The government has initiated many development plans in India targeted at Tier 2 and 3 Cities for BPO / IT services. This would mean an influx of large number of high worth professionals from the cities to these towns and a few professionals returning to their native towns as work from home is also becoming a reality. A large number of the traditional small hospitals and nursing homes are not equipped enough to handle them.

Customer value perceptions and expectations are different. Some of the services such as surgery have high credence attributes (fear of the unknown) and benchmarks are often set using alternative or best known standards. Success of services also depends on the extend of client participation. Over participation can also play a spoilsport at times.

Take a look at this scenario

• Out patient registration process was seamless
• The rooms were clean
• Toilets did not stink
• Canteen served excellent health meals
• The surgeon was brilliant
• The nurses were courteous
• The patient recovered in no time..
• Value for money all the way
• A smiling patient and relatives

The discharge paperwork processing took almost a day. Which upset everything

A hospital is like a performing arts theatre.

• The backstage comprises of accounts, stores, engineering, maintenance etc
• The actors are the doctors, surgeons, pharmacists, nurses and even the cleaner.
• The audience would comprise of patients and bystanders.

Each of the patient touch point need to be rehearsed for minimal errors and unpleasant experiences. Some of these patient touch points have high risks associated with failure. There is a need to have backup or escalation plans. The longer the wait period the higher would be the associated risks. for eg., communicating to the patient about possible delays in an outpatient like or X-ray department could help in most cases. There are exceptions.. the jaywalker would still be hard to handle.

WOM marketing is important to build customer loyalty, although it is not a measure of satisfaction. It would also mean non availability of better services in your vicinity.

Patient satisfaction survey is one way of measuring whether hospitals meet the expectations of customers. There are industry standards such as servqual to measure service satisfaction. The younger generation of patients have international exposure could be demanding and concerned about every aspect of the service being provided. Tolerance levels for some of these attributes do matter as well.

• Smelly toilet due to poor housekeeping could mean nothing to some
• Well dressed front office staff might impress many
• Rude pharmacist's behavior might be ignored
• Billing for services not used will not be tolerated

In 90% of the cases it is the last touch point which causes the maximum damage. Having well oiled and seamless information systems in place is a must for small and medium sized doctor owned hospitals to survive in emerging tier 2 /3 cities.

• Enabling seamless customer experience through simple procedures
• Measurement of performance of people and departments
• Controlling of costs in various departments
• Measurement of cost reduction in the hospital
• Empower employees for service failure recoveries
  
• Right pricing products and services through activity based costing

Posted in India, customers, hospital, patient, qualserv, tier 2 | No Comments »