Putting You (and Your Patients) First

At ChoiceSpine, we believe in the power of superior customer service. We believe in the power of collaboration with other future-minded individuals and teams. But above all else, we believe in the power of exceptional spinal surgery solutions for our partners and their patients.

Below, ChoiceSpine team members, Anderson Collins and KC Gilbert, contribute their thoughts on customer service and what it truly means to go above and beyond in the medical industry.

In our minds, improving people’s lives with dynamic solutions means trying not to answer questions with just a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ It means digging a little deeper in order to truly impact the customer by providing them with the absolute best solution to their problem.

Asking questions like, ‘how we improve our distributor’s experience? What would make surgery less stressful for the surgeon? What is the safest, most efficient way to get patients out of pain and keep them that way?’ This applies to our internal team, as well. We always try to ask ourselves what we can do to positively impact our ChoiceSpine team members and make their lives easier, too. A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ may satisfy some people, but at ChoiceSpine we like to go further.

It really starts by picking the right team. Our people really are the ‘spine’ of ChoiceSpine, and we wouldn’t have the success we have now without their drive and dedication to healthy patients and a healthy community. We partner with as many local vendors as possible. With their help, we’re able to continually create new, dynamic solutions to some of our industry’s most challenging problems.

Essentially, our number one priority is always the patient. Even though we rarely interact with the patients, we still have to make sure the product design is the highest quality possible… for them. Because what if it was our mother or father or child on the table? That question alone constantly tests us and helps keep our standards for quality, service, and performance at its highest.

Great customer service is extremely important to our future. As consolidation continues in the spinal industry, it’s likely that many small players will exit the industry or merge with larger companies. That leaves us in a nicely-sized niche: the middle.

There will be two factors that determine what players continue to grow in this space: innovative products that increase operating room efficiencies and decrease surgery times (without sacrificing patient outcome) and customer service. What sets us apart is the fact that we innovate like a large company, but collaborate like a small company, when we’re actually in the middle. The more we grow, the more we have to continue to prioritize customer service in order to stand out.

Care and superior service. Over the past few years, we’ve grown beyond being viewed as a small regional company. As this growth continues, new opportunities to show more people the value and efficiency behind a partnership with ChoiceSpine will arrive and we believe that’s because we’re impacting real lives… not just with our solutions, but with the level of care we put into everything we do for the patients.

Oh, our teams go above and beyond all the time! Over the past month, there have been 3 or 4 cases where the customer service team has delivered surgical instruments personally or by courier because a partner forgot or misplaced it. We know mishaps happen (it’s life!), and we always want our partners to look their best in front of the surgeons.

For example, a few years back we had a new distributor who had a trauma case add-on at the last minute. The company he was using at the time said they wouldn’t send the instrument set in because their team had already gone home. Now, it was late and this customer was a 2 hour drive away, but still our warehouse team stepped up to provide the needed instruments and our co-founder personally delivered them the next morning. It’s one of my favorite stories because it was a natural reaction for our team to work together to help this (now very loyal) customer. We have a great team at ChoiceSpine!

Proactive. Our entire team works together so that the distributors and surgeons that we partner with get what they need, when they need it. If possible, before they even realize they need it. Innovation is a big part of what we do and our implants and instruments are testaments to it. When we’re able to innovate and communicate efficiently together, that’s when customer service becomes proactive.

Every week, for example, at least one distributor will submit an order and leave something off or mis-order something by mistake. When this happens, it’s usually caught by customer service, who is responsible for alerting the Regional Sales Director or management. We then either ship the missing part or reach out to the distributor right away. It probably sounds minor, but it’s a big deal to the surgeon and their patient when we’re able to proactively catch the error and come through for them.

If you’re a customer, we’re committed to your business. If you’re a distributor, we’re committed to our partnership. If you’re a patient, we’re committed to your health and safety. And that’s why our management team always says, ‘if we get a fair shot, ChoiceSpine will win 9 times out of 10.’