Leftover Thoughts on the Patient Experience

In each edition of Healthcare Marketing Advisor (HMA), a monthly four-color newsletter, I ask its advisory board members an important question relevant to the issue’s theme. Sometimes I get so many great responses back I don’t have enough space to include them all in the Ask the Advisors section of the newsletter.

This was the case with the April edition, which focused on patient experience.  Susan Dubuque, president of Neathawk Dubuque & Packett, and Rob Rosenberg, president of Springbroad Brand and Creative Strategy and a contributor to this blog, each sent me their insightful thoughts about the patient experience and customer service in hospitals. Though they weren’t able to fit in the print edition, I’m happy to be able to share them with you here.

For the April HMA, I asked advisors: What’s the most effective strategy for communicating an organization’s emphasis on patient experience to the community?

Susan Dubuque, president, Neathawk Dubuque & Packett

Let’s face it. No one is sitting around saying, “Wow, I think I’ll go to the hospital today.” (OK, there is one exception—the expectant mom in her 39th week of pregnancy.) But that aside, hospitals basically have the distinction of selling services that no one wants to buy. And to make matters even more challenging, healthcare organizations offer a product that is difficult for the average consumer to evaluate. Even after 25 years of working in the industry, I really don’t know for sure if the radiology tech captured a clear image or not. And when I try to find an objective, external source to help me assess the quality of a healthcare provider, I am overwhelmed by contradictory reports.

But even as a lay person, I can judge that ethereal thing called the customer experience. I know exactly how many times I had to circle the parking lot to find a space. How long I had to sit in the waiting room and the caliber of the reading materials. I can tell you how the lobby looked. How the mammography unit sounded. How the exam room smelled. I most assuredly can tell you how I felt when the lab tech called me “Missy.”

So that is the reality of customer experience. How do we translate all that into a communication strategy? Here are a few thought on just that:

First, it’s time for a reality check. Do what you say, match what you do? Let’s say your tagline is, “It’s all about you.” But the truth is, your operations are all you-the provider. Well, you have a disconnect. And consumers will smell this lie in a nanosecond. The solution: only promise what you can deliver. VCU Medical Center is a large, urban academic medical center. They don’t tout convenient or a warm-and-fuzzy feeling—and for good reason. They are neither. But what they do promise is the hope of leading edge research, and their tagline, “Every Day, A New Discovery,” speaks to just that.

Second, get others to tell the story. Our creative director is fond of saying, “You can’t tell people that you are cool because then you aren’t.” The same is true for customer services. If you brag about service excellence, you immediately become suspect. The solution: ask your patients and family members to do the bragging for you. Testimonials haven’t been the mainstay of healthcare advertising for years for nothing. In focus groups, time and time again, consumers will clearly state that a testimonial from a real patient is far more credible than the hospital talking about itself.

Third, whose healthcare is it anyway? Nike captured the essence of this strategy in their tagline, “Just do it.” Nike doesn’t tell you to run faster or jump higher. Rather they allow you to set and achieve your own fitness goals. So how does this apply to healthcare? The solution: let your consumers define their own experiences. St. Luke’s Hospital and Health Network got it right with their brand positioning, “My Health. My Hospital.” They empower and engage their consumers and recognize that coming to the hospital for care is a very personal thing.

Fourth, put it out there. Share your quality data and satisfaction scores in a clear and understandable manner. Make your costs available—that is, what the patient actually has to pay, not the voodoo we normally associate with hospital charges. Make medical records accessible yet secure. To regain trust, we have to do more than just talk about transparency—we have to deliver on it.

Last, listen more, talk less. Speaking of trust, healthcare is not high on the list of “most trusted industries”—we rank just above politics. So take the time to listen, really listen, to your consumers. Be open and approachable. Make sure your organization has a face and a personality. Conduct focus groups. Hold town meetings. Accept comments online and respond in a timely manner. And make sure you respond honestly. Tell what you can do to correct a problem or address an issue. But be equally as candid in sharing what you can’t fix and why.

At the end of the day, the customer experience is just that-an experience that the customer has—not something that you can manufacture. Customers don’t expect us to be perfect—but you can go a long way by being real and authentic.

Rob Rosenberg, president, Springboard Brand & Creative Strategy

If patient experience is the “sweet spot” of the organization’s brand strategy—much like customer service is to Nordstrom’s—communications messaging should without doubt incorporate this idea. For example, “Where Patients Come First,” “Patient care first, and for most,” are examples of taglines that have been created for this purpose. Of course, the taglines are supported by an entire internal program sensitizing employees to the claim and helping them deliver on the experience. Advertising, direct mail, web, and all other media can be used to support the idea as well and showcase how “patients come first.” Interestingly, Nordstrom’s is one of the only retailers to post a gain during this recession.

Since many organizations are not comfortable promoting the experience—remember, all it takes is one bad hair day to sabotage that promise—it’s probably best to let your customers tell that story for you. Testimonials are an excellent and believable format for communicating a good experience, and today social networking sites make it even easier to facilitate this idea. Hospitals should be creating a Facebook page which allows for patients and their families to post comments about their experience and opt-in as fans! Instead of just awareness and preference as metrics, marketers can now quantify loyal users by measuring how many people become “fans” of that organization.

Not only are the methods changing to reach customers but the metrics are changing as well.