Little Otter offers personalized, evidence-based therapy for kids ages 0-14, focusing on a "whole family" approach to support children and parents. They faced significant challenges with their scheduling process, which began when a family expressed interest in getting care for their child. Once families signed up, the Care Navigation team was responsible for scheduling an initial assessment with a provider, receiving feedback from that provider and deciding whether to proceed with recurring care. Depending on the family’s preferences, ongoing care could involve the same provider or a different one, making the process even more complex.

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Before implementing Salesforce, the entire scheduling process was handled manually through Google Sheets, making it difficult for the team to efficiently coordinate provider availability with family preferences. For example, if a family wanted to keep the same provider for ongoing care or had specific time constraints, the team had to manually sift through rows of provider schedules. There was a breakdown in the workflow because the team couldn’t accurately track which families had been contacted and the next steps in their care journey. 

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On top of that, the Clinical teams used IntakeQ to log patient notes but had to rely on Slack to communicate scheduling needs with the Care Navigation team. Patients would often reach out with rescheduling requests, questions about costs, or other concerns, but the manual back-and-forth slowed down response times. The problem got worse because each team was working in their bubble, without a clear view of key details, like how many patients were waiting to be scheduled or which providers had open slots. 

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With only two Care Navigators, they could manage complex spreadsheets and personal communications, but as the team grew, it became unmanageable. Messages were missed, and it became challenging to track schedules as multiple people edited them.

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To tackle Little Otter’s complex scheduling and communication challenges and help them grow from 4,000 to a projected 10,000–15,000 patients, Operatus completely revamped their case management system using Salesforce Service Cloud. As a HIPAA-compliant CRM solution, Salesforce Service Cloud allows Little Otter to centralize information from disparate tools and keep their client’s data safe.

Operatus’s Salesforce Service Cloud implementation had three main focus areas:

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1. Centralized Case Management Dashboards: Operatus unified Little Otter’s disparate tools into Salesforce Service Cloud. This automated key workflows and provided real-time visibility into patient scheduling status or the latest communication touchpoints. They also created custom dashboards that integrated Slack, Google Sheets, and Google Calendar data. This streamlined communication between internal teams, enabling them to view and manage all scheduling and clinical notes from a single source of truth.
   
   
2. Automated Scheduling with an SMS Integration: The new scheduling system integrated SMS functionality to notify Care Navigators as soon as a patient reached out, allowing them to respond to rescheduling requests quickly and cut down on delays.
   
   
3. Voicemail and Case Management Integration: Previously, Care Navigators had to listen to voicemails and update patient records manually. Operatus streamlined this by integrating voicemail capture directly into Salesforce Service Cloud. Now, voicemails are automatically logged into Salesforce Service Cloud, ensuring that navigators can quickly access and respond to messages. This enhancement allowed the care team to manage incoming communications and respond to patients faster and more efficiently.
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4. Streamlined Ticketing System for Optimized Customer Support: Operatus set up a dynamic ticketing workflow so the Customer Success team could efficiently handle questions about billing, scheduling, and general inquiries. The system allows them to manage multiple tickets simultaneously, ensuring timely responses. Currently, the team processes over 1,500 tickets monthly and is well-prepared to handle more as operations continue to scale.

Operatus completed the Salesforce Service Cloud implementation for Little Otter in under two months, and it’s already having a huge impact on the team’s ability to serve its clients. 
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• Better visibility of customer touch points: Clinical operations teams now have real-time dashboards that show patient status, open appointment slots, and recent communications. This has cut down on scheduling errors, sped up service and helped teams collaborate more efficiently across the organization.

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• Accessible, data-driven metrics: For the first time, they have company-wide, easy-to-access dashboards that show key metrics. With a few clicks, they can pull up data to help make internal decisions like staffing and resourcing. They can also spot inefficiencies and develop new initiatives to improve their service to their clients. Plus, the new system allows them to create real-time workflows to quickly adapt to processes and address bottlenecks. 

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• Primed to scale: The new processes and tools in the Salesforce Service Cloud implementation have set the Little Otter team up with repeatable processes that allowed their team to grow. With the new ticketing system in Salesforce, they’ve been able to expand their Care Navigation team to 6 operators and plan to double that by 2025.
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The initial year-long agreement, which began with the successful Salesforce Service Cloud implementation, has set the foundation for an expanded Rev-ops-as-a-Service partnership. Operatus continues to refine scheduling and support functions and is now expanding into B2B sales processes, including marketing and sales automation. Future projects include developing call center solutions like IVR and customer routing and integrating insurance and eligibility checks into Salesforce. Operatus remains committed to helping Little Otter optimize their processes as they grow.