Customer Experience Management Applied to Healthcare- Part 3- A Model for Change

Before we go much further, I would like to make a correction in terminology. In an interesting discussion on LinkedIn, a physician pointed out that Experience Management is applicable to physicians as well. I had assumed that individuals understood via earlier posts.

My mistake.

Using the word patient places models and systems in boxes in which we tend to forget, that this is applicable across all customer segments. Going forward I will no longer write about Patient Experience Management, but about Customer Experience Management (CEM) applied to healthcare.  The time has come to see people as they really are, whether they be doctors, insurance companies, individual, donors, patients etc., as individual customers with experiences that we need to understand like never before to improve quality and reduce cost.

To quote Paul Harvey..."Now for the rest of the story".....

Customer Experience Management is understanding your customer and their experiences so thoroughly, that you use that information to improve systems, processes, products, services, prices, employee training and other changes to increase brand loyalty, repurchase and customer evangelization.

Marketing Driven Process

This is not a simple marketing ploy. It is about marketing leadership and driving lasting organizational change. If marketing is not involved in your organization in this, then failure will be your outcome. If your marketing department can't do this, then time has arrived for a new marketing department. CEM is not a one size fit all. This is not the flavor of the day. CEM is about lasting organizational change that requires you to become market-driven and customer-driven.

A CEM organizational model can look like this:

Pretty simple really. Very difficult to carry out.

Start with understanding your customer in far more detail than you have ever done before. It is at this point that you need a formal Voice of the Customer (VoC) program. This model requires that you are in constant contact; monitoring your customers continuously all along the touch-points, utilization and purchase process to alert you to things done well and those still needing improvement. Use the experience analysis to identify key internal systems, processes, products and training to meet your customers experiences and expectations. As you improve, you will see higher quality, efficiency and accuracy. That naturally leads to lower operating costs, lower prices, higher level of satisfaction. You retain your customers and prevent leakage to other healthcare providers. Revenue and market share also improve. Then you start again. It is a never ending cycle.

In this model, as you improve systems, processes, products and services etc, you will have lower operating costs which in turn means that you should be lowering your prices. This is a new concept to healthcare, lowering your prices to your customers. It is possible. It is achievable. I doubt that its ever been done, but like all things there is always a first time.

Because you are focusing on the experiences, needs and expectations of the customer, you become an outward focused organization that changes via a controlled process, product and service improvement model to meet your customers expectations. Doesn't matter if it's a physicians, patient, consumer, insurance company, government, Board member etc. It also does not specify what process improvement tool you use, whether that's Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, TCM,CQI, Lean Production etc. Those systems fit very well into this model. The difference is that it starts and ultimately ends with the consumer.

Your challenge and the most difficult, is to identify and discover what your customers expect of you. That requires an honest internal examination and a willingness to talk to your customers to reality check what you think their experience and expectation is. If you don't reality check against your customers, then don't embark on this journey.  You are not all wise and powerful. Time to stop the healthcare imperialism that occurs today.

Next up on the CEM discussion, getting started.

You can continue the conversation with me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, customer experience management, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations, I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Customer/Patient Experience Management Applied to Healthcare Part 2

There are any number of reasons for beginning the Experience Management movement. Many of my readers have more or less begun some type of Customer Experience Management (CEM) or Patient Experience Management (PEM) process. So this post is really for those who still need some prodding in the hospital and health system segment of the healthcare industry and most specialty pharmacies to a large extent.

Consumer Choice of Provider is Based in Experience

In a McKinsey study published in November 2007, McKinsey Quarterly -A Better Hospital Experience, they found that the majority of 2,000 commercial insurance and Medicare patients surveyed would change hospitals to receive a better experience. It was also shown that only 20% of a patients choice is based on the clinical care experience or reputation, 41% is on the nonclinical experience while the remaining 39% is based on doctors recommendation.

The most surprising finding, was that of the 100 physicians also surveyed, that they are often willing to accommodate their patients' request! Doctors will move patients and honor their request for a better experience.

