Epic staffers field customer requests around the clock — sometimes handling queries for other health IT companies, according to founder and CEO Judy Faulkner.
An employee once told her he was getting calls at 3 a.m. from customers of a competitor, Ms. Faulkner wrote in a Nov. 6 blog post. For weeks, he would "cheerfully" take care of the requests until he asked why they were contacting Epic. "You are more helpful to us than they are even though you don't know the product," they told him, according to Ms. Faulkner.
Ms. Faulkner said she encountered the phenomenon herself when she called the CEO of another health IT company at 5:15 p.m. one Friday. The message told her to dial a number for customer support; otherwise, call back Monday.
"Because our staff answer calls 24/7, it hadn't occurred to me that not everyone does that," she wrote. "I'm glad we do it, because it feels good to have a call answered."