This article was written by Marcel Vrieling.
There is merit in looking forward to a COVID-19-free world. With this in mind, the World Health Organization (WHO) established the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-Accelerator), a new, groundbreaking global collaboration to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. Indeed, “There is no time to waste in the fight against COVID-19. No one is safe until everyone is safe,” as stated by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI).
As of September 2020, Sorrento Therapeutics has eight drugs and vaccines in development, followed by Talem Therapeutics with seven, and Tonix Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline with six drugs and vaccines each. There are varying accounts of when a vaccine might be ready, with some suggesting end of 2020, to mid-2021. In any case, one can only imagine the complexity surrounding the rollout of a vaccine to billions of people worldwide. One might also question whether governments are prepared.
According to an article by The New York Times, “Public health experts agree that agencies at all levels of government should urgently prepare for what will eventually be a vast, complex effort to vaccinate hundreds of millions of Americans.” I could not agree more. Once a vaccine is made available, this will mean that there will be a sudden spike and massive touchpoint with citizens across the world. The only efficient way to deploy such a mission quickly is for the private and public sector to expedite the rollout of the vaccine so as not to lose time and execute on the priorities. The sheer logistics of such a colossal task will impact the whole ecosystem: from the producers of the vaccine, distributors, and governing bodies to health providers, including hospitals, medical institutes, and doctors.
Lessons Learned
New service needs have been born from the global health crisis — health and hygiene guidance and contact tracing. So, governments and healthcare providers alike have turned to CX providers like Teleperformance to quickly provide agile, innovative, and human-centric crisis response solutions. Our robust global scale and infrastructure allow us to deliver a wide range of helpline and other essential support services to help public and government efforts in the fight against COVID-19 across all world regions.
We have learned from supporting public and government efforts during COVID-19 in 14 countries that the customer experience (CX) is essential. In this case, the citizens are the customers. It requires a human touch and empathy, especially as stress, anxiety, and emotions run high during interactions. Therefore, collaborating with an experienced CX partner is undoubtedly the fastest and most effective way to activate and deliver support for COVID-19 and essential services.
During the crisis, Teleperformance has responded to the public sector’s urgent requests by fully implementing helplines and back-office service operations within a few hours to several days, depending on requirements. These solutions include a COVID-19 Citizen Hotline, Government Payout Line, Government Economic Support Measures Hotline, Contact Tracing and Care Center, Citizen Repatriation, and Donations Line. Furthermore, to respond effectively to the public health crisis, Teleperformance also deployed a multichannel cycle of interventions for each stage of a COVID-19 patient’s journey: from Testing, Tracking, Tracing to Caring support.
Supporting Preparedness and Response
As an industry, we need to be ready to collaborate with the public sector on this critical mission. At Teleperformance, we have launched an end-to-end view of the massive vaccination process, from product development, planning, and product shipment to vaccine administration. Most importantly, we can provide citizen education regarding vaccination.
With no time to lose, Teleperformance’s progressive process can help organizations keep pace with the COVID-19 healthcare landscape:
- Provide clear communication and accurate information regarding vaccination
- Ensure sufficient personnel per communication channel for human-to-human conversation
- Ensure resilience in a range of demand scenarios that allow governments to scale quickly
- Connect the dots between supply chain and logistic processes to maintain safe and expanding vaccination access
A global vaccination program is extremely complex, and governments must understand the intricacies of the healthcare ecosystem and be prepared.
Photo by Louis Reed on Unsplash
About the Author
Marcel is the Chief Business Development Officer for Continental Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA) at Teleperformance. He is passionate about business growth and disruption, digital innovation, transformation, (out)sourcing and partnerships, and globalization topics. For feedback or questions on this article, please leave a comment or get in touch with Marcel via LinkedIn.
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