Focusing on the needs of the weight loss patients you serve is one of the most effective ways to build customer loyalty and grow your practice.
Customer obsession is not a new concept, but it is a critical differentiating factor for successful companies in competitive markets such as the weight loss industry. Customer obsession is essentially an intense focus on understanding exactly what your ideal patients want and need so that you can create an exceptional customer experience that exceeds their expectations. As a result, you provide the greatest value possible for them and become their top choice over all other options. Do this well, and competition can become a thing of the past so you can focus on what is most important — positive patient outcomes, business stability and a high degree of personal satisfaction for everyone involved.
Customer-centric businesses have proven to be more successful and, in some cases, 60 percent more profitable than companies that do not focus on the needs of their clients.1 It is the basis for the skyrocketing growth of companies such as Amazon and influences customer purchasing decisions in nearly every industry — including health care.
Even if you have always been obsessed with the needs of your patients, due to the pandemic, it is more important now than ever before. Irreversible changes have occurred that you have likely already experienced. People want convenience, real time response, customized care, digital care options, online ordering, and varied care delivery choices such as telehealth or in person visits. Bottom line, any ‘new normal’ will not resemble pre-pandemic times.
Benefits of Customer Obsession
Customer obsession does not mean you lose control over the care you provide. On the contrary, it empowers you to offer your valuable expertise, services and products in a way that is desired by the clientele you most want to serve. This builds their trust and loyalty along with creating a higher patient lifetime value for your practice.
Bottom line, from a sales perspective, customer obsession helps you design irresistible offers for your services, programs and products driving sales higher. This is because you not only know what your patients need — you know exactly what they want. Follow through by over-delivering on your promise with outstanding customer service and you can experience exponential business (and profitability) growth! A few other benefits of customer obsession include:
- Team alignment and understanding regarding the importance of providing quality care, outstanding customer service and ensuring excellent patient outcomes.
- Higher degree of joy and satisfaction for you, your team and your patients.
- Lower team turnover.
- Fewer patient complaints due to a proactive customer service model.
- Better patient and team engagement.
- More testimonials, patient referrals and positive patient reviews.
- Less need for paid advertising.
- Easier sales process resulting in more revenue and a higher number of repeat sales.
This may seem unattainable, but can become your reality when you integrate patient centric decision making and have the right value driven team on board.
How to Incorporate Customer Obsession Strategies into Your Practice
Your ultimate goal is to create a culture that supports anticipating patient needs while turning them into loyal ambassadors of your practice. Here are a few ways to make this happen in your practice:
Make Sure Your Entire Team Understands the Importance of a Customer Focus.
Customer obsession cannot be assumed. It must be a clear expectation and addressed even before a new team member is hired. For current team members, a clear discussion regarding what customer obsession is and their role must occur. Modeling customer focus behavior, repeated messaging and integration into employee reviews will help keep your team in alignment with this focus. Recognize excellent customer focus behaviors right away and as often as possible. As a result, customer focus becomes an integral part of your practice culture.
Get to Know Everything You Can About Your Ideal Patients & Request their Feedback.
Identify some ‘ideal’ patients you have enjoyed working with that had a great outcome. List everything you can about them — demographics, purchases, where they hang out online, how they like to learn and communicate and everything in between. Ask for their feedback about your practice. What they liked most and why, what they liked least and why, what they wish you offered but don’t and any other recommended improvements. Use this as a baseline for understanding what is working well and the gaps that need to be addressed for near 100 percent satisfaction.
Imagine Your Ideal Patient When You Create Anything for Your Practice.
Once you have a clear picture of your ideal customer, keep that top of mind in everything you do. Become obsessed with the clients you serve and build your social media posts, marketing campaigns, patient education topics/delivery system, blogs, webinars, nutritional product choices, care delivery systems and standard operating procedures around what they like the most. Don’t be afraid to also include what you know they need now and in the future. Thus, anticipating their needs before they even realize what that may be. This is a great way to exceed their expectations and create an additional “wow” factor.
Seek Feedback, Tweak as Necessary and Involve Your Team.
Continuously strive to improve by seeking patient feedback, making changes as necessary and including your team in creating your ideal patient experience and sales offers. A customer focused team will begin to do this automatically and come up with the best ideas. Give them permission to handle patient concerns before they become a complaint. This empowers your team to continue to improve and serve with confidence.
Over time, you can actually create an ideal customer description for various levels or types of services you offer. They are attracted to what you uniquely offer, they want what you offer, they are a good fit for what you offer, they repeatedly purchase what you offer and become a loyal advocate for your practice. This is possible and I encourage you and your team to be customer obsessed if you aren’t already so you can experience the benefits firsthand.
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For 45 years, Robard Corporation’s medical obesity treatment programs and products have been utilized by physicians, surgeons and hospitals across the United States to successfully treat patients living with obesity. To learn more about us and how we can help your practice and patients, visit us online at www.Robard.com.