Now if that doesn't get your attention, nothing will. And that was before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. With 34 million consumers coming online to be able to afford healthcare services through the purchase of some type of insurance, they will wield considerable market power.

Disappointing at best, few hospitals, health systems or specialty pharmacies understand or act systemically to understand the patient experience and use that to drive quality and efficiency improvements in their organizations. Most don't even know where to start or who to place in charge of the effort.

Looking for Revenue from Customer/Patient Experience? Try the Business Office.

In a HealthLeaders Media article from October 8, 2010, How to Boost Post-Discharge Revenue, Customer Service, improving the customer/patient experience with the business office can realize cash improvements of 20-30%.

Experience and Service Go Hand-In-Hand.

In the Customer Experience Report North America 2010, Forrester Research found a number of interesting facts. Some of the most interesting:

• Of those who decided to stop using an organization - 73% was due to rude staff; 51% due to unknowledgeable staff; 55% due to issues not resolved in a timely manner.
• 79% of customers who had a negative experience told others.
• 59% of consumers recommend a company because of its service.
• 40% purchase from a competitor because of their reputation for great customer service.

Finally, in the 2007 Operationalizing Customer Intelligence in the Contact Center, Business Communications Review:

• Customer retention increased by 15% year-over-year for best-in-class CEM practitioner; by 1% for industry-average CEM practitioner; 0% for laggards.
• Customer satisfaction increased 19% year-over-year for best-in-class CEM practitioners; 6% for industry -average; 3% for laggards.
• Profits increased 8% year-over-year for best-in-class CEM practitioners; increased 6% industry-average; decreased 8% for laggards.


A healthcare provider's ability to deliver an experience that sets it apart in the eyes of its payers, physicians and consumers/patients from its competitors - traditional and non-traditional - serves to increase their spending and loyalty to the brand.

I can go on and on about the importance of Customer/Patient Experience Management, but you get the point. The healthcare industry needs to awaken to the potential of Customer/Patient Experience Management before 2014 arrives. By then it will be too late.

Next up a proposed model of Customer/Patient Experience Management that will drive quality and cost improvement that I have developed.

You can continue the conversation with me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, customer experience management, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations , I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Customer/Patient Experience Management Applied to Healthcare

Happy New Year everyone. Welcome to 2011 and a new decade!

There is an increasing amount of activity in what healthcare organizations are calling Patient Experience Management (PEM). Patient Experience Management is not a new concept. In reality, it is Customer Experience Management partially applied to healthcare.

Customer Experience Management (CEM) first appeared 13 years ago in an article published by the Harvard Business Review authored by Pine and Gilmore. The concept proposes that by managing the entirety of the customer experience from first contact to purchase or use, that you can move a customer from satisfied to loyal and then from loyal to brand advocate by actively managing the experience. It is based on thoroughly understanding the customer. Essentially end-to-end management of the chain of events that an individual experiences . Since that time CEM has grown and evolved to became an important business requirement.

This is a critically important topic for healthcare. And it's not just about reading an article, thinking you know all about it and start a program. I submit that it is time we begin thinking about individuals not as patients but as customers.

We need to look at CEM not PEM.

The reason for this?

Two-thirds of an individual's interaction with a healthcare provider is as a customer pre and post treatment. Only one-third of their encounter with you is as a patient during treatment.

Let me repeat.......

Two-thirds of an individual's interaction with a healthcare provider is as a customer pre and post treatment. Only one-third of their encounter with you is as a patient during treatment.

A healthcare provider's ability to deliver an experience that sets it apart in the eyes of its payers, physicians and consumers/patients from its competitors - traditional and non-traditional - serves to increase their spending and loyalty to the brand.

CEM actively manages the customer experience in total by understanding the customer's point of view. That is, all touch points internally and externally that a customer comes in contact with which in turn creates the experience. PEM looks at only one aspect of the exchange and interaction. That which occurs internally when a customer is a patient. It does not consider all of a consumer/patient's cross channel exposure, interactions and transactions with the healthcare provider.

