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Showing posts from February, 2012

Can you have patient/customer evangelists in healthcare?

With the dynamic and changing healthcare environment, satisfaction with services is but one indicator, abet an important one, in qualifying for additional incentive payments in a value-based payment model. But satisfaction is really only a measure of future potential purchase or repurchase. It is not as commonly assumed, to be a predictor of loyalty. Just because someone says they are likely to return or recommend you to another, is only an indicator of potential purchase not loyalty. The hospital CEO, medical business leader, managing partner, vice president, director, manger and employees need to be focusing on creating customer evangelists to not just survive, but grow and thrive in a value-based healthcare payment system. A customer evangelist is an individual, who has such an outstanding experience that they freely become your brand spokesperson in the community. They are not paid. They have no financial sake in your survival, but have come to believe so completely in what you do,...

Do you put context and content around your healthcare awards for consumers?

It sure seems like it's the season to display all those healthcare award logos in advertisements, direct mail pieces, billboards, lobby displays and a myriad of other places. This becomes even more entertaining when two or more hospitals in the same market display the same award. Don't take me wrong. Tremendous organizational effort has taken place to achieve a quality ranking by an third party. Is just putting the award logo out there without the contextual content about what it means, serving the healthcare consumer in a meaningful way? This is an important question for you to consider. It's not easy putting context and meaningful content together for consumers around a quality or certification award. But just putting the logo out there as some "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" isn't working either. And the evidence starting to appear anecdotally, that healthcare consumers aren't buying what you are selling. An award logo means nothing to them and has...

B2B ROI: Marketing is Not a Candy Machine

"What is your expected return on investment for the next campaign?" This question is common and easy to ask, but it is also one of the most challenging to answer. Determining financial return on investment (ROI) within the context of a long sales cycle has largely been a failure. Becoming financially accountable is possible – but B2B marketing departments will need more advanced quantitative tools. How should companies measure the financial value of marketing expenditure? For some ordinary company expenses, such as capital equipment, ROI is a common measure of value. Never before have there been more spreadsheets and dashboards available to slice and dice any facet of marketing. With information so available, it has never been more justifiable to treat marketing like an ordinary expense and ask for an ROI similar to the type that applies to the purchase of new equipment. B2B Marketing is Not a Candy Machine Yet attempts to measure meaningful financial ROI in a B2B marketing ...

Where is your market research in patient/customer experience management?

Or, the dangers of viewing the customer-patient experience management process, thinking you know it all, it's easy to do, or only use patient satisfaction survey results. And from the questions I get from healthcare professionals around the country, it became very clear that a key element is missing from most efforts at improving the patient experience. Healthcare providers, aka hospitals for the most part, are not doing the required quantitative and qualitative market research on patient experience, attitudes, behaviors and expectations in their market place. They are assuming that because they read an article, go to a seminar that they know it all. They are only using patient satisfaction survey data, lean six sigma results and their previous quality improvement efforts. Few are actually talking to patients. Had you been conducting market research on your customers-patients in the experience management process outside of  internal patient interactions, you would  be much be...