen and act that is so often missing, right? I love how you brought it in that this call is being recorded for quality and monitoring purposes. A lot of times it's customers were like so what do something about it listen, I'm I don't really care what you do to do something for me do something that improves the process. And I love that that's what y'all are doing yet. I want to know More about that heart transplant story. I couldn't wait to get into that. I thought it might wait a little bit, but I really want to get into it. Um, in addition to that story, I'm curious about what your experience growing up in a medical family was like, and these certainly because it's special to me as well. But what did you see then growing up in a medical family that influences your approach to healthcare today, and then what you're trying to accomplish with Authenticx?

Amy Brown: 5:24

Sure. My dad was a and still is a cardiothoracic surgeon in the pediatric space. And growing up, he always while he, while his job was extremely demanding on his time. And, you know, his time the office was certainly worthy, or was certainly more than his time at home, he did a great job helping us as His children understand the purpose he felt behind his work. And one of the ways he did that was to bring us along on the journey of these patients and in a in a confidential way. Of course, this was pre HIPAA days. So I was able to

Rick Denton: 6:12

have some shared experience there, the pre HIPAA world.

Amy Brown: 6:15

Got it. Yeah, so one day, I was in eighth grade, and he woke me up in the middle of the night, he said, Hey, Amy, would you like to come on a heart transplant with me. And so I got out of bed, and we hopped on a jet and flew down to southern part of the US. And I watched him procure a heart from from, unfortunately, a really devastating, you know, story to to that life. But I also got to, you know, ride with the heart, in the plane back and watch him put it into a child and was able to meet the family. And so what did I learn not just from that experience, but just growing up, you know, the, the daughter of this physician who helped me kind of understand things from his perspective, I learned where the human side of healthcare and the business side of healthcare intersected, because I could hear my dad and remember many stories about the administration side of his work, and some of the difficulties with that, but I also saw how impactful truly caring for patients can be and life giving life changing. And it was it was that seeing that intersection between the business of health care and, and the the human side of healthcare that caused me to be really intrigued by how, you know, dichotomous they can be, and how bringing them together is such a huge opportunity.

Rick Denton: 7:55

I that opportunity is there. I want to actually talk about that a little bit and explore that a little deeper. But I have to stop down and say you may be the first guest that has actually caused my eyes to mist during an episode I am sitting here debating do I wipe it away? I don't think it's as noticeable on screen. But what a beautiful story. And yes, what a tragic ending. But what an amazing beginning that that was able to provide nick the the impact to an eighth grader and being able to show you, especially now that you've been exposed the businesses we'll be talking about. These are real lives, real humans, real things be real moments and experiences that are being touched, we may want to talk about it in the airlines, we may not talk about it in the restaurants or the hospitality space. That story is truly life experience. And I think that's it as a lot of times we love our visits with physicians, I know I have a close relationship with my physicians. I know my dad had close relationships with his patients. It's everything else that surrounds it, just like you're describing it that this just degrades the patient experience. So how is this complexity just crushing the patient experience in health care?

Amy Brown: 9:04

Absolutely. I think one of the thing I hear one of the things I hear from patient experience leaders, customer experience leaders within healthcare systems, is that they no longer have the luxury of focusing just on the experience of a patient when they're inside the walls of, you know, the clinical visit that they have to care about the pre and post visit, because that's absolutely part of the overall experience. And the really interesting thing we're learning is, you know, a patient might be calling to schedule an appointment, or they might be calling base have a question on their bill that they received after an appointment. So they're calling an administrative line, but it's a human conversation. And so, those those patients Are or caregivers they're telling their story to, to whoever's on the other end of that line. So they might be talking about the positive experience they had with their physician, but they're also talking about how confused they are by the EOB, or by the bill that they got. And, you know, you hear a lot of confusion, you hear a lot of overwhelmed pneus you even hear patients, you know, saying I can no longer, you know, actually see my physician because I just, I can't navigate this, I can't afford it. And so that the complexity that we have created in the US health system is so you use the word crushing. That's exactly what it is. And you hear it every day and mass proportions. And these these conversations.

Your CX Passport Captain: 10:53

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Rick Denton: 11:19

That'll be let's talk about those conversations for a second, I want to I want to a little bit later go a little deeper into this crushing that aspect of it kind of why are we getting it so wrong? It seems like for those of us who knew what it was, why are we getting it so wrong today? But those conversations, you mentioned that earlier that that's really something that Authenticx helps unlock. So how walk me through that specific element that in that scenario where someone's calling in, it's administrative, I'm calling about a bill, but all the storytelling that goes into that bill and the experience description that's going into that Bill conversation, how are you helping unlock that and then helping improve patient experience as a result.

