Can't Automate What She Did Next

A patient kept showing up in the Emergency Room. Most insurance reps would approve or decline each claim and move on. One customer service representative at Devoted Health called to ask the patient why there were so many repeated visits. Didn't take long for the rep to discover the problem. It was created by mold in the patient's home. The deeper problem was the patient had no money to move. The rep didn't just flag it. She got the company to help the patient move to a new and safe place. Eric Ries tells this story in his latest book, Incorruptible, as proof of something AI can't replicate: the instinct to ask the right question and respond to the answer as if the patient were a family member. On this episode, Cal and Eric talk about what happens when a business defines its product as love. And why there are no algorithms that can compete with the human touch when it comes to generating supreme loyalty.