Project Manager POV: How to Say No to an Impossible Deadline in Healthcare SaaS

Do you know that saying no to impossible deadlines is among the best career moves you can make to maintain your authority in healthcare project management?

Image by Jason Goodman on Unsplash

A crucial part of how the Vitamin team built its integrity and client relationships is by refusing tasks we deem impossible to deliver successfully in time. Would you like to do the same? Keep reading for our tried-and-tested advice.

Why Do People Struggle to Refuse Impossible Deadlines?

The inclination to accept impossible requests in work environments comes from a desire to contribute and a fear of hindering progress. In our hustle culture, being a ‘good-doer’ or a ‘team member’ often means achieving the seemingly impossible. Otherwise, you’re seen as incapable or unwilling to help the company, which can lead to losing future opportunities. Or at least, that’s how it feels in many scenarios.

There are drawbacks to this line of thinking, even beyond bowing to a harmful work culture.

Not saying no to unreasonable deadlines raises the likelihood of negative outcomes, as you’ve probably already experienced. After all, performance comes first in healthcare SaaS, and you can’t nail regulatory compliance, seamless interoperability, or watertight safety on an impossible schedule. The consequences fall on the Project Manager, and they will reflect on your career.

What Makes a Deadline Impossible?

You’ve received a project request, and the end date is making your stomach churn. How do you tell if it’s actually impossible or just hard?

Image by Topher McCulloch on Flickr

If applicable, use your past healthcare project management experience while gauging the request. You know your team inside and out; you’ve already led the members through countless projects. Have they been successful with tight timelines and similar tech stacks before? It might be an indication that this one’s also possible. 

As a rule, if your team needs to work double shifts to make the project happen within a deadline, it’s impossible. Of course, external dependencies and cooperation with third-party vendors also count toward the final assessment. You can’t magic components or capabilities into existence.

Ultimately, it pays to listen to your gut and back yourself up with data. And if necessary, to refuse the project with the existing requests.

5 Strategies to Refuse Impossible Deadlines

You’re a buffer between the CEO and developers, having to balance requests and realism. In this context, saying no is a calculated move to preserve the integrity of your position, project, and company.

Here are five ways to skillfully articulate a much-needed refusal or renegotiation.

1. Don’t Beat Around the Bush

Say no and explain your reasons immediately. Being up-front eliminates annoyance and the impression you’re leading on the board members. If possible, refuse in person, not over a call or email. Keep it straightforward:

I find the proposed project deadline impossible to meet without sacrificing the standards of the requested deliverables. I’d be happy to do a bit of planning and come back to you with a few alternative dates.

Pro tip: Whenever you have the opportunity, give an alternative solution to avoid coming across as a nay-sayer.

2. Express Appreciation

Getting a project assigned to you is a positive, and you should treat it as such. Thank the superior for the opportunity, even if you have to decline it. The trick is to show appreciation without people-pleasing and slipping into acceptance.

I appreciate your trust in my skills and understand the importance of this project. However, considering my team’s current workload and commitments, taking on an additional project might compromise the quality of our deliverables.

3. Explain Your Reasoning

The particulars of your refusal may not make a massive difference — but they could. Be honest about the reasons the project deadline doesn’t work. Discuss which values you’re seeking to uphold and how they relate to the time constraints.

After a careful evaluation, I’m concerned that accelerating the project timeline may harm the security/quality/reliability of our healthcare SaaS solution. Rushing the process could introduce errors that we cannot afford.

Pro tip: Show domain authority, delivering data, processes, and numbers to prove your point. A good Project Manager is always ready to report on where their team stands.

4. Counter With an Alternate Deadline

If a deadline isn’t urgent, rejection isn’t your sole option. Instead, offer a more realistic project deadline.

To guarantee we can provide a reliable product, I suggest a more realistic deadline would be [provide a specific date]. This adjustment allows us the time for thorough testing and ensures we give our full attention to every detail.

5. Suggest Other Alternatives

What if later deadlines aren’t possible? The conversation doesn’t have to end. Follow up with alternative options to show you’re doing everything in your power to make the request possible. Suggest a tighter scope, a higher budget, or relocating parts of your team to the new project.

