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Lorikeet News Desk
Jun 29, 2025
TL;DR
AI's best role in customer experience might be as a "backstage crew," empowering human agents with data-driven insights rather than replacing them.
Brad Shawhan of Ensora Health (formerly Therapy Brands) says transparency about AI chatbot usage dramatically improved customer perception and reduced negative feedback.
In sensitive fields like healthcare, the "can vs. should" dilemma for AI is top of mind, where balancing innovation meets ethical considerations and regulatory ambiguity.
It's AI's really cool, it's just how far are we going to let it go before we ultimately lose the person ability? And that's what we're trying to keep is not lose the people aspect of it and not be totally robotic.
Brad Shawhan
Sr. CX Director & Strategy Director | Ensora Health
The stampede to weave AI into all customer interactions is on, yet many businesses are tripping over an invisible wire: customer trust. While the instinct is often to mask the machine, fearing an impersonal touch, one company’s experience shows that transparency isn't a weakness, it's a surprising strength.
We spoke with Brad Shawhan, Sr. Customer Experience Director & Strategy Director at Ensora Health (formerly Therapy Brands), a healthcare SaaS provider. With over a decade in customer experience and a sharp focus on AI-driven technology, Shawhan brings a front-line perspective to AI's evolving role as first point of contact for customers.
Truth pays off: "What customers really don't want is to be lied to, so we adopted that philosophy with our AI," Shawhan states. Ensora Health discovered this lesson when they initially deployed an AI chatbot without explicitly telling users it was AI. "We got a lot of negative feedback reporting, 'This person didn't care.' Well, it wasn't really a person, but they didn't know that." Once they shifted to upfront honesty of, "Hey, this is your AI chatbot, here to help!", customer acceptance soared. "Negative comments dropped significantly. It was a real win; just being honest made a huge impact."
Backstage AI: Shawhan emphasizes that for Ensora Health, AI isn't about replacing human interaction but augmenting it. "There's a risk of AI creating a culture that forgets about the people involved," he explains. "We settled on using AI for faster data processing, building a customer journey on the fly so our team has an AI summary of every interaction." With backend support, customer service and success teams have more informed, personalized, and efficient conversations. "This actually helps the conversation feel more personable, even though AI is doing the heavy lifting in the background," he adds. The goal is to empower the team, "not putting AI in front of the customer where they can often feel its limitations."
What customers really don't want is to be lied to, so we adopted that philosophy with our AI.
Brad Shawhan
Sr. CX Director & Strategy Director | Ensora Health
Crystal ball AI: A key impact of their AI-driven insight engine is a transformation in customer engagement. "For us, AI's biggest gain this last year has been getting to know how it can really give us a more proactive approach to our customer base versus reactive," Shawhan notes. This involves AI analyzing trends across their 15,000 customers. "So we're using AI to kind of really do that work and tell us what we should be expecting based on all of the data that's been gathered." Such a proactive stance, like warning a client about a potential issue others are facing, earns powerful positive feedback. "Our customer bases have been really responsive to that proactiveness. Like, 'Oh, they really do want to help.'"
Tiptoeing with tech: The conversation becomes more nuanced when AI touches the core of healthcare operations. Ensora Health's software is used by clinicians to store patient notes, and they are exploring AI for summarization here too. "But we're treading carefully with AI making actual therapy recommendations—that’s a thin line," Shawhan admits. "Just because AI can do a lot doesn't mean it should do a lot. We're constantly asking: what is too much?" The lack of specific AI laws, coupled with data sensitivity and regulations like HIPAA, makes introducing new tech in these unregulated areas "risky, especially in healthcare."
Robots and realness: This strategic, human-centric approach to AI not only navigates risks but also unlocks clear efficiencies. For instance, AI’s potential to boost efficiency is evident, allowing customer success managers to take on larger portfolios. "I can have that same person that could only ever do 20 or 15 before, now I can have that same person do 50 because the homework they have to do is so much easier," Shawhan says. Yet, the guiding principle remains: "It's AI's really cool, it's just how far are we going to let it go before we ultimately lose the person ability? And that's what we're trying to keep is not lose the people aspect of it and not be totally robotic."
