When Was the Last Time You Thanked a Patient?

Sick-care institutions and practitioners are looking to engage patients, in part, to improve outcomes. However, a more bottom-line reason is that engagement builds loyalty and loyal patient/customers stick with you. Unfortunately, given the vagaries of sick-care insurance and market dynamics, patient/customer loyalty is dropping.

To counter this, maybe you should try saying thank you to patients more often.

A recent HBR blog suggests that gratitude trumps loyalty, and that it needs to be reciprocal, it is about emotion first, and that gratitude—a readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness—creates loyalty.

According to new research from Kitewheel, sick-care marketers have significant opportunities to create patient/customer loyalty. Kitewheel writes:

• “Real-time eCommerce presents a huge opportunity for brands, as 91 percent of consumers feel an ‘in the moment’ offer might influence their purchase. Yet only 32 percent of marketers have the tools in place to deliver upon this ‘real-time’ promise in practice, with most offers arriving too late to make an impact.

• “Three-quarters (76 percent) of consumers use mobile devices to compare prices and read reviews while shopping, yet 51 percent of marketers are not currently managing mobile apps as a consumer touch point. Additionally, 55 percent of consumers state frustrations in downloading an app that offers no functional difference from a business’ website.

• “Sixty-eight percent of consumer respondents expect a response to tweets directed at a brand, and one in three expect a response within 24 hours. Yet 45 percent of marketers state it is unlikely that their company can respond to every one of these social media opportunities.

• “Nearly three-quarters of consumers (73 percent) believe that loyalty programs should be a way for brands to show consumers how loyal they are to them as a customer; but two-thirds (66 percent) of marketers still see it the other way around.”

Part of your digical care strategy should be using Internet tools to engage patients and express authentic gratitude to build loyalty and repair what has become a fractured doctor-patient relationship.

Thank you for reading this. I appreciate your taking the time to do so and hope you enjoy the other articles I will be sending you.