How Zocdoc Scaled Its Healthcare Platform While Staying Focused on Patient and Provider Experience

How Zocdoc Scaled Its Healthcare Platform and Customer Experience Operations

Zocdoc’s growth in recent years hasn’t matched Grace Auther’s expectations — it has surpassed them.

“I knew we were solving a real problem, but I didn’t fully appreciate how much we could scale while still staying grounded in real patient and provider experiences,” Auther said.

Auther serves as Director of Customer Experience at Zocdoc, where she and her teammates ensure every interaction patients and providers have with the company is clear, supportive and efficient. Over the years, she has seen the company evolve in scale and complexity, bringing in more patients, providers, product lines and use cases. 

“We’ve seen contact volumes increase, launched new workflows and features that change why and how customers reach out, and expanded the CX team to support that growth while still aiming for excellent satisfaction and resolution,” Auther said. 

Since joining Zocdoc, Director of Business Development Emily Sullivan has seen Zocdoc transition from being strictly a marketplace to a provider of healthcare access infrastructure that powers digital healthcare experiences wherever patients are searching for care, whether that’s on the Zocdoc platform, their insurance company’s find-a-doctor search engine, or elsewhere. 

“That shift has fundamentally changed how we grow,” Sullivan said.

 

How Zocdoc Expanded Its Provider Network and Healthcare Partnerships

When Sullivan joined Zocdoc in 2017, the company’s platform included thousands of healthcare providers. Now, that number seems modest. 

“Today, we’ve far exceeded those numbers, with more than 200,000 healthcare providers in our network, and what I thought was possible when I joined,” Sullivan said. 

So, what made this significant growth possible? According to Sullivan, it largely stemmed from the company’s decision to make it easier for providers to join its platform. 

In 2016, Zocdoc embraced a new business model that lowered the barrier to entry for providers and simplified the onboarding process. This enabled providers to get up and running quickly on the platform, broadening the scale of the company’s provider network. 

This scale reached new heights last year when Zocdoc entered its first health plan partnership.

“We significantly reduced wait times for members booking through Blue Shield of California,”  Sullivan said. This partnership was a major milestone for Zocdoc and paved the way for similar partnerships in the future. 

 

How Zocdoc Supported Vaccine Scheduling and Telehealth During Covid-19

Zocdoc has continuously evolved to meet the needs of its communities, including during times of crisis. When the Covid-19 pandemic began, Zocdoc stepped up to support vaccine scheduling at scale. 

“Demand was extremely high when the vaccines first became available, information was changing quickly, and emotions ran high for patients trying to secure appointments,” Auther said. “That combination created real operational and emotional complexity for our CX team.”

Auther and her teammates partnered with the product and operations team to redesign the customer experience. They clarified patient-facing communications, built specific workflows and macros for vaccine-related questions, and created targeted training so agents felt prepared to engage in conversations. 

“Even as volume surged, we were able to reduce confusion, handle spikes more smoothly, and support patients through a stressful process with empathy and clear information,” Auther said. “It was a challenge from a volume and complexity standpoint, but a huge win in terms of impact and in showing how CX can help the company respond quickly and responsibly in a high-stakes moment.”

Zocdoc also launched and scaled telehealth appointment capabilities during the pandemic, which is a feature many patients still use today. 

 

Related ReadingWhat It’s Like to Work at Zocdoc: Mission-Driven Culture, Career Growth and Patient Impact

 

How Zocdoc Enables Employee Growth, Continuous Learning and Work-Life Balance

As Zocdoc has evolved over the years, so have opportunities for employees to grow their careers. 

Skills-building begins on day one, with new hires receiving structured training and onboarding so that they can ramp up quickly and consistently. Once team members are settled into their roles, their managers provide ongoing coaching and actionable feedback, showing what “great” looks like in an ever-changing work environment. 

On the CX team, cross-functional exposure serves as a growth opportunity in itself. CX team members regularly collaborate with Zocdoc’s product, operations and analytics teams, enabling them to understand the broader business context behind every interaction.

“One thing Zocdoc does well is leading with humility and being learners,” Sullivan said. “We’re quick to recognize what we know and what we don’t know.”

But growth without balance can lead to burnout, which is why Zocdoc leaders always prioritize the well-being of employees and customers. As Zocdoc has scaled, Auther has seen her employer build flexible processes and systems, while staying close to customers so they don’t lose the experience that compelled them to partner with Zocdoc in the first place. 

“Now, when I think about growth, I think just as much about quality, culture and customer trust as I do about the numbers,” Auther said.

As the careers of employees like Auther and Sullivan continue to evolve, they’re inspired by past success — and energized by what’s to come.

“Looking ahead, I see Zocdoc continuing to broaden access to care, simplify complex healthcare workflows and use CX insights and data to make the experience more intuitive, empathetic and reliable for everyone who uses it,” Auther said. 

 

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