While few people might actually characterize a healthcare facility as a branded industry, they must admit that health care is a high-dollar business. As such, it competes for customers the way any company would: branding, advertising and improving the customer experience. Advertising a health care facility makes sense in light of competing hospitals and clinics, and branding is important to get customers to seek out your facility for specific needs, but improving customer experience is vital for customer retention.
From the first phone contact you have with the customer ( which may be an automated greeting) to the day he pays his bill, you must see every contact as an opportunity to advance your brand. That means delivering the best customer experience possible. That greeting voice, for example ( friendly, but professional, clear enunciation) may be customized to fit your image.
Consider the waiting room experience. Too often patients browse years-old magazines for what seems like an eternity until their names are called. Your facility, though, can play an informational video. If you have a men’s health facility, you might think about sports injuries content. A women’s clinic might customize its video to reflect women’s health issues. ELearning for patients facing surgical procedures is easily delivered through video content, too. Videos may address how the facility handles billing and insurance claims or what Medicare and/or Medicaid will pay. Ninety-eight per cent of doctors surveyed believe their bills give clear instructions about how and when to pay. Twenty per cent of their patients say they didn’t even know where to send their payments. Of course, face-to-face patient contact is vital, but facilities that use technology to keep patients engaged and to educate them have an advantage in patient (consumer) loyalty.
An article on the Health Care Success website asserts that more than 70 per cent of people in any business who take their business elsewhere do so because they feel the company is indifferent to them. Every contact is a chance to make patients/customers feel they are important to the facility.
Patients get frustrated with long waits when calling to talk to their doctors; even ( and especially) if they cannot talk to a person, they benefit from respectful audio messages that may answer their questions and, if not, allow them to leave messages. Concise, clear instructions are important.
If you would like to know more about how customized audio greetings and video presentations can provide the best customer experience possible for your patients contact us. We can help you build an experience that your patients will see as a valuable tool in achieving wellness and as a reason to return to your facility in the future.