Healthcare businesses are often left off of the traditional business table. This makes sense, in a way, as healthcare services aren’t usually seen as money making entities out to turn a profit. However, starting up a healthcare business of your own – whether a clinic, pharmacy, or research department – requires turning a profit and attracting investment to stay afloat.
But with little support for newly qualified medical professionals looking to make a difference, maintaining a successful healthcare business becomes quite the challenge. The number of privately owned, community focused surgical practices gets lower and lower each year, and many healthcare entrepreneurs don’t know what to do to improve their business strategy.
So how can a brand new, up and coming healthcare practice set themselves apart and prove their staying power? By investing in their customer service. Customer service, or bedside manner, is crucial to any and all healthcare companies. When you’re directly dealing with people in need of medical care – and sometimes life saving medical care – offering an empathetic, understanding, and informed service will bring them back time and time again.
Here are a few ways a healthcare practice can institute good customer service techniques and use them to make a difference to their patient base. If your reputation soars as a result of the care you provide, your profit margins will look healthy for years to come.
Every Patient Has Their Own Distinct Needs
No two patients are the same. Treating them in the same manner each and every time can be a mistake. Every patient has a right to the same level of service as everyone else, but it’s best to allow for small yet important differences in face to face treatment.
After all, some patients are nervous and may need extra time or a chaperone. Some patients may want to get things over and done with and don’t want to hang around. Some patients may be at their wit’s end in seeking out a diagnosis, and treating these cases with care and dignity is essential to retaining their custom.
Patients Prefer to Feel Heard and Respected
It might seem like the most obvious thing to point out, but many a healthcare practice can forget this during their years of service. It’s not always a malicious thing – issues like alarm fatigue are pervasive and build up over time – but patients may not always feel this way about the treatment they receive when under your care.
To them, a rude doctor is a rude doctor. If patients complain that they’re not being taken seriously, or that they’re being talked down to, it’s essential to investigate. It’s unlikely that their attending physician really meant any harm, but long days and overwhelming amounts of patients can cause your staff to become brusk and dismissive.
Training staff members in sensitivity can help to combat these reactions. If you receive more than one report of a bedside manner like this, it could even be a sign your practice is understaffed.
Taking Stock of a Whole Person Means You’re Less Likely to Miss a Diagnosis
Known as the holistic approach, this is a core part of customer service in the healthcare world. When you take stock of a patient’s whole life and habits, you’re far less likely to miss something during the diagnosis stage.
Amongst other things, you can take into account someone’s diet and level of exercise, how much sleep they get, whether they’re outdoorsy or a homebody, their daily water intake, and their emotional state and how they handle their stress, which will help to form a view of the whole person.
Extracting crucial medical details from patients is made much easier thanks to holistic approaches. It also makes the patient feel seen and heard, just like we mentioned in the point above.
Patients are More Likely to Follow Treatment Programs
Good customer service means your staff are present, involved, and explain things in clear and simple terms to the patients they’re serving. Because of this, patients in turn are much more likely to follow the treatment plans assigned to them.
They feel like they were part of the process of developing one, they know why they need to do what you’re recommending, and they understand both the benefits and side effects of any medication you prescribe.
This clarity shouldn’t end at face to face contact either. Make sure your patient always has a clear idea about what to do when you’re not around, especially in cases of accidents and emergencies.
Send them away with a print out of their treatment plan, recommend apps that can provide advice and support, and use medication adherence packaging to help customers take tablets at the right times throughout the day.
And these are just a few things you can do via customer service to ensure your patients feel cared for, informed, and like you’re doing your best for them.
Patients Always Know Their Rights
With a strong customer service ethic, patients are always going to know and understand their rights while under your care. The medical world can be scary, to both children and adults alike, and even just knowing you’re allowed to refuse a test you don’t want makes accessing healthcare much less intimidating.
If a patient knows their rights, and you go the extra mile to ensure they’re informed about giving consent to medical procedures, they’re going to feel like they’re in caring, responsible hands. If a patient can trust you, they’re going to recommend you, and soon become a long term entry on the patient roster.
Word of Mouth Marketing is Perfect for a Healthcare Business
Healthcare marketing is a pretty specialist thing. It can be hard to advertise your services as a new clinic or pharmacy without sounding generic. It can also be difficult to find the right platform to advertise on.
Word of mouth marketing bridges this gap. It also is the one form of marketing that solely depends on how well someone has been treated, rather than the quality of the product they spent money on.
Good customer service leads to plenty of word of mouth referrals. Patients will recommend you to friends and family because they know you’re the kind of practitioner who truly cares.
You’ll Build a Strong Referral Network
It’s unlikely you’ll always be able to help patients. Some may have further diagnostic needs that cannot be assessed in-house, and thus you may need to refer them to other clinics or practices in the area.
This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s a chance to build a strong referral network. Don’t worry – this isn’t a case of losing out on custom. With good customer service skills, you’ll still be seen as a worthy first port of call.
But with a strong referral network, you’ll always have somewhere you can send a patient. Referral networks are a safety net. Your staff won’t feel like they cannot help and patients are less likely to feel forced into getting unnecessary, ‘useless’ tests that feel like a waste of time.
Indeed, this saves money and time on both sides, and even with your own extensive testing tools and treatments on offer, you can provide patients with a choice that works for them. People like to know that a lack of options in one practice doesn’t mean the end of the line for them.
Your Staff Will Always Have Access to Training
Training for customer service isn’t a one time thing. It’s something you can routinely invest in for your staff year after year. This means you’re always up to date on best customer service practices, and in the medical world, you always know the latest statistics on patient opinions.
Regular customer service training for any and all members of your healthcare practice can make a difference to your patients. Find a quality provider and you may even be able to obtain discounts on the courses, seeing as you’re planning to become a regular.
But even if you can’t, making annual investments into a program that’s been tailor made for doctors, nurses, consultants, assistants, and receptionists is never a waste of time or money.
Each level of the patient interface carries a sense of responsibility and authority with it, and the more your staff are equipped with skills that make them approachable and helpful, the faster your patient list will grow.
Customer Service in the Healthcare World: What You Need to Remember
Poor customer service can break a healthcare practice. Well refined, high quality customer service, on the other hand, will make it.
If you want to set up a medical business and see it become a success over time, invest in your staff’s training, your approach to diagnosis, and consistently impressing patients with your bedside manner.
All kinds of people from all walks of life, with all kinds of needs, are going to come into your practice. Applying specific customer service practices to each and every one will ensure they feel respected when under your care.
