The Voice of the Customer Is Getting Louder
How to make the shift from transactions to relationships
// By Jared Johnson //
Health care is really good at creating transactions, but not so good at creating relationships. Today’s consumers are frustrated at health care brand experiences that fail to meet their expectations. Visionary health care organizations are listening more and more to the voice of the digital customer to prioritize and focus efforts to address those frustrations.
Rob Klein, founder and CEO of Klein & Partners, recently spoke with us and shared key insights from ongoing primary consumer research that describes how digital teams can improve their brand experiences.
eHST: What are consumers telling you about how to improve their brand experiences with health care organizations?
Rob Klein, founder and CEO of Klein & Partners
RK: Time is the new currency for consumers. All the research I’m doing indicates that consumers place a premium on time, and they can’t get enough of it. They will pay for time savings. And unfortunately, health care does a good job of stealing time away from consumers.
For instance, we tend to think that the only out-of-pocket health care costs are whatever’s in the health plan — a consumer’s deductible, co-pay, etc. But consider that many more people are on hourly pay now since the recession in 2008. When we make them travel and then sit for two to three hours for an appointment, many people have to clock out of work. So they are not only paying out of pocket from their insurance for the visit, but they’re also losing an hourly wage that they’ll never get back. That’s another reason why people are avoiding care or looking for places to get in and out quicker.
Virtual care is another staple of time savings. If you’re just thinking about a virtual care strategy, you are years behind where you need to be. It’s quickly becoming a must have versus a nice to have.