Amy Brown: 11:58

I think one of the most surprising things for our clients that we serve is that a billing call actually has a human element in it that speaks to something else in their business. And the reality is, there is all kinds of things being shared in these conversations, regardless of how much you think they are transactional, they're nothing but transactional, or they're nothing transactional, they're emotional, they are deep. And what we do is we leverage the both the best of machine listening with human listening to tell a very comprehensive story. So we think about a funnel when we when we talk about, you know, getting the best out of conversational data at the top of the funnel is when where we're able to pour in all of the recorded calls, chats, emails that a healthcare company might be hosting, facilitating, as a part of their everyday course of doing business. These might be billing calls, customer service, nurse triage, you name it, those are the types of conversations we use machine listening to quantify the prevalence of topics paired with emotions. So for example, we might be able to see that in 100,000 interactions that came into the top of our listening funnel 40% were customers who were saying that they were stuck trying to get their prior authorization for a surgery or a medication that their doctor had prescribed. And that feeling of stuck, included emotions of frustration and confusion. So that's, that's the top of the funnel. The bottom of the funnel is where we sample interactions that have been identified as containing a topic or theme. And human beings are able to immerse themselves actually literally listening to those voices, the specific ones that AI has found. And those those listeners are at our clients are able to understand with a depth and it's that combination of AI creating efficiency and speed. And that human understanding the nuance behind the interaction, like what is actually going on in our copay program or our prior authorization process that's driving such frustration. That combination is what's creating powerful conversations for our clients with their leadership teams. And it's what's driving really well informed strategic change

Rick Denton: 14:51

that oh my gosh, like the timing of this, obviously this episode will not release today the day we record it, but just this morning I was in a conference sation on LinkedIn with Katie Stabler about something very similar to what you're describing that is using AI to help unlock to enable to be efficient. But what I love Amy that you're describing is you haven't discarded the human understanding of this and you're dealing with such a human experience. And you're using humans to help understand what the realities of that experience is. And that blending of the two worlds, it feels like right now all the talk is how can we over index on AI? How can we, and you bringing that in that blend helps keep that humanity? I often ask us, How do you keep humanity in the overall experience? Well, you answered that before I've even asked it. And I really liked that and how that seems to be a path to getting patient experience, right? I've mentioned this a couple times that you and I came from a world that medicine was so much different, right? My dad with his individual sole practitioner, individual en te practice spending individual times with individual patients, and they chat them up in restaurants and shopping center, like it's just a different world. And yes, I know, it sounds like I'm talking about 1950s Main Street, it wasn't that long ago, but it was a while ago, physicians were there to help navigate the healthcare system before we even called it this word system. And you and I know just like your time, but that's not the case. We know that patient experience is so vital to driving the health outcomes, the clinical health outcomes. So both of what you just know, from your experience, what you're learning through Authenticx why are we still getting it so wrong?

Amy Brown: 16:35

I mean, my my view and Authenticx sits at the kind of the precipice of all of the verticals of the healthcare system, because we take in pharmacy calls, we take in health health insurance calls we take in the provider. So we have this perspective that looks across the different components of our health care system. And we have values misalignment, incentive misalignment between those verticals. And because everybody is incentivized every part of the healthcare system is incentivized differently. There is no nothing pushing pharma and payers and providers to co create together a simpler, a simpler system for patients. And that's what I hear and see, every single day last year, we took in over 100 million patient conversations. And, you know, there's 100 million stories, but when you start to aggregate them and understand the root issue of the business of healthcare, it comes down to incentive alignment and the fact that there's misalignment and therefore everybody's trying to solve their specific slice of the problem and drive profitability plus, retain customers. But it's going to take all parties working together to to agree to a simpler way to serve patients.

Rick Denton: 18:23

Me that is absolutely spectacular. Brilliant. I don't think I've ever had somebody encapsulate the challenges of the healthcare industry quite like that. We're going to take a little break here from the healthcare industry, though, I would imagine that in that very emotional story that you told of your flight. The idea of first class lounges really don't play into those medical evacuation, medical transport flights, but you've been a part of travel, you know that sometimes travel can be incredibly disruptive and it might be nice to stop down and allow to take a break. So I'm going to invite you to join me here in the first class lounge we'll move quickly here and have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past?

