Learn About Amazon VGT2 Learning Manager Chanci Turner
In early March 2020, Alex Martin, a co-founder of a prominent telemedicine platform, was visiting his colleague, Jamie Fields, in Charleston, SC. Together, they established their telehealth solution in 2014, aiming to provide doctors and healthcare providers with an accessible, no-cost option for remote consultations. Their platform, a web-based teleconferencing application, adheres to stringent security protocols, including HIPAA and PHIPA compliance. By the onset of the pandemic, they had garnered a user base of over 70,000 healthcare providers, assisting hundreds of thousands of patients—a scale far beyond what Martin had anticipated. Yet, this remarkable growth was overshadowed by the looming threat of COVID-19.
As news of the pandemic spread, the team sensed a shift. Martin noticed an uptick in sign-ups, a mere blip on the radar, yet it ignited a sense of urgency in Fields. “Alex, why don’t you extend your stay here for a few weeks? We might need your support,” Fields suggested. Martin, initially dismissive of the urgency, agreed to remain for a few additional days.
Little did they know, within the following three months, their user base would multiply tenfold.
Navigating Unprecedented Growth
The first significant spike occurred when their platform recorded 1,000 new sign-ups in a single day. The next day, that number soared to 3,000, followed by 7,000, 10,000, and eventually peaking at nearly 33,000 new users in just one day. This rapid influx presented a daunting challenge: how could they manage such explosive growth?
Their mission remained clear: to provide “telemedicine for all.” While financial constraints were not a concern at that moment, they faced two pressing issues:
- Despite designing their platform for scalability, they were unprepared for the speed of their growth.
- The surge in user activity resulted in an overwhelming demand for customer support.
To adhere to their commitment of making telemedicine accessible, they needed to maintain operational continuity, especially when potential users were urgently seeking telehealth solutions.
Enhancing Technological Capacity
In response to the surging demand, the team quickly implemented significant enhancements to both the frontend and backend of their platform. This included optimizing server-side and browser caching configurations, refining database queries, and executing smart refactoring to minimize queries.
Crucially, they leveraged the power of AWS for rapid hardware scaling, which proved invaluable during this critical period. AWS stood out as one of the few technical vendors that experienced no outages or service issues during this time. Additionally, they received prompt and adept technical assistance from their HIPAA-compliant partner, Healthcare Blocks. Although it was a stressful period for the team, many of whom clocked over 80 hours a week, they managed to navigate through it without significant outages.
Expanding Support Staff
Addressing the pressing need for additional personnel required a creative approach. With limited time for traditional hiring processes, they prioritized speed and adaptability.
In a moment of inspiration, they turned to social media, posting in a local Charleston Food and Beverage group: “If you’ve recently been laid off from a hospitality job in Charleston, we want you to join our team.” This simple message attracted around 20 temporary workers dedicated to customer success, tackling inquiries through emails, phone calls, and direct requests. Consequently, their backlog of tens of thousands of support requests shrank, reducing response times from two weeks to less than two days. Soon after, they completed an automated support system, further alleviating the volume of incoming requests.
After a month and a half of intensive effort, the situation stabilized. Thanks to AWS, Healthcare Blocks, and their innovative strategies, the telemedicine platform emerged as a leading provider in the field.
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