CEM requires you to see the "patient" as an individual customer with distinct needs and expectations that is developed across the organization externally and internally. It requires a complete and thorough understanding of all customers, their needs and expectations.

This is just the first in a series on Customer Experience Management. Healthcare namely hospitals and other direct care providers have done the Total Quality Management, Continuous Quality Improvement, Lean Management, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, Built to Last, In Search of Excellence, etc. All good systems, all good approaches but for one reason or another have come up short in healthcare. We still have the same cost and quality issues when this all started years ago.

Now maybe it's time we started to focus on the customer, their needs and expectations to grow profitably.

In the next posting we will look at some examples in other industries where CEM is being successfully deployed.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, customer experience management, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations , I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Healthcare Marketing Resolutions for 2011

It has been a most interesting healthcare year. One filled with great change by the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, large fraud settlements along with the usually ethical and moral failures, mergers, acquisitions and the glimmer of an economic recovery. There is optimistic hope for the future.

Enough said as all the major healthcare publications run their year-end retrospectives, tops tens, best and worst…. well, you get the idea.

So before I going to much further, I would like to extend a most sincere wish for a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers around the world. Readership of Healthcare Marketing Matters has increased greatly over this past year to over a 1,000 page views a month and read daily world-wide. I hope that you have found these writings to be informative, maybe even educational and occasionally irreverent. But most of all, thank you for reading and commenting.

So my last Healthcare Marketing Matters blog for 2010 is about New Year Marketing Resolutions. My own Top 10 list that you might consider as well.

10. I will educate my organization about the value of my department and work. I will lead and prove my departments ROI.

9. I will continue to scan other industries for their marketing successes. I will learn about them, adapt them to my industry, and implement successfully.

8. I will continue my marketing education through webinars, seminars and conferences. There is always something new on the horizon to learn.

7. I will integrate my traditional, online and social marketing strategies. All are complementary to one another and drive multiple successes.

6. I will innovate, discover the needs of my customers and drive consistent brand messaging.

5. I will foster a spirit of and demand marketing excellence. Good enough is not good enough. I owe nothing less to my organization and my customers.

4. Brand is my religion. I will be a brand zealot and show what the brand promise, brand reputation and brand equity mean to my organization in revenue terms.

3. I will stop using the words "unique", "state-of-the-art", and anything that is considered "buzz word" terminology in my marketing communications. Unique can be duplicated easily, "state-of-the-art" refers to yesterday's systems as things change so fast and "buzz words" quickly fall out of favor.


2. I will bridge the divide between sales and marketing and in doing so, together we will drive value, customer satisfaction and create customer evangelists all the while reaching new revenue heights.


1. I will serve and be humble, giving credit where credit is due and not repeat the mistakes of the past.


See you in what will be a most interesting 2011 when the writing resumes. Until then, a safe and Happy Holiday Season to you all!

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
 Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations, I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Using QR Codes in Healthcare Marketing

Have you ever considered using Quick Response(QR)Codes in your healthcare marketing? Do you even know what a QR Code is?

For those who may be unfamiliar with QR codes, they were developed by Toyota subsidiary Denso-Wave in 1994 for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing. It is called QR Code for Quick Response Code because it is intended for its content to be decoded at high-speed. The QR Code is a two-dimensional code consisting of black modules arranged in a square on white background. It is readable by QR scanners, mobile phones with a camera and smartphones. QR Code™ is a registered trademark of Denso Wave Incorporated.

QR Codes are used with regularity in marketing in most other parts of the world.  The U. S. lags in use.

Its About Convenience

This is really a convenience application aimed at mobile phone users. And I think it has great application for use in the healthcare industry. Mobile-tagging as it is called, provides you the ability to communicate information to a user, be it the URL to your website or micro site, phone number of an account representative, display text or used to compose an email or text message. The QR Code can be placed in newspaper ads, magazines, billboards, buses, direct mail, email messages, web sites, blogs , in just about any medium you can think of.

