What you asked us for this year, and what we changed

At the end of the year it is tempting to write the kind of note that lists achievements and thanks everybody. We thought it would be more useful to go back through what you actually wrote to us, count it, and say what we did about it.

So that is what this is, including the part we have not fixed.

What you asked about, in order

We read through several thousand recent conversations and set aside everything that was not a real person writing in. That left a few hundred messages, and the pattern in them was clearer than we expected.

The first row is the one that matters. Changing a delivery was asked about more often than anything else.

The one we have not gotten right

We are going to start with that rather than bury it.

If the most common reason people contact a company is to change something they should be able to change themselves in under a minute, the company has not made it obvious enough. That is on us, not on anybody who had to ask.

You can change the contents of a delivery, move the date, skip one, change how often it arrives, or stop it altogether, from your account. You can also email support@savemedical.com and we will do it for you. Plenty of people prefer that and always will, which is fine. But nobody should have to.

Making that clearer is the thing we are carrying into next year.

What did change

You can now shop by condition. The second most common question is which product is right, and a catalog organized by product type is a poor way to answer it, because people do not arrive thinking "I need an underpad". They arrive thinking about a situation.

So the things that tend to be needed together are now grouped that way: dementia and Alzheimer's, stroke recovery, post-surgical recovery, bedbound and spinal cord injury, Parkinson's, MS and ALS, and several more. It will not pick a product for you, but it narrows several thousand items down to a few hundred relevant ones, which is most of the work.

There is a section for FSA and HSA buyers. Several hundred products in one place, which saves checking items one at a time against your plan.

We started writing things down. These newsletters are new, and so is the series of articles behind them. The idea is that anything we end up explaining twenty times should exist in writing somewhere, so you can read it at 11 p.m. without waiting for us to open. The one on how long a case should last is the one readers have found most useful so far.

Three things we were told that stuck

• "I do not want to have to explain this every time." Fair. It is why we would rather you emailed and said "same as last time" than went through it again.
• "I am not sure whether this is still the right product." Almost nobody asks this out loud, and it is the question with the most in it. Needs change, and people stay on a product long after the situation that chose it moved on.
• "Thank you, it arrived." We get more of these than you would imagine, often from people who are having a hard year. They get read.

What we would ask of you

If something about ordering from us is awkward, tell us. Not as a complaint, just as a description. Almost everything on the list above came from somebody taking two minutes to explain what was annoying rather than quietly putting up with it.

Write to support@savemedical.com. A person reads it.

Worth knowing about elsewhere

• The National Association for Continence has guidance written by people with nothing to sell.
• Family Caregiver Alliance remains the best starting point for anyone managing someone else's care.

The short version

The thing you asked about most was changing a delivery, and the fact that you had to ask is the problem. You can do all of it from your account, or by emailing us. Shopping by condition and the FSA and HSA section are both new. And the most valuable message you can send us is the one that says something is harder than it should be.