The constraints of this project are too much for our developer team. We wouldn’t be able to meet all the requirements, and that’s not an option. Here’s what we can do — [alternate options]. I’d suggest [option that’s best for the company]. What are your thoughts?

Pro tip: Hiring a partner to help with a looming deadline is another option that could support your healthcare project management efforts. It’s also often the situation where Vitamin Software steps in.

Saying No for Success: A Vitamin Software Success Story

Vitamin recently developed a patient-pharmacist interaction platform for a US healthcare SaaS vendor. They approached us with a tight deadline and a small budget, neither of which would let us deliver the quality we’re known for. But we didn’t refuse outright — instead, we analyzed their needs and counter-offered with a lean, effective alternative.

We began by performing a Vitamin Sanity Check, analyzing the client’s proposed solution and whether it was the optimal way to move forward. In this case, we combined our insights into a data-driven report to the CEO, detailing the need to reduce the project scope if they wanted to meet the launch date. We removed all unnecessary user stories and kept the most impactful ones in the app.

We acted as consultants, prioritizing client success within the constraints they set. The client met their target launch date and saved $500,000, proving our method works.

Key Takeaways for Project Managers

In an ideal world, Project Managers would always have enough time to devise stress-free project timelines. While that’s not always the reality, you don’t have to say yes to impossible ones. Refusing unrealistic deadlines builds credibility and reassures your superiors that, once you accept a project, your ‘yes’ is to be trusted.

Keep these key takeaways top of mind the next time you encounter a situation where refusing a deadline is necessary:

• Rather than frequently saying no, make realistic planning your MO. Communicate challenges to the board regularly to avoid surprises.

• Refusals are smoother when you express transparency, honesty, appreciation, and proactivity. Take this approach in every conversation, in healthcare project management and otherwise.

• Set clear expectations from the beginning of the project regarding timelines, milestones, and potential roadblocks.

Are you already in the middle of a project? Discover the red flags in development timelines on our blog and use the tactics from this guide to renegotiate the deadline.

How Vitamin Saved $500K+ for SaaS Health Care Client by Optimizing Budget and Performance

Intending to launch an innovative two-faced app revolutionizing patient-pharmacist interactions, our client grappled with budget constraints, delayed timelines, and an intricate web of user stories at different stages. They recognized the need for efficiency and sought the Vitamin Team’s expertise to navigate these complexities. 

The Challenge of Prioritizing Features Within the Platform 

Before partnering with us, our client faced a critical juncture. Hindered by budget constraints and internal challenges, they needed to prioritize and define the scope of 100 user stories. The previous lack of regular project health checks led to the stories being blocked, essential information needed, and the looming launch date intensified the pressure. 

Digital Platform Servicing Pharmacies across the US

Our client, a prominent player in digital pharmacy solutions, aimed to create a transformative app. With a focus on enhancing pharmacist-patient relationships, the app is intended to streamline pharmacy operations, boost patient engagement, data collection and management, and facilitate essential services like vaccinations.

Why the Client Chose Vitamin Software

Our client chose us for our proven track record in delivering predictability in costs and timelines. Having worked together on a previous project, they valued our ability to provide accurate estimates, ensuring a smoother development process.

How Vitamin Software Responded 

In these situations, the first thing we do is a Sanity Check. That means comprehensively analyzing each user story's impact on patient outcomes, revenue, compliance, and overall design. Recognizing the urgency, we shifted from mere design updates to a strategic approach, focusing on prioritization, detail unblocking, and cost analysis. The final product of the Sanity Check was an executive report explicitly made for the CEO to empower him and his team to prioritize their budget and functionalities. Our commitment to data-driven decision-making resonated with the client, culminating in a detailed report that met the CEO's expectations.

The Results

After a year of collaboration, the results speak for themselves. By focusing on the most critical 10-20 stories, we empowered our client to meet their launch deadline, saving them over $500,000 in delivering those stories without counting the additional stress that would be put on the company if the functionality wasn’t achieved in time for the release. The two-faced app, designed for pharmacists and patients, is now tracking to facilitate seamless interactions, allowing appointments, medication refills, and crucial notifications about medication side effects and allergies. The CEO, product managers, and head of product development expressed immense satisfaction with the project's outcome.

