One of the most powerful form of marketing has always been and probably will always be word of mouth. Still now majority of the clinics and hospitals around the global are getting new patients via Word of mouth. No other marketing can compete with a personal recommendation from a family member or a trusted friend. So, to stay competitive, healthcare organisations should think about ways to improve their word of mouth referrals among their patients. How do you encourage your existing patients to share about your organisation, yourself, the treatment they have received, the overall patient experience, or just about anything positive that they noticed about you or your organization. Here are few ways to get them talking.

Make sure the patient experience is remarkable

Patient experience simply means a range of interactions that your patient has with the healthcare organisation, from people to processes.  You need to make sure the patient experience is exceptional to spread the word about you. When we say experience right from your website design, online appointment, sms reminder for appointment scheduling, clinic visit, treatment explanation, treatment performed on the patient, follow-up, aftercare and even accounting. It is to be noted that 90% of the patients who are fully satisfied with their billing process would recommend the organisation. So you need to make sure that you hire the right staffs who would provide the same level of care as you provide because many healthcare organization receiving poor response because of reception disengagement with patients over via call and direct walk in. You need to make sure your staff are trained adequately to answer the phone calls politely, greet all your patients with a beautiful smile, return phone calls in a timely manner and exhibit compassion in the exam room.

Go above and beyond “Expectational Patient Care”

When a patient experience something exceptional, the urge to share the experience is triggered. Meeting Patient’s expectations or moderately impressing them isn’t going to be a topic of discussion when they get back home or when having dinner with their friends. A research shows that physical & nonverbal statements in the organisation are the most powerful in triggering a conversation with their friend and family. Below are few nonverbal ideas that might increase the expectation with patients:

• Try something unique and notable in your waiting room: like having a dedicated free snacks and coffee station, unique toys that engages your patients, exceptional artwork, providing free wifi, a couple of easy chairs, patient awareness videos via TV, Patient admission card like debit cards and Books etc.

• Having high-end towels, soaps, tissues etc. at your restrooms and waiting halls.

• Offering a unique high-end basket of toys and stickers for patient who bring a child with them for their appointments (provided if your practice suits the type)

• Outfitting the reception table with high end products, like top of the line iMacs and iPad. Allowing patients to filling their paperwork on an iPad rather than traditional pen and paper.

• Providing patients with well designed & high-quality prints and patient folders stocked with necessary papers, information on the service you have recommended, directions of post-operative care etc. The idea is that they have something physical to take back with them and refer to later.

Keeping in touch with your patients regularly

How do you trigger your past patients to send referrals? A patient from 3 years ago probably will not be actively talking about your clinic unless you remind them about the results from your service. This is where sms and mailing comes to play. Sending SMS and Email to the patient regularly in the form of birthday wishes, festival wishes, monthly newsletter, periodic check-up reminders etc can boost your word of mouth referrals.

Make it easy for the patients to refer you.

If you want your patients to refer you to their friends and family, you need to make it easy for them to do so. In today’s digital world once a patient refers you to their friends or family, the new patient would immediately search for your clinic or the doctor name online. Patient research doctors on google business listing, Healthcare website, social media account etc before deciding which doctor to call. So, join the conversation and make it easy for the patients to share your info. If you have any difficulty in positioning yourself on online, we at Harvee Health care are ready to help you out.

Do you need more marketing tips? For more on the latest marketing strategies for your healthcare clinic, please feel free to contact us! We would love to talk more about the same and helping your get the most out of your marketing.