Qare prescribes Zendesk for healthier customer care

As the name suggests, Qare is all about care. Since it was founded in 2017, the teleconsultation platform has ‘always taken care of patients’. As you might expect, this commitment also involves providing a high-quality service – not only during teleconsultations with healthcare professionals but also before, after and at every touchpoint. Even at a distance, the quality of the doctor-patient relationship, which is synonymous with trust in the medical field, comes first.

By recognising the potential of teleconsultations at an early stage, Qare quickly established itself as a key player. The company offers a complementary solution to face-to-face consultations, which ultimately helps improve both the provision of care and patient experience.

Qare has made medical quality its guiding principle. Much more than just a technology company, Qare has established itself as a true ‘health tech’ company with a deeply rooted medical culture that places the same importance on mental health as it does on physical health.
It is now the leader in the French teleconsultation market, racking up almost 8 million remote consultations since its founding. With 150 employees in France, the company is continuing to expand across Europe, particularly in the UK and Germany, as part of the HealthHero group.

Taking it to the next level with Zendesk

The growth of teleconsultation has not only transformed medical practice, but has also given rise to new expectations. Every month, Qare handles almost 14,000 queries in France. These range from patients being late for an appointment or confused about billing, to suspecting a dosage error or reporting a bug on the platform. Whatever the nature, the company has to listen carefully and respond quickly to every request, no matter how sensitive. For Qare, handling these requests effectively is key to maintaining good relationships with patients in a growing and, therefore, highly competitive market.

“Qare chose Zendesk to help drive us forward, create a framework and support our scale-up. It’s a competitive and flexible solution. You know where you’re going with Zendesk. It’s very reassuring.”Brice Amazouz, Head of Customer Success at QareInitially, the company’s customer service was based on ‘managing queries on an ad-hoc basis’. Later on, however, it switched to using a mix of CRM solutions: Salesforce for contracted doctors, Intercom for patients and various internal tools for operational monitoring. “We really wanted to get our tools in order and create a proper CRM strategy”, explains Taki Archidi, Head of CRM & Tools. “We needed a comprehensive solution that could cover all our relations – both patients and contracted doctors. So, we started benchmarking with a clear aim to standardise our tools, structure our processes and set up dashboards to monitor trusted KPIs.”

In 2023, after completing an in-depth benchmarking process, Qare chose Zendesk based on its flexibility and the fact that it could manage all of the company’s relationships – both with patients and contracted doctors. “At first, our old tool ‘did the job’.

Our team was used to working with it, and happy with it. But we quickly reached its limits, and managers lacked visibility. We needed to structure the experience in a better way, improve how we monitored workflows and be able to manage everything more effectively. That’s when Qare decided on Zendesk: to help drive us forward, create a framework and support our scale-up. It’s a competitive and flexible solution that I was already familiar with before I came to Qare. You know where you’re going with Zendesk. It’s very reassuring,” says Brice Amazouz, Head of Customer Success.

Zendesk was then rolled out in stages, with a focus on supporting employees through the change. Qare’s support team, which knew its way around Intercom, gradually found its feet with the new interface. Brice believes implementing Zendesk is mainly a matter of getting to grips with its features and using them on a daily basis. “To paint a picture, I would say that I see Zendesk as a house,” he reveals. “Guide is a lot like my kitchen because it’s where we prepare useful content for both internal and external use. We work with chat, forms, emails and everything else that makes up the environment. As a manager, I use Explore a lot because it allows me to follow situations through to the end, identify what works and find things that can be improved.”

A considered approach to AI

In 2014, after using the Zendesk platform for a year and successfully managing the change within its teams, Qare started talking about using more advanced features, particularly artificial intelligence. But the company was in no rush. “Everyone is talking about AI right now, but we wanted to take the time to make the right decision. Zendesk is constantly developing its products, so we carried out some tests and waited for them to mature. That led to us taking the plunge a few months later because we saw the improvements and how well it worked,” explains Taki.

In June 2024, Qare implemented three advanced modules: Copilot, QA (Quality Assurance) and WFM (Workforce Management). These add-on features are designed to improve service quality and support teams in their day-to-day work.

One of the first major benefits provided by AI was reducing the number of queries coming in from the chat. Some patients mistakenly thought they could use the chat to talk directly to a doctor. “Previously, an agent would have to step in to explain to patients that this isn’t the right channel and redirect them to book a teleconsultation,” explains Brice. “But now, the bot automatically filters these queries, with Copilot suggesting replies and actions for agents. This has helped reduce the number of queries by 25%.”

In terms of quality control, implementing QA (Quality Assurance), Zendesk’s AI-based interaction evaluation module, changed how the team worked dramatically. “We used to have a dedicated person reviewing tickets, but it was impossible to cover everything, especially chats,” Brice points out. “QA has helped us overcome this problem. It saves time and, above all, frees up managers, so they can focus on supporting agents rather than just correcting the tone of their messages.”

Real-time management and resource management were also sensitive topics for the support team. WFM, Zendesk’s workforce management module, now allows Qare to make sure everything runs smoothly. “It’s a real relief when you’re Head of Support,” says Brice. “We used to ‘juggle’ Excel files but now we know where agents are in real time, how long they need for each step and whether they’re having any issues. Real-time management gives us a clear, accurate and much more relaxed view of everyday operations.”

Tangible results at all levels

And the move to Zendesk is paying off. The return on investment is plain to see.

“I often say, ‘Zendesk is like a Formula 1 car’. Of course, you still need the right driver though,” stresses Brice, with a smile. “It’s a significant investment, but if you use it properly, it makes a big difference. We had very clear goals. We’ve gone from 85-88% satisfaction to 97%. Likewise, response times have gone down from two minutes to less than 30 seconds. And our SLAs are all in the green, well above the agreed targets.”

Alongside these improvements, integrating Copilot, QA and WFM enabled Qare to cope with a big increase in demand. Although teleconsultations are growing 15 to 20% a year, the support team has stayed the same: 14 people, including two managers. “Support is often seen as a cost centre. But Zendesk enabled us to handle the ramp-up in demand without expanding our team or resorting to external help, which clearly highlights just how effective it is. After getting used to using it, the team is now also really happy with Zendesk. Turnover has stayed low, which says a lot about our employee satisfaction,” notes Taki.

Zendesk is a partner to help you go further

Buoyed by these results, Qare is already looking to the future. The next goal is to improve channels and streamline journeys. Discussions are underway about integrating new applications from Zendesk Marketplace, such as SnapCall for video or Stripe for payments, to offer an even more seamless experience – including patients who are not always tech-savvy.

Like Brice, Taki also believes that Zendesk is far more than just a tool. “Zendesk is all about the human touch. We have a genuine relationship of trust and our partnership goes beyond technology. It’s exactly what you want in a partner.”