Amy Brown: 19:02

I would say Donegal, Ireland.

Rick Denton: 19:05

Tell me more about Donegal, Ireland.

Amy Brown: 19:08

It's a tiny little town in Northern Ireland. My I married into a very Irish family who still had property, the old family homestead there and because my ancestors came over longer ago, I have a more diffuse, you know, ancestry and understanding of my ancestry. So marrying into a very kind of purist Irish family was just fascinating to me and going over there and experiencing the culture and also having that connection to the land. You know, that was a really personal it was just beautiful and you almost could feel like the past generations spirits, you know they're in that land and It's just so old and beautiful. So yeah, that was one of my best trips.

Rick Denton: 20:05

Oh, what a great connection through family and through experience to that specific place. That's wonderful. Well thinking forward what is a dream travel location you've not been to yet

Amy Brown: 20:18

in this I've always wanted to go to Greece. Something about the the stucco buildings and the color of the ocean and the food. I love Mediterranean food. And I always wanted to go there.

Rick Denton: 20:38

Greece is coming up a lot. So I wonder either if the simulation is broken, or there's something that the Greece Tourism Board has done to get inside of our subconsciousness because it keeps coming up. It's even a part of my wife and me next that's our next big trip is Greece is that's what's planned so something's Something's Afoot here execute doing

Amy Brown: 20:54

something right. Their teams are doing something.

Rick Denton: 20:58

Let's all learn from them. You mentioned food. What is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Amy Brown: 21:04

This is going to be probably pretty boring. But I am a pizza connoisseur. I know every pizza place in the city I live. I love a good craft pizza with interesting toppings and I love thin crust and experiencing different types of crusts. So it's pizza.

Rick Denton: 21:25

There's nothing wrong with that answer. I don't find it boring. I find it actually one that I can resonate with deeply. Let's go the other way. What is the thing your parents forced you to eat? But you're hated as a kid?

Amy Brown: 21:37

lima beans?

Rick Denton: 21:40

No, not a fan. Oh, got some bad memories of the lima beans?

Amy Brown: 21:44

I do. I just they never. They never did it for me.

Rick Denton: 21:50

Well, I agree with you as well. So you and I are very aligned. Going back to travel, let's close out the lounge with one travel item not including your phone, not including your passport that you will not leave home without.

Amy Brown: 22:05

Well, for sure a book. I mean, and I like a book that you read that you hold in your hands, not a Kindle. It's nothing at note, no offense to kindle at all. It's just I prefer to have the pages sometimes I'll underline and write on them. And I know you can do that electronically. But there's just something about the feel of a book that I love.

Rick Denton: 22:31

Oh, amen. Amy, I am so much a book guy. I know I can have so many things in my Kindle. But absolutely love that that thing in my hand. I love it. I love it getting dog eared I like it getting sand on the beach or snow on the resort in the mountains. Whatever it is, I need that book. So I'm with you there. Now one of the things that I was thinking about when you and I were talking earlier, but even here inside of the show, when we talk about the solution that authentics provides, I talked about how it speaks to my heart, listen and act. This could easily apply to industries beyond healthcare. You chose this space specifically for this product. Why?

Amy Brown: 23:10

I think I'm a glutton for really hard problems.

Rick Denton: 23:14

Not the answer. I expected holy cow. Oh, that's awesome.

Amy Brown: 23:19

I mean, why not start with the hardest industry? And why do I think it's the hardest? Well, because it the stakes are highest, right? The stakes, the stakes for these for all of us as consumers of the health care system could not be higher. And the system is is so complex, and unlike, you know, consumer products industry, who are figuring out how to deliver, you know, seamless customer experiences, healthcare has not figured it out at all. And, you know, they look to Amazon, they look to Uber to say, gosh, you know, our patients are also consumers of Amazon, Uber, how do we how do we deliver something similar, and it's just so very challenging, because of the reasons we talked about a few minutes ago. And so it's it's tougher to move the needle for practitioners in the healthcare space. And we all are, depending on this healthcare system to evolve.