Need Help Determining if Your Project Utilization is Cost-Effective?

Are you grappling with budget constraints and the critical need for a seamless product release in healthcare software development? Unlock the potential of our expertise to streamline your project budgeting and ensure a timely and successful digital transformation. Contact our team today to explore how we can empower your journey toward an efficient and patient-centric healthcare solution.

How to Improve Client Engagement With Your Healthcare SaaS Product

Healthcare executives, take note: client satisfaction and engagement are goals worth prioritizing (by up to 65% likelihood of sales).

Getting new clients is more expensive and resource-intensive than working with existing ones. While it pays to pay the high CAC to grow net new sales, your company will fare better if it backs these expenses with the revenue they can extract from (and value they can deliver to) clients already in your network. Today, we discuss ways to maximize the utility of resources at your disposal to power growth and maintain stability in your company.

We at Vitamin are veterans in regulated industries, with ample experience in maintaining relationships with healthcare SaaS vendors and operators. Discover our principles for maintaining connections with major healthcare clients, like digital pharmacies, top US hospitals, and government service providers.

Step 1: Assessing the Situation

Let’s begin by discussing three checks to assess the client relationship. They help you turn the gut feeling that something is off into actionable ideas to improve client engagement.

Are You Doing Regular NPS Checks?

As most Client Success Managers know, the average NPS in the SaaS industry is 36. A lower figure is a red flag.

The calculation can fall to the wayside due to more pressing tasks, and then what? In addition to this number quantifying success and pinpointing at-risk clients, it’s a great tool to spot market growth opportunities and get on the competitive wagon.

Let’s be honest — are you consistently implementing the NPS process? And if so, does your team turn metrics into actionable items or just let it sleep on the pile of annual reports?

Client Success Managers can ensure that NPS is more than irrelevant busywork, and that it actually helps your organization grow. The best way to do that is by seeing the number as an objective tool that helps you catch obstacles in the client relationship before they cause trouble. In some cases, it can even point to market openings you can capture before your competitors.

Establish a regular schedule for conducting NPS surveys to access current and historical data. From our experience, quarterly checks are the sweet spot for bigger healthcare enterprise entities that generate at least $50 million of revenue a year. Display the results within your team’s workspace as a constant reminder that client satisfaction comes first. Create an actionable loop so that the delivery and engineering team can actually use the information to delight your clients.

How Can You Surpass Competition?

As healthcare is slow to digitize, developing in step with the latest technologies is a good way to maintain a competitive edge. The trick’s in getting conservative stakeholders on-board with your riskier projects.

Let’s face it — not all projects will be successful. But those that are could bring a competitive advantage to your company. That’s why you should analyze ideas on a smaller scale first, figuring out what works before throwing the whole weight of your reputation behind it. If the internal team lacks the time or tech knowledge to do it, hiring external partners could be the way to go. That’s where we at Vitamin may enter the picture.

In healthcare Saas, the most useful projects are those that improve customer experience, reduce costs, or speed up operations. For instance, predictive medicine that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence is the next big thing for all three reasons. Also, anything that improves security and compliance is a bonus.

How Do You Convince Your Board to Allocate Resources to Testing New Ideas?

We’re noticing a trend of healthcare vendors and providers becoming more sophisticated users with high expectations. As a result, quality software translates into client retention and growth. Slow performance, unresponsive design, inadequate compliance, and poor SaaS security will be less tolerated in 2024 and beyond.

How can a Client Success Manager approach the board with a new idea or upgrade suggestion that hasn’t been tested before in healthcare?

The first step is to collect data and quantify the cost of poor software experience. Estimate potential revenue loss, support costs, and new customer acquisition expenses.

Second, educate the board on the financial and technical impact of your suggested solution. You could devise a plan beforehand or propose several viable options, letting them decide on the course they want to take. Have a ballpark of the cost and demonstrate the financial gains that may come from investing in quality.

