Health check-up for Vietnamese parents is not just about scheduling an appointment. It’s a complicated process of persuasion, understanding and sometimes, it requires creativity.

In December 2024, I navigated this exact challenge with my mom, then it took me half of a year to make it happened. Here’s a breakdown of the problem-solving approach that worked, hope it helps you too.

Phase 1: Analyzing the "Problem" - Why it matters?

Before thinking any solutions, it is crucial to define why this health check-up is important for my mom. We can bring up multiple solutions, but it will be rejected by my mom because not solving any problems from her side.

To think about the problem clearly, I came up with these reasons:

• Stay away from bad scenario: Health check-up delay means missing early signs of manageable conditions, which can lead to more serious health issues down the line. That’s the reason why prevention from beginning is the most important part.
• Family History: My family had a history of certain medical conditions. Same as the first point, this check-up could help my mom detect any bad thing in the early stage.
• Observation: Recently, my mom had been complaining about pains, uncalled symptoms and feeling unwell on some specific days. That’s a signal!

Phase 2: Understanding customer - Empathize with my mom’s pain points

Persuasion is a journey to understand the other’s perspective. In my main job as a Product Manager, I have to work with cross-functional teams. I always listen to concerns and objectives of my stakeholders, then align to help everyone on the same page.

Back to my mom, I tried to put myself on her shoes to deep dive why she was so resistant:

• Hospital Phobia:

  • This is her top of mind while talking about any topic related to “Health” & “Hospital”: “Oh, please, I hate hospitals! They're dirty, and full of sick people".

  • I tried to find out and understood the root cause because:

    • My mom used to take a whole day for annual health check-up, but more than 50% of time consumption was waiting in a queue. We can’t deny this because most of public hospitals are overloaded in Vietnam.

    • Her mood was going down while sitting near a lot of sick people. She worried the whole hospital environment was surrounded by dangerous species/ viruses.

• Insurance Coverage: Having public health insurance equips my mom with a faith that it would cover all health situations in her life. This point was reducing her need for a proactive health check-up, and she didn’t want to spend money until facing problems.

The Core Conflict: Not getting a check-up posed long-term risks, but Mom was afraid of discovering/ getting illnesses and facing a huge expense.

Phase 3: Crafting the "Solution" - My white lies

With the given root cause, I came up with 2 white lies to solve the problem:

1. The expiring benefit: I told mom: “I still have 6 days of unused annual leave from last year. If I didn’t use it, it would be gone away from June 2025.”
2. Special benefit from the company: "My company has a budget to help employees take their parents for medical check-ups every year. They're giving us free money for your benefit, mom!"

With these 2 statements, my mom started to fear of wasting my leave & my company benefit. The solution immediately came up and solved the core conflict from my mom.

Phase 4: The "Go-To-Market" Plan – My annual leave usage

The "solution" wasn't an instant win. Here’s how the timeline played out:

• January to February 2025: Mom: "Oh, it's too close to Tết Holiday (Lunar New Year)! If I get bad news, I won't be able to enjoy the holidays."
• March to April 2025: Mom: "Your leave doesn't expire until June, right? There's still plenty of time, my son."
• May 2025: I used my last weapon: "Okay, Mom, this is it. I need to schedule this for the end of this month. If we don't go now, I lose my leave and the company budget for health check-up also needs to be utilized by June."

Final result:

• It’s a great combination between "expiring leave" and the "company budget".
• The entire health check-up day for my mom went smoothly in 30th May 2025. I also have a check-up for my stomach symptom as well.

Takeaway: Problem-Solving with Heart

Getting my mom to her health check-up was a real life case study in problem-solving. It required:

• Clear Problem Definition: Knowing why it was important before coming up with any solution.
• User Empathy: Understanding fears and objectives of my mom, not just dismissing them.
• Persistence: Not giving up after the first, second, or even n-th attempt.

White lies are not always a good go-to-market strategy for everything, but it brings a positive outcome in my case. However, something we can take away from this post is trying to think outside the box and truly understanding the "customer audience" we are trying to help.

What are some of the creative ways you've navigated similar challenges with your loved ones? Share your stories in the comments below!