Strengthening Your Relationship with Patients Using Timely Emails

Posted on December 9, 2019 in General

Strengthening Your Relationship with Patients Using Timely Emails

It was always the same scenario when it came to the patient, satisfaction level, and physician-patient relationship. People chose a family doctor and referred him/her to everyone. Even when faced with unsatisfied experience, they would keep going back to the same clinic, to the same doctor.  It was a relationship built upon years and years of trust.

Times have changed since then.

Today’s generation only cares about quality, getting the best results, and the place where they get the best of both. If you fail to deliver the best, they’ll move on to someone, perhaps your competitors, who meet all their requirements. And that’s just how you lose business.

But in today’s healthcare industry, no one has the time to nitpick on the smaller stuff.

Bad Customer Experience Costs You Money

The answer is actually quite simple because good patient experience counts for repeating business, which results in 17% to 27% of the variance in any hospital’s financial measurement.

To state it simply, any hospital’s earning, net revenue, and assets return, among many other measurements, are affected by patients’ perception of quality. For every patient lost because of negative word of mouth, a hospital, clinic, or any healthcare provider can lose from $6,000 to $400,000 over that patient’s lifetime.

Expectations of Today’s Patients

In this age of Uber and online grocery ordering, customers want everything instantly, and they want more of it. This instant gratification from all service providers is turning the norm of the service delivery expectation. However, this ‘on-demand’ expectation from all healthcare providers is completely unrealistic.

But it does make the healthcare providers pay more attention to patient satisfaction. A patient who is more satisfied with his/her experience is more likely to adhere strictly to their treatment plans. Satisfied patients are more than willing to maintain a relationship with their healthcare providers over the long haul. This translates to reduced hospital stays, lower readmission rates, and overall reduced burdens on the healthcare system.

Strengthening Your Relationship with Patients

Healthcare providers don’t have to give in to the patients growing demand for quick fixes, but it does mean that healthcare providers need to be more focused on patient satisfaction levels today.

Nothing allows you a more focused, narrowed, and direct approach to the target market than digital media. Realizing this growing need of attention to good customer relationship management, there are a number of medical CRM software that can help you maintain a good relationship, all the while boosting your business.

Regardless of whether you want to outsource your CRM or not, it is undeniable that you need to strengthen your relationship with your patients.

Stay Connected

To build a strong customer relationship, you need to stay connected with your patients. The more effective your communication with your patients, the more retention and patient understanding you’ll witness.

Did you know humans have a shorter attention span than a goldfish? Any medical information you tell your patient, 40% to 80%, will be forgotten immediately, and half of the information they do remember is incorrect. It only further stresses the importance of clear, repeated, and effective communication.

Using Emails to Deliver Value to Patients

One of the best ways to stay connected with your patients is through email. It is an instrument that is in reach of half the population of the world and is only expected to increase to 4.3 billion by 2023. According to recent studies, the combined revenue of all segments of email marketing will total to $7.3 billion by 2023 year-end. Why would any business not make use of a marketing channel like that?

Emailing can be used in medical CRM as a tool for communicating with physicians, enhancing interpersonal relationships, and appointment regulations, among many others. Not only is it profitable in communicating effectively, but also a big help in cost-cutting. Every dollar spent on email marketing produces $38 ROI.

At this point, you realize you have a great tool to deliver value to your customers. The question that arises now is what you are going to send them in these emails.

Healthcare Facilities:

You can’t possibly expect all your customers to know all of the facilities you have to offer. Customers, in most cases, only look for a particular service when they need it. In a state of emergency, patients pick the first option that comes their way. But if they already know that you offer the exact service they need, they will contact you for it.  Therefore, you can send your patients emails from time to time to let them know about the facilities your healthcare business has to offer.

You might want to learn a few things from eCommerce businesses here. They are actively collecting email addresses from their customers and persistent in the way they promote their new launches, offers, and discounts. Of course, persistence should not turn into interruption and annoyance. However, a certain level of adamant attitude is somewhat necessary for today’s businesses to stay visible and memorable to their customers. Don’t forget that your customers require at least five to seven impressions before they can even remember your brand.

While banner ads, video commercials, etc. are great tools for creating those impressions, their effect is never as personalized and memorable as that of an email. Do not forget that an email is personal to a customer. There is nothing personal about an ad appearing in the middle of a video or while browsing a website.

Special Offers for New Customers:

The patients who visit you for the first time fill out the paperwork with their names and email addresses. Chances of them walking back again are 50-50 depending on the service they receive. Before their appointed visit date, emails containing special offers can build a good customer relationship before it even starts. Being one step ahead in the game will do wonders for your business.

You can also send emails to your existing customers, offering them special discounts on every new patient that comes to you from their referrals. You can never underestimate the importance of referrals no matter which business you are in. Did you know the lifetime value of a referred customer is 16% higher than that of the customer from any other marketing channel? Yes, when you are in the medical/healthcare business, lifetime value is exactly what you have to target.

Discounts on Treatments for Existing Customers:

Regular monthly emails containing a small portion of discounts to your existing patients will help build customer loyalty. Not only will they make regular monthly visits to your location, but they will also look forward to receiving emails from you every month, increasing the click-through ratings.

A Year-End Review of Their Visits and the Health Outcome:

This is a more complex and customized approach, but it is also one that could get you the most response. If the patients are following a particular treatment, then emailing them, their achievements can show how much you care for them. This could easily be handled with CRM Softwares that maintain patient records. Make them feel better, and they will never look at any other alternative for their treatments.

Share Stories of the Events That Transpired during  the Year:

Another easy way to deliver that personalized and customized feeling to your patients is by sending them creative stories of the events that happened throughout the year at your end. Show the readers how those events were a result of you trying to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction.

For this exact reason, some medical CRM systems like MDprospects, offer specialized email marketing services. You can also use these email services to improve communication between your team, improve staff satisfaction, and patient care.

Other methods to improve customer relationships are to utilize information technology designed especially for doctor-patient relationship management. Medical CRM focused on building relationships like these offer services such as live chat, 2-way texting, and appointment scheduling.

Customer Satisfaction – Your Number One Priority  

When you focus more on a customer-driven business, then it is best to deliver quality that you promised in the most risk-free way. Let’s be honest. Does your team know what to say when responding to online leads? Or do they know what was being marketed? This disconnect can cost you conversions, which in turn will cost you much more business.

Taking advantage of a medical CRM like MDprospect will help you do all this and more by keeping better track of your processes and offering you more powerful ways of marketing. An A+ software, when coupled with a trained team, will give you a more magnified ROI than ever before.

To learn more about the customer experience and how MDprospects can help, schedule a demo today, or contact us using the form below.