In a nutshell, you want to facilitate the board’s decision-making process for an easy approval. Never ask them to take massive risks head-on, and don’t demand funds to be relocated from existing, money-making products.

Step 2: Re-Engaging Customers

Once you have the reasons for low engagement, it’s time to move on to solutions. Use these ways to re-engage and re-delight your old client base:

• Personalize the communication. Modern buyers are skeptical about marketing and sales, only responding to relevant messages. Join forces with your marketing team on customer relationship management to tailor your communications. Analyze and utilize the data to craft your check-ins to each client.

• Suggest new features or enhancements. Analyze the prior engagement with your client and craft new offerings that build onto them. Share success stories of companies benefitting from similar features. For example, Pfizer uses AWS to boost their computing capacities — why wouldn’t other biopharma companies follow suit?

• Talk about their needs. Re-engagement requires a pitch, and it shouldn’t be about your company or the latest product. Instead, have it focused on their issues. Position yourself as a consultant instead of a pushy vendor seeking to make a new sale. To illustrate, our sales team spends hours researching prospective clients before reaching out. And for the most precious accounts our CEO personally crafts offers that are about collaboration and supporting their efforts — and his approach consistently yields success.

• Incentivize engagement with perks. It may sound like a waste of funds, but it works, as loyalty programs are an effective retention tool. Use exclusive access, discounts, membership tiers, and personalized recognition as rewards for ongoing commitment. If you have a subscription-based platform, gamification is also worth exploring. Insurance companies like Aviva and United Healthcare use this strategy for their complex, highly regulated field, offering a case study for healthcare SaaS implementation.

Many companies lack a feedback loop between their Sales, Marketing, and CSS teams, which hinders their effort to improve client engagement.

Take this tip from marketing and apply it across the board — personalizing the re-engagement journey makes it more successful. A CRM tool like HubSpot makes all the difference by offering insights and targeting relevant audience segments. Companies like VitraMed already use it to align teams and reach their goals faster.

For an in-depth look at how HubSpot CRM helps healthcare CSS, explore their healthcare case studies.

Even HIPAA-compliant companies use HubSpot to manage client relationships. It’s a sophisticated tool with fantastic insights, reducing the workload of your CSS team. Although not regulated, it integrates with data privacy vaults to keep your client data private.

I’ve noticed a big trend of health tech and insurance companies switching to HubSpot. The platform makes it much easier to manage marketing, sales, and client relationships in healthcare.

— Ema Odorović, Director of Marketing at Vitamin Software

Expert Tip: SalesForce is a good alternative to HubSpot, especially their discounted option for NGOs.

Step 3: Strengthening the Relationship

Are you selling your product or helping clients resolve an issue? The highest-performing companies know their clients’ needs and pain points inside-and-out and never come off as salesy, which is critical in developing relationships in healthcare environments. 

Building client relationships requires trust and dedication from both sides. Find ways to reliably make healthcare SaaS clients’ lives easier, and they won’t have the need to go anywhere else.

How do you do that? By honestly caring about them. Just analyzing their data will get you some information, but not enough to consistently improve client engagement. In the era of overstimulation, we all respond quite well to authentic human care. The best part — you can use technology to make this easier.

Getting Higher Quality Data Faster with AI and ML

As modern tech consumers are sophisticated and have high expectations, companies must zero in on meeting their clients’ needs. Instead of comparing yourself with the competition, be the answer to the questions they have now and hurdles they might face in the future.

Client-centric data lets you tailor messaging and identify times when you can upsell, cross-sell, or gain referrals while delivering value. And that requires technology (or many hours of manual labor).

The combination of AI and ML can organize large amounts of data into a dashboard. It lets you analyze the client’s journey from lead generation to post-purchase, seeing what worked. Then, an expert CSS leverages it for proactive suggestions, discussions, or offers.

If you’re not already using chatbots to filter out queries, begin right now. That way, you’re always available for common queries, as clients expect no less. Customer success bots like the one by Totango go further, tracking people’s behaviors and supporting your tasks. They reduce legwork and let the CSS focus on what matters — complex human interactions.

