We had an interesting experience last week here at Kareo: One of our customers, who was kind enough to record a video testimonial about how much they like Kareo medical billing software and how it’s helping their business, was forced by a competitor to ask us to remove the video and related information from our website and YouTube.
Why, you ask?
Because in their video, our customer talked about their previous vendor, how the service didn’t meet their needs and how much that service cost them. It seems the vendor has a clause in an addendum to their contract stating that customers “will not in any way disparage or denigrate” the vendor’s names or trademarks.
The fact that the vendor has that clause in their contract makes me wonder:
- Why do they need such a clause? Are too many people finding that the service isn’t a good value?
- Why don’t they believe in freedom of speech and the open competition of the marketplace? Are they afraid of head-to-head comparisons with newer systems such as Kareo?
That clause alone is enough to make me scratch my head, but there’s another one that also gave me pause: Billing service customers who terminate are required to notify their clients that the client can continue with the vendor without the billing service. If I were a billing service owner, that wouldn’t make me very happy. After working so hard to bring clients on board, if you decide to use another medical billing software, you’re required to give your clients the option to desert you? That doesn’t seem like something an advanced biller would do willingly.
Needless to say, Kareo does not have either of these clauses in our terms of service, or anything remotely similar. We also don’t require any long-term contracts or have any cancellation fees. In fact, Kareo has just revised our customer agreement to shorten it and make it easier to understand. Instead of being 17 pages like our competitor’s, our new agreement is 4 pages and designed to be extremely clear and customer-friendly. We’re posting the new agreement to our site as this is being written.
We believe in providing an affordable, easy to use service to our customers, and if we don’t, they have the option to choose another solution without penalty or threat of legal action. We’re proud to say nearly 99% of our customers choose each month to continue using Kareo.
You may have seen some postings on various forums with complaints about Kareo from time to time. We read these posts, too, and our approach is to solve the problems that generate them. That’s why we’re hiring Customer Support staff faster than at any period in our history, and we improve and update our software every six weeks. We think that’s a much better solution than threatening legal action.
Don’t you agree?
Bob Burleigh said:
Kathy,
What might seem “logical” – not have a non-disparagement clause – could be anything BUT logical.
HYPOTHETICAL SCENARIO: A practice or billing company decides to move on from using your software to competitor’s product. The new vendor eventually asks for a testimonial and the customer obliges. In that video your former customer makes a number of disparaging and plainly false statements about your product. In addition, some other statements are made that are very subjective and almost unprovable – either way, such as “we could never get anyone from customer service who knew how to help us.”
Without what you call a “gag clause” you’re left with paying your lawyer to send nasty letters and/or suing for defamation, disparagement, etc. You’re spending $$$ and, even if you’re right and even if you win, all you get is a cessation and – maybe – some of the $$$ you spent. Meanwhile, your company is distracted by a lot of legal expense just to protect your reputation.
The “gag clause” you describe simply ended the process. Yeah, maybe the statements were true – or maybe they weren’t – or maybe they were exaggerated.
Earn your reputation and protect it. If you lose your reputation and credibility in the marketplace a “gag clause” won’t save your company or protect a bad one for long. But it will keep your lawyers working on other companies problems, not yours.
Bob Burleigh
Brandywine Healthcare Services
West Chester, PA
Sunday, January 2, 2011 - 5:28 pm
Kathy McCoy said:
Bob,
While I always tend to agree that the fewer lawyers involved in life, the better, I don’t think that’s a good argument for gagging customers. I understand that a customer’s claims can’t be verified, but I think everyone realizes that a testimonial is only reflective of that customer’s experience. That’s one reason why we have so many customer testimonials on our website — so that people who are considering Kareo can get a wide range of opinions.
I agree that you have to earn your reputation and protect it. At Kareo, we believe that if you are delivering a quality product and/or service, the vast majority of customer comments will reflect that, and in that case, there’s no need for a gag clause. And that’s the approach we’re going to stick with, because we believe it better serves our customers.
Thanks for your response, and for reading our blog.
Monday, January 3, 2011 - 11:54 am