johnstone wrote:
Adam,
Food for thought. I've been following this discussing since the beginning and fully understand the incontinence (incon) terminology issues. I have never understood the difference between pad, liner, or booster. To my knowledge, these three products accomplish the same but to an outsider buying any of these items for someone else may find their buying experience challenging, and perhaps embarrassing if they call customer service with questions regarding any of the incon products either with your company (NorthShore) or a different company.
I have some ideas that might be worth exploring. My first thought is to make shopping easy for everyone including those buyers shopping on behalf of the incon person. I was in one of our local drug stores (Walgreens) which is also a national chain drug store shopping on behalf of my 86 year young mother. At present, she is recovering from C6 vertebrae surgery and wrote out a list of items needed. I'm the incon person in our family, so buying a case of "Ensure" was an easy task all I needed to do was fine it. I was in Walgreens (drug store) placing items in the cart that she had written down for me. As I was looking for Ensure, I spotted a lady in the aisle with adult incon products on stacked up on both sides of the aisle. She was holding a piece of paper in her hand the same as I was and if looks could talk the body language would be, "I'm confused". I stopped and said, "I'm looking for "Ensure", are you looking for the same?" I knew she wasn't, but it was a good way to say, "maybe I can help". She told me she was looking for an incon product (belted diaper) for a family member and when I didn't find the exact named product she was looking for, "Prevail Belted Shield", I asked if a simulator could be substituted? Story short, she made a call on her cell phone and didn't buy any incon products on that outing at Walgreens. She had other items in her cart so I assume her intent was to buy all the items on her list in one place (one stop shopping) which didn't happen.
Question ??? Are "belted" incon products such as "shields" in a category of there own because they are "belted"? In this case, I consider "belted shield" to mean belted "diaper", OR belted "brief". To me, a belted "shield" does not function like a pad, booster, or liner adding extra absorbency when needed. I maybe wrong, but in my opinion, the belted shield is a stand-alone "all-in-one" incon product. I think a simple short title to this incon product would/should be "belted diaper",...Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS).
Thought - Adam, you might want to consider adding a short simple page to your website that gives a short definition to the terms associated with incon products making the understanding of incon product terminology user-friendly.
Adam, I REALLY like the idea of having employees that know incon product from personal experience. I would encourage you to think outside the box, or better stated, think beyond the walls of your employee order deck where purchases of all products offered for sale, or just incon products are offered via telephone purchase orders. Looking beyond the walls means job opportunities for part-time work at home employees. Thought,...invision a disabled person working part-time from home as part of your customer sale support team. Adam, again, this is just a thought, but I'm certain there "IS" a way if the desire is present to offer part-time telephone sales opportunities to the work from home disabled workforce hands-on experience with various types of incon products. This very forum offers no shortage of those well experienced in many types of incon products.
Hope these suggestions (thoughts) help.
Thanks for the great feedback. I know that product labeling and confusion does prevent a lot of people from getting the products they need. Belted products are especially hard to find now because they are almost completely gone. They were the original adult pull-up before adult pull-ups were invented. For some people with limited mobility they are still a better option. However, since 95% of people prefer the modern adult pullups, almost everyone is phasing out the Belted products. We no longer carry any ourselves as sales had shrunk to very low level.
I agree if would be very helpful to employ people that could work from home. I have been working on that for over a year already. It involves upgrading our phone system and customer service software which has proven more challenging than expected. We'll get there sooner or later. This will also allow us to go to 24/7 hours so people could work from home on the overnight shift or in different locations in US or around the world.
All the best,
Adam