Your integration with athena was awesome when you built it. It probably isn't anymore.
Your metrics look good and your customers are happy. So you've concluded your integration is solid. Your early customers tolerated friction for the new tech and you built beyond that making a solid product, to reach the masses. Over time, your integration will suffer from creeping obsolescence. You won't notice it at first, but it is always happening.
Why integrations get worse over time
Integrations on athena get worse over time for two reasons. One, athena releases new functionality three times a year. The size and scope of new functionality has been growing, increasing the likelihood that your workflow will be impacted. You may not hear about these changes from your customers. It depends how much attention they pay to athena releases. Your prospects, on the other hand, will notice. They’re talking to you because they know they have a problem, and a person is responsible for finding a solution. That person is thinking about the best way to solve it, and the first place they'll look is athena. If they go cold, they may have found they are already paying athena for a version that is good enough.
The second reason integrations get worse over time is that athena has developed new ways to integrate. FHIR APIs, where the app launches from, how much of the screen the app takes up, context aware notifications, webhooks and more. If you're not keeping up, another company can build a product like yours with better integration and steal deals out from under you.
More ways to integrate isn't better
athena isn't just SaaS, it's an operational philosophy of how to run a clinic. So an integration isn't just about picking APIs. It's about understanding workflows. It is important to understand the workflow before and right after where your solution slots in, along with the operational responsibilities of your end user, so that you're aware of what changes will impact the experience of using your product.
I’ve found that when companies don't know the best way to integrate, they integrate in all of the ways. You can't get it wrong if you give people options, right? Wrong. Clients want the best practice workflow, they want to click and think as little as possible. Your product should be simple, and the best practice workflow should be the easiest path through it.
If you can count more than two ways to launch your app, you're probably overdoing it. If you tell prospects about the multiple ways to launch your app, you're definitely overdoing it.
Three signs your integration is slipping
Look out for these three signs that your integration might not be as good as it once was:
Support tickets spike after an athena release.
Sales demos present many options of how to access the application.
Deals lost to a competitor whose website says exactly what yours does.
I worked with a company that offered an analytics product to athena customers. For years their app ran in a second browser window. It was the right call when they built it, and then nobody ever revisited it. Customers grumbled about it, but the complaints never rose to the top of the roadmap. While it can feel simple to the tech vendor to have a second window open, it really does bother clinic employees. athena offers a number of ways to embed the dashboard, but it was important to do the one that was best for their specific situation. I worked with them to assess the options, spoke to their clients and used my experience of being at over 100 athena clinics to recommend the best integration for the company and the best practice workflow for their customers. They rolled it out and the grumbling stopped. Their users got to stay in athena, and their demos got simpler.
How I help
Not addressing integration quality eventually leads to creeping obsolescence. It can be hard to see from the inside of your company. The R&D team burns cycles building unneeded extra integrations. Customers spend goodwill explaining their own workflows to you. Conversations reveal that you know less about their workflows than they hoped you did.
I help companies get it right. I've seen countless integrations and with over a decade at athena, I know what the workflows look like from the clinic side, not just the API documents.