Customer Delight is the Key!
People choose one hospital or doctor over another based on how they are treated as human beings than any other parameter
Let me give you a secret for marketing of services. It is more about the experience and emotion than it is about the product and its features. Contrary to what I just said, many hospitals and doctors in India believe the reverse to be true. I constantly run into hospital promoters and doctors who brag about the latest equipment they have acquired and its features. They want to ‘differentiate’ their offering based on the tangible assets that they have. Seldom does anyone talk about the excellence in customer experience management.
Why does an airline seldom flaunt its aircraft? Kingfisher raves about finest experience in Indian skies. MacDonald highlights the fun and family and not about the ingredients of the Big Mac burger. A premium resort in Goa will focus on the great time you will have there!
The irony is reflected in a recent survey conducted in the US. The survey suggests that people choose one hospital or doctor over another based on how they are treated as human beings than any other parameter. In other words, the most important consideration for a patient to visit a hospital is the experience that he will get as a ‘person’.
Some initiatives have already been taken to stop treating the patient as an outer wrapping of a disease. He is now turning into a customer who has expectations from the service provider. He is evaluating the hospital in his head all the time. He now has options. If his expectations are not met, he may go elsewhere and never come back again.
When we talk of delight, we talk of going a step ahead of customer’s expectations. For example, the customer may expect the receptionist to be soft-spoken, efficient and well-informed. Meeting all these expectations will result inasatisfied customer. However, to create customer delight, you will not only have to meet all the expectations, but also will have to provide at least one additional pleasant surprise.
Complexities
Providing delight is a complex issue. Here are some of the intricacies you can master:
- The delight has to be created and experienced at the same time. In other words, it has to be spontaneously created and delivered.
- The management cannot be present with the staff at all times. The staff has to be inspired enough to do it on their own as no single person or department is exclusively accountable for providing a great overall experience to the customer.
- Customer delight is hard to measure. Delight for one person may be just satisfaction for another.
- Customer satisfaction and delight are always progressive. Whatever is considered to be delightful by customers today, will be considered a simple norm a few years later. When most of the players start providing a service at a particular level of excellence, it becomes a norm and is expected by the consumer. For instance, a credit card is expected to work when it is presented for being swiped at a retail store. It is something that is usual and expected.
If it does not deliver this basic requirement, the customer goes home with a bitter memory and may not recommend the credit card company to his friends.
- Customer experience is culmination of a series of experiences. In the series, the first few and the last few experiences are more important. A series of good experiences can be undone by a long discharge procedure on the last day of the hospital stay.
Identify the Expectations
To be a successful customer-oriented organisation, the hospital must look at the expectations that its customers have from the various ‘points of contacts’. A point of contact is the place or the department that a customer is likely to interact with while undergoing the experience of visiting a hospital. A few points of contacts are the security guard, doctor, receptionist, lab technicians and lift man, while non-human points of contacts are the hospital brochure and air conditioning. The customer’s experience with each of the point of contact would culminate into a bright, dull or neutral experience at the hospital.
An exemplary case study in this regard is GNRC Hospital in Guwahati. The organisation has come up with an additional pleasant surprise for their customers at each of its points of contact. For instance, their parking facility has everything that a customer expects from a parking area in a large hospital. However, the surprise element is disclosed when the customer comes back to take his car. He finds that the car has been cleaned and wiped! The windshield is shining and spotless.
Customer Delight as a Strategy
If you are able to delight your customers, you will be the invincible leader in your target market. Customer delight goes beyond filling up the customer feedback forms. It goes to the extent of calling them up after they have left your hospital. Your senior consultant will have to remember the name and other such details of the patient when he comes for a repeat visit.
Moreover, it is not easy to replicate the Herculean effort of providing delight at every step of the service experience. You can certainly stand apart from the rest of the crowd if you are able to put the pieces in place before anyone else.
Importance Of Internal Marketing
Any attempt to manufacture customer delight will fall flat on its face, unless you win over your own people. Ultimately, it is the staff at any hospital along with the doctors who will be going that extra mile to bring a smile to the customer’s face. A hospital which aims to become a delight provider must plan an effective internal marketing programme.
- It invariably works if the top management leads by example. If they walk the talk and set an example along with the senior doctors, others will not be far behind.
- Generous rewards must be given to the employees who demonstrate their commitment by going that extra mile. Everyone in the organisation should be made aware about the good deeds and the rewards.
- Internal newsletters and bulletins will also go a long way in creating a culture where exceeding customer expectations is the norm.
– The writer is a Healthcare Marketing Consultant based at Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh
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