As a CEO that works with a lot of health & wellness businesses, I’m often asked why, despite all the great resources, products, and services available, are we facing a mounting healthcare crisis? Type 2 diabetes rates are up 4.8% every year and obesity prevalence is at 42.4%, up from 30.8% just 20 years ago. With such high rates of disease and continually increasing healthcare costs, we’ve got to be missing something -- but what is it and, more importantly, how do we fix it?

At Wishroute, we’ve identified the missing link— human-powered accountability that drives customer engagement and success with the programs and products created to help people improve their health. Wishroute provides proactive support to people who aim to change their habits, but struggle to follow through without personal check-ins. Increasingly busy lives mean people often put jobs, families, and responsibilities before their own well beings. At Wishroute, we enable companies to provide unconditional judgment-free support that allows people to finally put themselves first. Wishroute encourages people to share their goals and struggles, helps people stay motivated through tough days, and highlights the value of the program and product they signed up for in a personal way -- studies show that this type of support enables 76% of people to achieve their goals!! Our added layer of external accountability on top of a well designed product is the key to success.

In this digital age, there’s no limit to the amount of instructional wellness content that’s available -- but what people really need is someone to make sure they actually follow through. Companies need to provide this support. Every year we hear of wellness-related New Year’s resolutions, whether it’s to eat more veggies, go to the gym an extra day per week, or increase time spent meditating. Unfortunately, people only accomplish 8% of these resolutions every year. With proactive 2-way human-powered conversations designed around habit change, we can turn 6.5 times more of these resolutions into reality.

The idea for Wishroute stems from my lifelong passion for behavior change. When my brother was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes in 2002, my family chose to adjust our lifestyles together. Incremental changes were the key to our success, as we added one manageable habit at a time to improve our diets and exercise. For example, we transitioned from white bread to potato to wheat to ezekiel, we snuck spinach in our smoothies, and we went for a walk around the neighborhood after dinner every evening. These incremental changes were so impactful that my mother published a book and we toured the country helping other families do the same. This passion and experience, combined with a career in forensic consulting at PwC, and a BS, MBA, and MAcc from Babson, inspired me to start Wishroute,  where I can use my unique insights on the specific needs necessary to make people more successful when they sign up for a new product or service -- starting in the wellness space.

We’ve proven that providing our human-powered accountability and support increases customer engagement, retention, and success. By leveraging a variety of AI technologies, we turn our human Wishroute guides into superhumans, capable of responding at an exponentially higher rate, enabling us to handle customers of any scale. 

Because we deliver this unique 2-way support via SMS, we don’t have to worry about the majority of our customers’ users who disable app phone notifications. As 96% of all text messages sent are open and read within 3 minutes of receipt, our support actually reaches people, overcoming the first engagement barrier and getting users one step closer to reaching their goals. We drive users’ attention from text to our customers’ apps, products and services, helping people find value and create a healthy habit of using the product. Doing so motivates users to engage for the long run and get the maximum benefit, even after Wishroute’s text message engagement ends. 

Here at Wishroute, we’ve seen the power of accountability firsthand. One of our first customers was a Boston-based gym that regularly hosts a 2 month long fitness challenge to drive member engagement. When compared to prior challenges without human support, our partnership increased the challenge finish rate 3X -- users engaged on average 5 times per week! An added level of text-based accountability available to users around their schedules had a profound impact on the gym and its clients. We’ve continued to see our playbooks and formulas for engagement work across all types of customers,  from wellness apps to meal delivery services. If you’re not proactively reaching out to customers 1-1, providing the support they need to create new healthy habits, you’re leaving money and customer success on the table.‍

As a society, we need to get healthier. Businesses of all kinds, but especially those delivering wellness solutions, need to get real when it comes to providing the support people need to actually change their lives. It’s no longer enough to provide an exceptional product. Automated app notifications and emails are not enough; if that’s what you’re counting on, you will be left behind. Behavior change requires a human element - most people need external accountability, so prioritize real connection between you and your customers. Direct communication between company and customer will become the new standard that customers expect. Bring a more human approach to engagement, help your customers truly change their lives, and it will pay dividends for our country, your business, and every individual’s potential.

        At Wishroute, that’s our mission and we’re here to help.
              Text Wishroute to (617) 553-6631 to learn more.

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