James
Cullen, CEO of Conach Consulting and a former hospital CEO, asked me to
consider writing an article which describes what a customer-focused hospital or
health system looks like, from a customer’s perspective? The question from James was a result of the
Healthcare Marketing Matters blog post, “Can
healthcare providers become customer-focused enterprises?” http://bit.ly/1COdz7c.
The question was indeed fortuitous, as the news coverage
this week in various hospital and provider focused news outlets, reported that consumerism is one of the top
concerns on CEO minds these days.
But the answer to the
question is not a simple as it may seem. There is no checklist of “if I do this and this, I will be a customer-focused hospital or health system, and the healthcare consumer will think so
too”. The answer to the question is really a two-part answer. And a
hospital cannot arrive at the promised land of being a customer-focused
healthcare enterprise, unless it accomplishes part two of the answer.
Part One- The Health Care Consumer
Think of one’s own experiences when interacting with a
customer-focused company. One is engaged
and highly satisfied. Interaction with the company in gathering information is easy, accessible, and clearly understandable
across any of the platforms of my choosing.
The experience from the first contact to the last encounter is seamless,
meaningful and totally integrated.
Proactive recommendations are sent and tailored to the individual
healthcare consumer’s needs be that educational or preventative care. During the engagement process, trust is built
and in the case of previous utilization, trust is reinforced and enhanced. The brand promise is delivered every time.
And most importantly as this is perceptual, there is an emotional connection
that all that matters is “me”. At no time do I feel or have an experience
that’s it is all about the hospital and health system, making me secondary to
what is taking place. The organization is responsive. Satisfaction scores exceed
normalized standards.
A note regarding satisfaction. Because the healthcare
enterprise may have high satisfaction scores, remember that it only measures
the customer's perspective during the process of care. It does not measure external influences or
needs. High satisfaction scores while important do not make a customer-focused
enterprise. Satisfaction is only one indicator of customer-centricity. Satisfaction is a process that can be
studied, manipulated, changed, and improved.
Part Two- The Healthcare Enterprise
Sometimes, one must look at the lessons of the past to find
the solutions of the future, as healthcare evolves into a retail medicine,
consumer-driven business model. So here is some reading homework: MARKOR:
A Measure of Market Orientation, Ajay K. Kohli, Bernard J. Jaworski, Ajith
Kumar, Journal of Marketing Research,
Vol. 30, No. 4 (Nov. 1993), pp. 467-477, American Marketing Association; Harvard
Business Review, “To Keep Your Customers, Keep It Simple”,
Patrick Spenner and Karen Freeman, May 2012; And McKinsey & Company, “The consumer decision journey”,
David Court, Dave Elzinga, Susan Mulder, and Ole Jergen Vetyik, June 2009.
Becoming the total healthcare consumer-centric enterprise
requires two things. First is outward market orientation. The second is the culture
and behavior to support across all levels of the organization the customer-focused business model.
Customer centricity in its pure and simplest form is really
a matter of market orientation. “Market
orientation refers to the organization-wide generation of market intelligence
pertaining to current and future needs of customers, dissemination of
intelligence within the organization, and responsiveness to it.” (Kohli,
Jaworski & Kumar, 1993.)
To become a consumer-focused healthcare enterprise, and
there are 20 indicators in the MARKOR scale to measure market orientation,
these three can be considered to be the most important first steps:
Intelligence Generation
1. Meeting
with customers to understand current and future needs
2. An in-house market research department or the
availability of external market research resources
3. The ability to detect changes in customers
preferences
4. Annual surveys of customer perceptions which is
different than satisfaction measurement
Intelligence Dissemination
1. Regular interdepartmental meetings on market
trends and development
2. Important developments within the market or with
key customers are shared quickly
3. Regular dissemination of satisfaction and
perceptual data at all levels of the
enterprise
Responsiveness
1. Recognition of changes in customers product or
service needs
2. Alignment of product or service development
efforts with customer needs
3. Regular, interdepartmental planning to respond
to changes in the business environment
4. Responsiveness to customer complaints
5. Making a concerted effort to modify products or
services to fit customer needs
According to Walker
Research and the Walker Index,
these characteristics are some of the key differentiating elements of customer
focused companies that are most likely to produce significantly better long
term performance.
Systems to gather the intelligence to be an evolving
customer-focused healthcare enterprise are one thing. Culture and behavior are another, and is more
often than not, the potential stumbling block in hospitals and health systems
becoming customer-focused.
The culture and behavior of the healthcare enterprise
influences and ultimately determines success.
Just because the healthcare enterprise completes one or more of the
above, or a select few of the 20 MARKOR scale attributes, that in and of itself
doesn’t make the healthcare enterprise customer focused. It only works if the culture
and behavior of the organization is in alignment with the underlying organizational
beliefs and values.
Customer-centric organizational culture and behavior fall
into four areas:
Senior management
1. Committed to and takes action on being
customer-focused
2. Drives business and financial planning based on
the needs of customers
3. Utilizes
market data in decisions
4. Business development is externally focused on meeting the needs of
customers
5. Marketing is a member of the senior team,
trusted and is involved in all decisions
6. Has a high level of tolerance for change
7. Accepts innovation and has some tolerance for
failure
8. Low tolerance for and eliminates “sacred cows”
Interdepartmental relationships
1. Interdepartmental cooperation takes place at all
staff levels
2. Formal and informal connections to departments
3. Openness to
ideas from other departments
4. Focus is on meeting the needs of the customer
5. Interdepartmental barriers to meet the needs of
the customer is identified and eliminated
6. Seamless hand-off of customers between
departments
Organizational systems
1. A balanced approach to organizational structure
2. Market-based incentive structures that focus on
long-term company health
3. Low level of “office politics”
4. Mechanism is in placed to share customer
related data
5. Continuous evaluation and training on
organizational customer centeredness
6. Strict standards regarding customer service
competency skills for all positions
7. All touch-points
of the customer experience are integrated and seamless
Organizational Culture
1. Organization's core values are widely shared and
intensely held
2. Senior management establishes norms of customer
focused behavior by their actions
3. There is a culture socialization program for new
employees
4. Conveys a sense of identity
5. People-oriented
6. Team oriented
7. Outcome-oriented
8. Fosters behavioral consistency
Customer centrality cannot be marketed into existence with
campaigns and forays into the market with “customer-centric
messages” or internal declarations of customer focus. Sooner or later the healthcare consumer will
figure it out. Employees will see it as
the flavor of the day and wait it out until the next grand leadership vision comes
around. As in a previous post, the
customer-focused healthcare enterprise is a way of life that permeates the
hospital or health system with a singular focus. It is outward-looking and
responsive, not inwardly focused, and unresponsive.
This is about changing the healthcare enterprise's DNA. The customer-focused healthcare enterprise is
hard to create and takes a lot of work. It’s not a box on a checklist and is
not just satisfaction. But in the end, as healthcare evolves into a consumer-centric retail market, it is the only way that the healthcare enterprise can
survive. Cutting costs and going lean will only go so far in retail medicine.
Time to get to work and reap the rewards.