Rick Denton: 24:20

Boy, aren't we and I love how you said we all are, there are very few and they exist, but there are very few products or industries that all of us will be touched by, in our lifetime healthcare being one of those from birth to the end of life, health care will be an absolute part of that. So I can see I love it. Because it was I like complex problems. I really that's not what I expect. I thought it was gonna be you know, because of my family medical background, that sort of stuff. I love it. And I love that because if you can solve this man, you've got to solve for all the other other challenges as well. When I was preparing for this, I did see a quote on the authentics website that I really liked. I kind of wish I'd come up with it actually. but it is your customers are desperate to be heard. Are you listening? Now this voice of the customer, we know it comes across many forms. And you talked about how you go from that AI and you blend that human, I want to ask you a little something a little bit different. It means something to you, it means something to me that we want to have this listen and act in place. But when you're dealing with clients, you probably have a spectrum of lip service to totally bought into this. How are you seeing companies and even individuals inside of companies go through that evolution where they actually authentically believe that the customers are desperate to be heard and listening to them will help drive patient outcomes?

Amy Brown: 25:42

Yes. Well, one of the most important things we've learned through our years of doing this work is we have to help our clients do their own data backed storytelling within their organizations, they have to influence change. And the most powerful thing that we've seen, the most powerful way to do that is when you combine quantitative data, visualized data with the literal voice of the customer. Think of the voice of the customer as an illustration in the storybook to the data point that you're presenting. Ai helps us quantify, it helps us trend, and it helps us know the what, you know, for example, we know that over the past month, we've averaged 20% of customers who are without being asked telling us that they're frustrated with our customer service. I can go present that to a board room. And it can look like the most beautiful pie graph and the most beautiful trendline. But if that data point stays in, in the listeners, cognitive brain and it doesn't get to their heart and their gut, we we have a feature within our product at authentics called the call montage. And it's essentially where segment segments of conversations can be compiled together. If you're old school think of a mixed tape that you've made your favorite songs. Yes, instead, it's 10 voices speaking to their frustration with your call center agent, you know, from yesterday's set of calls, when it when an executive team has to listen and hears directly from their customers in a really efficient way. It changes there, they can't unhear it anymore, they cannot unhear it they are moved to action. And so we build a product that supports databank storytelling, and that supports both the the value that AI brings to quantify things, but without sacrificing the humanity of the voice. Why? Because a our clients want to feel connected to their customer. They want to feel that noble purpose, but also it just frankly incites change, it creates change within their organization. And it's it's a unifying force.

Rick Denton: 28:13

You have, my gosh, I can't believe me, I can't believe how aligned I actually feel right here. Because that is something that I've said to clients in the past that one of the most powerful ways to move a customer experience initiative forward is through simple call listening. And there's there's a discipline to it, right? You can't just pick the worst call out there. And you certainly don't want it to devolve into agent blaming, because a lot of times, hey, guess what, the agent doesn't have the tools, the processes, the training, to be equipped to support so it's not always agent blaming, but the impact of hearing that customer's voice, especially in the medical field, where you're describing where you may, I bet a lot of your calls have tears, they have cussin they have emotion deeply embedded inside of it, that I it would be it would be a very cold hearted person not to be affected by some of those stories.

Amy Brown: 29:03

We've we've seen C suite CFOs tear up and cry. We've seen public apologies from the, you know, CEO to the CEO saying I had no idea what your people are dealing with emotionally from our patients like I now get it. I mean, it's been it's been incredibly powerful.

Rick Denton: 29:25

Wow, Amy, let's end with that. Let's end right there because I want to see that change. Move forward. Amy. It's been fantastic catching up with you and understanding your story, the history of your story, the authentic story. If people want to learn more about you and your approach to customer experience, patient experience or learn more about authentics where can they turn to learn more?

Amy Brown: 29:46

I would encourage them to go to our website www.authenticx.com. It's authentic with an X at the end and you can find information to contact me directly or learn about our business.

Rick Denton: 30:02

So I will get all of that in the shownotes scroll down listeners, you will get access to the information that Amy just listed out there. Amy, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. I mean, from truly getting me to well up hearing that heart transplant story to using true, honest, authentic customer voice to help move patient experience forward in an industry that touches all of us in an industry that, well, let's just be honest, especially here in the US is desperately in need of some change. So not only am I glad you're on the show, I am rooting the heck for you and the impact that you are going to make. Amy, thank you for being on CX Passport.

Amy Brown: 30:42

Thanks so much, Rick. It's been so much fun.

Rick Denton: 30:49

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. If you liked today’s episode I have 3 quick next steps for you Click subscribe on the CX Passport youtube channel or your favorite podcast app Next leave a comment below the video or a review in your favorite podcast app so others can find and and enjoy CX Passport too Then, head over to cxpassport.com website for show notes and resources that can help you create tangible business results by delivering great customer experience. Until next time, I’m Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.