Marketing to Meet Today’s Consumer Demands
BY LOU BURGESS |
Marketing to meet today’s consumer demands Attending to the “little” details can give your long-term care facility or senior community a big boost |
Society is in the midst of changing times. People are finding out that what worked two years ago won’t work today. Healthcare has changed, as well. Competition is coming from all directions. Standards for success have become higher. We must do everything better, quicker, and smarter-and with fewer people, less time, and less money. Success in this aggressive and competitive environment depends on performance and execution. You can’t just rely on the high percentage of things you are doing right, but you also have to pay attention to the small percentage of things you could modify or improve to help you beat the competition in the marketplace. You must concentrate on the details, i.e., do the so-called “little things” right. You cannot control the market, but you can control what happens in your long-term care facility or senior community. People are not looking for some fancy new program; they’re looking for the basics of care and service delivered well. And they want to see mistakes corrected quickly. Remember, making mistakes is human. It’s what you do after the mistake occurs that people judge you by. The following are five keys to success that have their roots in the basics of good customer service. They might sound simple, but they can easily be missed: Key Number One One of the biggest pitfalls is the tendency to “over-promise” and “under-deliver.” It’s easy for the “sales department” to promise something the “service department” can’t do. That’s why it is terribly important to make every effort you can to meet with residents, families, discharge planners, social workers, physicians, and others prior to each resident’s admission or move-in to talk about and set realistic expectations. Once you have told potential customers and their families what to expect, the thing that will keep those customers satisfied-and prompt them to tell others how pleased they are-is to deliver what you say you will. It’s not what your mission statement or your customer service statement says that is important; what makes the difference is the level of action that surrounds those statements. Regardless of reputation, heritage, or mission, if the competition across the street or the competition across town or the competition in another town provides better service and better value, you stand a good chance of losing business to them. Key Number Two People value human contact. Almost everyone these days has voice mail and e-mail, and I am not opposed to high technology. But do you find it harder to communicate now that you have more technology at your fingertips? It’s how we use and abuse the technology that presents the problem. Be careful not to use technology to distance yourself from your internal, as well as your external, customers. Quality relationships are formed by people talking to people, not people talking to machines. Healthcare is a people business. Use technology to support, not to lead. When someone calls for information, we want the impression of the customer to be, “I have found someone who can help me.” When people call and a real person answers the phone but then transfers their calls to voice mail, a high percentage of those callers simply hang up-particularly when they were expecting to be transferred to the person they were calling, not to voice mail. What makes this even worse is if there is no instruction in the voice mail message telling them to press “0” if they would like to be returned to the operator (a live person) for further assistance. I called two state associations earlier this year and asked to speak to the executive director. Both people answering these organizations’ phones said, “May I give you her e-mail address? Then I won’t have to take a message.” What these people were really saying was, “Then I won’t have to be responsible.” Sometimes voice mail is unavoidable. Although reaching someone’s voice mail isn’t the same as reaching that person, at least it gives callers the opportunity to leave a message rather than listening to a ringing phone that no one picks up. But it’s important to respond to your messages in a timely manner. Therefore, you should implement the “sundown” rule: Return all the day’s calls before the sun goes down. Not returning phone calls promptly is one of the biggest communication and public relations problems in healthcare today. It gives people the perception that you don’t care. Key Number Three This isn’t to say externals don’t make a big difference. People want to see a clean and well-maintained building when they’re considering moving into your facility or having a loved one come to live there. No matter how hard you work, if there are cigarette butts out in front of the building, if there’s no visitor parking, or if there are handprints on the front door, you stand a good chance of losing business. These oversights, again, give customers and prospective customers the idea that you don’t care. Key Number Four Sometimes customers say, “I came here to talk with someone about my family member Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evening, but no one was here to talk with me.” Then, frustrated, they might follow that with, “Either you are going to talk with me or you are going to talk with my attorney.” One of the best ways to handle this problem is to have someone in a position of