Another way to leverage AI is to identify and re-engage at-risk clients. This gives you ample time for course-correction. Whether the next step is a virtual tour of your development process or a personalized thank-you note, catching trouble early is key to avoiding it.

Re-engage, Retain, Grow

Tech-empowered companies are about innovation and growth, and the Client Success Manager leads much of it. Even though it sounds odd, a reduction in client engagement rates can actually become your superpower — it illuminates the fields where you can gain the biggest benefits from improvement.

Introducing high quality upgrades should improve client engagement, but untested features without a proper process create friction and harm the end user experience. Get a proof of efficiency before taking it large-scale. Need help check the timeline or viability of your idea? Book a call with our consulting team and save valuable time and energy for client interactions.

Vitamin Software is your trusted technical partner for regulated industries. Leverage our expertise to boost your business and engage your clients.

3 Strategies for Encouraging Healthcare Organizations to Embrace New Software Solutions

Medicine advances with every new bit of tech it adopts. Client Success Managers of healthcare SaaS companies are leading this gradual shift, making organizations better connected, easier to run, and more patient-centric. Looking at the numbers, their work also raises revenue by 30%.

We’re passionate about reducing providers’ workloads and letting them focus on what matters most — improving patient outcomes. Your company can do the same with the right CSS mindset and the three strategies we’re about to share.

The Healthcare Tech Landscape

US-based healthcare tech exploded in popularity and profitability in 2021. There’s no going back to pen and paper, but we’re yet to enter a full-blown tech revolution. To date, most tech adoption deals with transactional or operational healthcare tasks like appointment scheduling, billing, and prescriptions. But the potential is massive — Client Success Managers should take the leading role in communicating that.

Image by the National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Software can support primary care providers, insurers, government agencies like the CMS, pharmacies—you name it. According to 2024 healthcare tech forecasts, experts expect the following technology adoption in healthcare:

• AI-driven healthcare SaaS will transform traditional service models with diagnostics support, predictive medicine, and virtual assistance. We expect more change-resistant institutions to adopt it, although clinical practice use will take 5–10 years to become the norm.

• Healthcare payment and insurance systems will prioritize efficiency and transparency. We’re talking about self-service patient portals, automated insurance claims processing, and better compliance tools.

• The biopharmaceutical industry will rely on technology to produce better medication faster. Software accelerates innovation, reduces costs, and enhances the efficiency of bringing novel therapies to market.

Healthcare communities are ripe for a technological revamp; all parties can benefit from it. But it’s not always smooth sailing.

Key Software Adoption Challenges in Healthcare

Healthcare tech faces a mixed response from experts in the field. Managers and care workers cite greater efficiency and reduced workloads after adopting software. However, some say that technology often causes duplicated or unnecessary work.

In many cases, medical workers feel like healthcare tech makes their work harder, not quicker and simpler. For instance:

• Complex software systems. When healthcare technology has numerous features, its interface might be cluttered and confusing. As hospital staff and operators already have massive workloads, complexity is a no-no.

Pro tip: Need help designing user-friendlier platforms? Learn how we helped IFPRI by using the core principles of consumer-oriented design on the front and back end.

• Lack of usage training. Many software vendors produce a system, deploy it, and leave it to the organization to train its users. Frustration, errors, and delays ensue, especially if you’re less-than-thorough with documentation. That’s why Vitamin collaborates with in-house developers and project managers to get everybody on the same page from day one.

• Poor workflow integrations. New healthcare SaaS must integrate with old workflows. There should be no double entries or additional tools to install or integrate after adoption. Otherwise, medical workers will—rightfully—perceive it as an extra task.

• Increased documentation requirements. Data entry and record-keeping are slow as users get accustomed to new software. The workload increases before it decreases, creating resistance in overworked healthcare professionals.

Image by John Schonbrich on Unsplash

The key to encouraging technology adoption in healthcare is communicating how software will improve the client’s operations. You have the upper hand here, as you’re working with companies already aware of your expertise. Here are three specific strategies Client Success Managers may use to ensure an upsell.

1. Use Client Relationship Management Tools

Let’s face it — modern clients want personalized, relevant interactions at each stage of the customer journey. For this reason, marketing and sales teams shouldn’t be the only ones using CRM software. It’s invaluable for Client Success Managers, especially when there’s a loop between all customer-facing departments.

