Americord Avis 

Réponse de Americord

16 févr. 2017

Dear Kelly,

This is Martin Smithmyer the CEO of Americord. Let me first thank you for choosing to bank with Americord and I am glad that you were happy with our service despite the problems that you experienced. Although you say that the bumps were "small," they are entirely unsatisfactory to me. We strive here to provide our customers with the very highest possible quality service and that clearly did not happen. With respect to the email that you received from our cord blood specialist, I have investigated the matter and spoken to the individual with whom you dealt and counseled them regarding the importance of professionalism and accuracy. After all, you are trusting us with something that is very personal and valuable to you and you should have the utmost confidence that we treat our obligations to you seriously. Needless to say, the experience that you had will not be repeated.

As for the paperwork, I am sorry that there is so much to complete. All of it is required by regulations under which have to operate and is designed to ensure that the stem cells could be used in the event they are needed in the future. The last thing we want to do is bank and charge you for stem cells that turn out to be unusable. For that reason, we believe it is best to be as thorough as possible up front so that you have have confidence in the product you have purchased. I do understand your frustration with the inability to fill out and submit the paperwork on your smartphone and I have asked our client services, operations, and marketing department to work together to optimize the forms for mobile use. We hope to roll out that service shortly. I also apologize that you continued to receive emails remaining you to complete paperwork that you had already completed. That was an internal error on our end and I have counseled our client services department to review and revise our policy for recording when paperwork submitted in hardcopy form has been received. If you wish to discuss this matter further, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at (888) 652-5631.

Thank you again for choosing Americord.

Martin

Réponse de Americord

16 févr. 2017

Dear Rita,

This is Martin Smithmyer, the CEO of Americord. I am glad that you found our service easy to use; we have made great efforts to ensure that our service is as user-friendly as possible because we recognize that having a baby is a stressful time and anything we can do to make things easier is something that we clearly want to accomplish. I'm sorry that we did not communicate enough with you regarding the results of the cord blood processing. Our standard operating procedure is to process the cord blood and then provide parents with a certificate of storage that details the number of stem cells that were extracted. I hope by now that you have received that certificate but please contact us immediately if you have not and we will certainly remedy that. We are also in the process of launching a customer portal that will allow our customers to access their certificates of storage electronically via the internet. Hopefully that will further avoid the frustration that you experienced. If you have any questions about your cord blood or any further feedback, please do not hesitate to contact me at (888) 652-5631.

Thank you for choosing Americord.

Martin

Réponse de Americord

16 févr. 2017

Hi Asma,

This is Martin Smithmyer, the CEO of Americord. I am so sorry that we have not provided you with all of the information you want and need regarding our process and stem cells in general. That deeply concerns me because we take great pains to ensure that our cord blood specialists are fully up-to-date on the science of stem cell storage and therapies and how we go about processing our samples. This is obviously critical information for our customers to have, particularly given the personal and valuable nature of the product that you are purchasing. I have held a meeting with all of our cord blood specialists, and spoken directly with the specialist with whom you dealt, and reiterated the importance of ensuring that all of our customers' questions are answered, that our customers know that they can always come back to us with additional questions, and that all necessary and pertinent information is provided up-front. Transparency, comprehensiveness, and accuracy are absolutely vital in establishing what we hope will be a close and long-lasting relationship with our customers. Since you say in your review that you still feel a bit lost about the process, I would invite you to call me directly and I can walk you through everything and answer any questions you might have. You can reach me at (888) 652-5631.

Thank you again for choosing Americord.

Martin

Réponse de Americord

16 févr. 2017

Dear Andrew,

This is Martin Smithmyer, the CEO of Americord. Thank you for saying that we were "just short of excellent" but we want to do far better than that and I'm sorry that we did not do so in your case. With respect to the placenta, I am not sure if the instructions you are referring to relate to the instructions given to parents or to doctors. In the case of parents, our cord blood specialists are trained to walk our customers through what is required when they chose to bank the placenta. If that was not explained to you properly, then I apologize and I have spoken with the cord blood specialist with whom you dealt and counseled them regarding the importance of giving comprehensive and accurate information in all cases. With respect to the instructions we provide doctors, in our experience, doctors are generally familiar with how to handle the placenta but, out of an abundance of caution, we do provide written instructions in the collection kit for doctors to follow in case they need further guidance. We are in the process of developing a new kit, which will include revised instructions, and I have passed along your feedback to the department responsible for our kit redesign. I would encourage you to call me if you have particular thoughts on how we could further improve those instructions. You can reach me at (888) 652-5631.

Thank you for choosing Americord.

Martin

Réponse de Americord

16 févr. 2017

Dear Ebone,

This is Martin Smithmyer, the CEO of Americord. Thank you very much for your feedback and I am so glad that you are overall happy with the service that we provided. Your review is actually very timely because we are just in the process of launching a customer portal that will allow our clients do to exactly what you describe: manage their accounts including reviewing and paying their invoices. Ultimately, the portal will provide additional functionality, including allowing you to access your certificate of storage and obtain other information about the status of your stem cells. This portal should be completed within the next couple of months and you should receive an email at that time with further details. Once you have had a chance to look at it, if you have any thoughts on how it might be improved, I would love to hear from you. You can reach me at (888) 652-5631.

Thank you for choosing Americord.

Martin

Réponse de Americord

16 févr. 2017

Hi,

This is Martin Smithmyer, the CEO of Americord. I am so sorry that we cause you stress during what is is obviously an already stressful time. Our goal is to do precisely the opposite and I am disappointed that we failed to do that in this case. With respect to the instructions that we provide at the time of enrollment, I have met with our cord blood specialists and emphasized to them the importance of stressing the need to inform the medical staff immediately upon admission to the hospital that you intend to bank cord blood. I agree completely that this is something that we need to make sure parents understand to avoid the possibility that a collection will be jeopardized. Once you have chosen to bank cord blood, it is our responsibility to make sure that we do everything we can to make sure that wish is fulfilled. We are also in the process of redesigning our kit and the included instructions and I have forwarded your feedback to our kit design team so that they can address your criticism in the written instructions that we provide.

I am also sorry that the communication after the cord blood was collected was not satisfactory. We strive to ensure that parents are provided with as much information as possible before the birth of the child about our process so that we can avoid the need to disrupt new parents at a time they should be enjoying their newborn. In this case, however, we clearly should have communicated with you more and I apologize for our failure to do so. Ideally, after birth, the only thing a new parent should need to do is make one telephone call to arrange for the kit to be picked up and then hand the kit to the courier when he or she arrives at the hospital. At that point, new parents should not have to worry about anything and be confident that their valuable stem cells are being carefully processed using our state-of-the-art technology. As soon as that has happened, a certificate of storage is issued. Clearly, that system did not work in your case and I have spoken with our client services department to ensure that they strike a better balance between respecting the limited time that new parents have while providing all of the information needed to provide peace of mind. If you would like to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to contact me at (888) 652-5631.

Thank you for choosing to bank with Americord.