Healthcare Providers Lag on Customer Loyalty Metrics
A lot has been written about how the healthcare industry is woefully behind
most others in their strategic marketing competence, technology adoption,
customer focus, etc. This is not news.
Actually hospitals have been conducting patent and stakeholder satisfaction
surveys for a long time. But how have they been applying the results? Toward
building patient brand loyalty? Improving the care offering or service? The
reality is that very few provider marketers or hospital employees know if or
how the survey information is applied.
Much of the impetus for patient satisfaction surveying is driven by the
federal government’s quality mandate and establishment (HCAPS). Moreover,
enterprising satisfaction survey research companies have taken full
advantage of the need for hospital compliance to successfully sell ongoing
survey products (not consulting) to providers, in effect creating client
loyalty to the patient satisfaction survey process. But few really know how
the complex survey reports, tables and data symbols are used (if at all) or
who within the hospital owns the program. Does the hospital CEO regularly
keep tabs on ratings? Are strategic marketing and customer service plans
created based on the feedback? Doubtful.
So if hospitals are behind in their understanding and use of customer
satisfaction data, where are they with the latest in loyalty metrics, the
Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey. You guessed it…not very far. And
satisfaction survey companies are naturally challenging the NPS methodology
since it is ridiculously simple and actionable…and threatens their
livelihood.
Leaders at Cancer Treatment Centers of America and Ascension Health however
do read their NPS results regularly and act on them…but these are among the
enlightened few NPS practitioners in the healthcare provider field.
So a hospital that can figure out how to develop and implement NPS will have
a strong chance of standing out in the market, driving needed organizational
change and building powerful consumer, physician and staff loyalty… and
hence brand value.