Platforms like HubSpot are already prominent in healthcare, doing heaps for your client success efforts. Here’s what they can do for you:

• Segmentation. A government-backed provider won’t need the same features as a modern hospital. With CRM, you categorize clients based on their specialty, size, and location. Then, you tailor your offers to suit each segment.

• Advocacy. CRMs point to the most satisfied clients, which you might encourage to advocate your healthcare SaaS product. B2B buyers trust their peers — they could upsell or cross-sell on your behalf. Picking the right referral partner can make or break this strategy, so use the data at your disposal.

• Monitoring. Growing client engagement with software is a big chunk of your work, but only if you nurture your contacts. CRMs offer customer health scores, letting you keep your hand on the pulse of client relationships and address low satisfaction before it causes trouble.

• Identifying opportunities. CRM software displays clients’ transaction histories, behaviors, and preferences. It also shows which parts of your website they’ve recently visited, which is an excellent indicator of their potential purchase intent. You can look at this data — which service pages and email offers they expressed interest in — and use it to tailor your upselling and cross-selling suggestions.

• Unifying knowledge. CRM dashboards contain accurate information for the marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction departments. All three teams can access the same data and use it as a single source of truth, ensuring their messaging is on the same page and consistent with the company's voice, goals, and values.

Beyond improving your relationship management efforts and helping you predict and solve issues clients may face, the data you analyze with CRM also empowers the following three strategies.

1. Have a Clear Value Proposition

Organizations rarely want to modernize for modernization’s sake. You’re more likely to get accepted if you demonstrate how software will improve operations.

The best value propositions arise from a thorough understanding of clients’ needs. Luckily, that’s your forte as the Client Success Manager. Start by identifying pain points and devising solutions that address them as effectively as possible. You may aim to automate repetitive tasks, make it easier to schedule appointments, or improve the allocation of beds and meds. The goal should always be client-specific.

2. Simplify Onboarding

Technology adoption in healthcare is still relatively new. Traditional education and employee training programs rarely involve the skills necessary to use specialized software tools, and busy healthcare workers often lack the time for after-work upskilling. It’s no wonder they may struggle to adopt it.

It’s your company’s job to bridge the gap between engineers and employees using demos and documentation. But these files might still contain too much tech speak for your usual healthcare worker. That’s why Client Success Managers may team up with marketing to create accessible educational materials for the clients, pairing upselling with upskilling.

Basically, think about ways to make the latest SaaS as simple as possible for the healthcare community. Your company is the technology wizz in this scenario, and nobody knows your software better than you do. Why not use the in-house expertise to ensure seamless tech adoption?

3. How Vitamin Supports Seamless Software Adoption

Healthcare organizations work slower (or not at all) while adopting technology. That’s another reason why providers may refuse upgrades. But integrating software doesn’t have to make them pause operations — Vitamin proved that in practice.

We worked with a tech-enabled client who handles a lot of private information. They contacted us upon realizing their system contained old, vulnerable components. They requested a thorough update that wouldn’t disrupt their daily workflow, and Vitamin delivered.

We first stabilized their system with cloud infrastructure. Then, we devised a work plan to reverse-engineer their code. We made thousands of modifications to cover all client-facing features. We performed the system migration in stages to minimize disruptions. After releasing the new solution, we monitored its performance for a month to catch and fix bugs.

Client Success Managers can learn from our approach to ensure healthcare communities remain stable while adopting technology. If you’re looking for more information, read the complete case study.

Software Adoption & Client Success: A Delicate Balance

Remember that positive experiences increase technology adoption rates. Your company should provide a seamless, straightforward experience to improve the odds of growth.

Your suggestions should be realistic, simple, and value-driven. Don’t go overboard with cutting-edge solutions, complex mechanisms, and full-blown system revamps. Show care, emphasize efficiency, and deliver on your promises for the best results.

Are you looking to bounce ideas off a technical partner with in-depth healthcare knowledge? Schedule a consultation and talk us through your suggestion.