At Kannact, our 1:1 health coaching has always had great long-term engagement. People connect with their health coach and their health coach stays by their side every step of the journey to ensure they reach their health goals. That’s how we’ve delivered our great health outcomes since the beginning.

In other words, once people connect with their coach, they’re on a great path. But how do we make it easier for more people to connect with their coach? That led us to develop a project that was internally called “easy enroll” and in the spring of 2022 we switched over to “easy enroll” as the default enrollment process for most of our clients.

How did the enrollment process work before? Previously, we invited members to “enroll” in Kannact by signing up online. They were presented with several forms (six, to be exact), which gathered a lot of information about their health conditions, the time of day which is best for their calls, and how they heard about us. After that form was submitted, we would assign them a health coach and the coach would reach out to them, hoping to catch them on the phone at their preferred time.

While this process seems reasonable on paper, we found that a large portion of people who signed up never ended up even having a first call with their coach. So after some thinking, we flipped the script.

Now, all members are assigned to a health coach before they even sign up. When they fill out the initial form on the landing page, we match them in our database and direct them immediately to their coaches calendar where they can directly schedule a time. With a scheduled time, not only do they know what to expect, but they also get email and text message reminders about their upcoming call. On the call, the coach asks them key questions and, if the member is interested in formally enrolling in the program, the coach will send them a link after the call to finish the enrollment process.

By putting the coach interaction before the full enrollment form and by making it easier to get that first call with a coach, we got fewer “enrollments” on paper, but we got more people talking to a health coach, leading to more long-term engaged participants.

As part of this change, we also decided to change the way we start billing. We previously started charging our clients as soon as members filled out the initial enrollment form. With the new process, however, we don’t charge anything to the employer until after the member has had the first call, agreed to continue in the program, and filled out the enrollment form sent after the first call. In other words: the first call is free. The result? Our clients should see that a greater percentage of the members on their bill are highly engaged with their coach at any given time. There will be fewer “enrollments”, but more of the enrollments will turn into long-term, engaged participants whose health is improved by a meaningful relationship with their health coach.