Immediate Response for Return on Marketing Investment

Now instead of asking someone to dial a number, go to a web site, your QR Code in whatever medium you are using can be scanned immediately with the users phone or a QR scanner and the information accessed. It could be connecting the users phone to a wireless network and placing the call. It could be to a web site or specific page or even find-a-doc. You can measure the effects of your campaign immediately.

QR Codes are free and can be generated by any number of sites on the web. I used Google to find a site and randomly picked delivr. The QR Code for this blog was generated at delivr. It is very easy to create your own QR Code and took less than 30 seconds.

For example, below is the QR Code for my blog:


It contains the URL to get you here. I can now place this on business cards, emails, text messages, ads, any medium really to direct traffic to my site. Scan and go. Literally no waiting. No typing in an address. Nor waiting till I get home to use the computer or find a wifi hot spot for the laptop. Naturally, a users smart phone needs the app but those are readily available and free as well. You may want to include a QR Code reader app on you web site for mobile phone users with smartphones to download if they do not have one. Some smartphones using the Android operating system already have the app. Point the phones camera, take the picture, use the app. That all it takes.

QR Codes are known as a physical world hyperlink or in my world, PWH for short.

Of course there are message size limits and variants called Micro QR Codes which are essentially smaller versions of the standard QR Code applications. I am not going to delve into any more detail of this because so much information is available on the web and easily understood that you can do this yourself.

So as 2010 begins to come to a close, start looking at how applications in other industries can kick-start your 2010 healthcare marketing to another level and increase your customers convenience for using you, your products, your services, generating revenue and strengthening your brand.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations , I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

Using Healthcare Focused Webinars to Drive Revenue

Recently, I have been seeing a large amount of advertising directing individuals to come to a hospital or physicians office, clinic etc., at a specific date and time, usually at the physicians or clinicians convenience, for a health and wellness program.

That is so 1990s.

In this day and age, with internet savvy audiences and patients who are networked to the web, social media, information and such, it seems silly that most healthcare providers would continue to offer only one way for individuals to access health and wellness programs. If you're not using webinars, then you're not meeting your customers needs.

And it's pretty easy to do.

Using WebEx, Talk Ready, Go To Meeting for example, a 30-45 minute health and wellness seminar can be given on a day and tme more convenient for your audience. They can be recorded and archived on your web site for consumer play back at anytime of their choosing. You now begin to build up a library of self-generated health information that is branded to your organization, contains your key messages and promotes a specific service line or targeted capability.

Think about the possibilities for reaching out to employers this way as well. A webinar directed at Human Resource professionals in local companies.

For Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), a way to keep in constant contact with your members providing targeted health information.

For hospital physician relationships a way to hold a department meetings or offer CEU program that can be more convenient.

For the media and local press, a way to hold a press conference or announce a new service or technological application when they say their not coming on site.

The possibilities really are endless. Your imagination is your only limit here.

Okay, you can't do wellness screens this way, but it could be used to drive volume to the screens as a follow-up to the webinar.

Return on Marketing Investment

This strategy and tactic is designed to capture downstream volume and revenue. Let's face it, initially there is little return on a webinar. It's the post webinar relationship management and communication activities that bring the return. By capturing a webinars attendees information, you now have actionable data on which to design more effective marketing and communication programs. Mass marketing that is individualized. You can create a relationship that is more meaningful because it is based on their needs. You're building a customer database for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and loyalty programs.

So, its 2010 and change in healthcare is accelerating and will only continue to do so. Time to expand your arsenal of strategy, tactics, tools and techniques to build relationships, loyalty, volume and revenue.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations , I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.

The Changing Role of Healthcare Marketing

Much has changed in 2010. One could say a titanic shift that has created a tsunami that is in its early stages of being felt. With that in mind, it begs the question of what is, or will be the role of healthcare marketing going forward?

Healthcare reform simply will not be repealed. Adjustments will be made and the legal challenges will continue to be filed for several years, but overall repeal is a distant dream of the far conservative right. Despite the public pronouncements, a significant amount of money in the billions of dollars in future revenue and earnings is at stake for all the players to allow for regression.