authority, someone who can make a decision, available to talk with people from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. one night a week and to let current and prospective customers know that someone is always available to address their concerns and/or answer their questions. Key Number Five Final Thoughts Success isn’t just a question of whether you’re making progress; what’s important is the speed of your progress. In other words, are you making progress faster than the guy across the street? The same forces active in the deregulation of the banking and airline industries are now at work in healthcare. We no longer have a “protected franchise”; we must learn to work the market. We must create a sense of urgency. We must act quickly. The luxury of taking our time is gone. I think we have a tendency to look past the mark, to overlook the basics. If the fundamentals aren’t working, nothing else will, either, and you need to fix them. You must examine your “ground-level” performance, and quickly. In today’s environment of continual change, you cannot just let the future happen to you. Analyze your strengths and weaknesses. Compare yourself with your competition. What makes you unique? What is your competitive edge? What makes you different and better? Write it down in 25 words or less, and then put a written action plan in place and follow it. The opportunity for increased business is tremendous, but all of your ducks, not just most of them, have got to be in a row. There’s simply no time to waste. Lou Burgess, President of Front Line Advantage, is a professional speaker, consultant, and author, with healthcare and housing clients in 46 states and Canada, and he has written a booklet, Quality Customer Service, that addresses customer service and quality-of-care issues. To contact him, phone (480) 391-1464. To comment on this article, send e-mail to burgess1204@nursinghomesmagazine.com. For reprints in quantities of 100 or more, call (866) 377-6454. |
Meet “Super-Marketer” Jackie Schatell What’s happening these days at Erickson, the fast-growing Baltimore-based developer of senior living campuses for middle-income people 62 and older? Well, in the first half of this past October alone: (1) the 14,000-plus residents of Erickson’s 11 campuses read exclusive interviews with President George W. Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry in The Erickson Tribune, the company’s monthly newspaper; (2) Erickson climbed to ninth in size among companies managing units for people 62 and older; (3) a 68-year-old resident was in training for the New York Marathon, his sixth; and (4) residents from eight Erickson communities and staff from six competed in a “walking challenge,” measuring the number of minutes they walked during a given period of time. These were four of approximately 80 news releases sent out starting from the first of the year, covering a wide variety of topics but all having one thing in common: mention of Erickson. The dynamo behind the mega-marketing is one Jackie Schatell-former George Washington University English major, former advertising/public relations specialist for a law firm and, for the past year and a half, “storyteller to the world” for Erickson. “This is a very fast-growing company,” she says, “and its residents are involved in a lot. We have one basic message: When you move into an Erickson campus, there is a lot to do-try new things, make new friendships. This is not a time to settle down, but to enjoy life.” Schatell’s releases provide indeed a kaleidoscopic view of life, particularly as it’s lived at two Erickson campuses based in New Jersey: Cedar Crest in Pompton Plains and Seabrook in Tinton Falls. Schatell regularly reviews both facilities’ activities calendars, talks with representatives of every department, and crafts stories specific to various media outlets: local weeklies, major dailies, local TV broadcasts. Once in a while she’ll “go national,” as happened when Seabrook-located near Asbury Park where Bruce Springsteen was born and raised-had a “Bruce Springsteen Appreciation Day”; Springsteen family friends in residence spent the day reminiscing about the youngster they knew, both with each other and via network news outlets. There’s good marketing and bad marketing, Schatell says. “What don’t we do? We don’t call ourselves a nursing home, we don’t refer to residents as senior citizens, and we never show inactivity. We’re talking about a ‘new world’ that offers happiness, fun, and new opportunities for people. Nursing homes can do this, too. They can market their quality of care, the quality of their staffs, their homelike environment, and their fun activities. “When you come right down to it, it’s a matter of attitude, of believing that facilities can offer this and spreading the word.” Richard L. Peck |
I Advance Senior Care is the industry-leading source for practical, in-depth, business-building, and resident care information for owners, executives, administrators, and directors of nursing at assisted living communities, skilled nursing facilities, post-acute facilities, and continuing care retirement communities. The I Advance Senior Care editorial team and industry experts provide market analysis, strategic direction, policy commentary, clinical best-practices, business management, and technology breakthroughs.
I Advance Senior Care is part of the Institute for the Advancement of Senior Care and published by Plain-English Health Care.
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