In a time where the majority of individuals and families have some form of health insurance, I believe that marketing will have a role to play that is much different and more important than today. In an age of healthcare consumerism with patients controlling their health information, (and yes individual health information is the property of the patient, not of the doctor, not of the hospital, not of any healthcare provider), marketing needs to take on a significant role in the life of the healthcare organization beyond the traditional communication activities.

Marketing healthcare organizations contrary to a popular myth, is not any different from what occurs in other industries. It is similar to the conceptual myth of not-for-profits. There is no such thing as a not-for-profit. There are legally defined tax-exempt organizations, but no not-for-profits. I digress, for that is a topic for another day.

Many of the traditional marketing activities will continue as well as the new social media and online marketing. Those won't go away, but will become more highly integrated, brand strengthening and value driven across service lines.

Understand that I am not talking about pharma, medical device manufacturers, insurance companies, suppliers and retailers moving into the healthcare space. They get it. They understand the power and importance of marketing. This is for all the other healthcare providers that are still trying to operate like its 1990.

The Expanded Healthcare Marketing Role:

Marketing Leadership

Moving from the manager or director level to the VP senior manger level. Marketing is strategy first, tactics second. The voice of marketing should reflect the voice of your customers and not be a second thought. Your future programs and services will be determined by the needs of the market, not your gut feeling. You cannot become a customer-driven or market-driven organization if the skills and experiences of marketing is not at the leadership table.

Managing the Patient Experience

Managing the patient experience. If anyone is prepared to understand and mange the patient experience across the organization it's marketing. Hospitals in particular are making the mistake of putting operations in charge of patient experience. This is an oxymoron really. For the most part Ops can't get a discharge process together in less than 3 or 4 hours. How can you expect them to manage the patient experience? Patient experience means just that- understanding what that patient experiences is at all touch points. And then changing or managing that experience to its fullest potential for the benefit of the patient and the organization. Patient experience is an integrating process across the entire organization internally and externally. One organization to the patient, one patient to the organization. It is not simply another quality program or flavor of the day.

Understanding and Executing Demand Management

The hospital is no longer the center of the healthcare universe. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is designed to keep people out of the hospital. You can actually see a hospital admission as a defect in the process of care. Marketing needs to understand what the demand for healthcare services will be, when they will be needed and manage that demand making sure that the hospital or health system has the right resources, in the right place, at the right time to meet demand. Gone are the days where marketing departments will be driving demand to fill hospital beds. They will drive demand to the appropriate place and location of service.

Becoming a Revenue Marketer and Having Revenue Accountability

Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) is necessary for anything marketing accomplishes, traditionally, socially or online. Marketers in healthcare organizations need to become revenue producers, not resource consumers that show little value beyond, it looks nice. In fact, marketing should have P&L as well as an SG&A accountability for many of the products and services being offered by a healthcare organization.

Marketing the Manager of Change

Who better in an organization than for marketing to manage the healthcare organizations transformation from an inward-focused it's all about me, to an outward-focused market and consumer driven organization? Open to much debate, this is probably the most controversial look at the expanding role of marketing. Individual who have looked internally at their organizations all of their careers, do not necessarily have the skills, training or abilities to change an organization 180 degrees. And that is the type of change we are talking about here.

The future of healthcare holds great challenges and opportunities. Time for proactive change instead of reactive change. Clocks ticking and you're being left behind.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

Michael Krivich is a senior healthcare marketing executive and internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger read daily in over 20 countries around the world. A Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives as well as a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association, he can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471 for hiring as your senior marketing executive , for interim assignments in all aspects of healthcare marketing whether it be strategic or tactical market planning, rebuilding and revitalizing your existing marketing operation, integration of sales and marketing teams, media relations or service line revitalizations. Huthwaite SPIN selling trained and a Miller Heiman Strategic Selling alumni, both highly respected and successful international sales training organizations , I can lead your organization though the challenge of integrating sales and marketing.