Hospital Branding: The difference between customer service and human service
For years, marketers involved in the branding of
healthcare organizations have been frustrated about their role in delivering on
customer service. In essence, delivering on the brand promise.
Unlike traditional consumer goods and services, where the customer
transaction can be standardized - think hot burgers and personal shoppers -
healthcare organizations have multiple layers of customer interactions which
fall on the ability of individuals, not processes, to deliver.
Additionally, healthcare consumers are not necessarily customers by
choice. There are some exceptions to this, but for the most part it's not
where and how people want to spend their time.
As a result of this inability to control the
delivery of customer service across the total enterprise, hospitals have looked
for other brand platforms that can be more consistent. Technology,
clinical breakthroughs, quality rankings, and national accreditations are
examples of common hospital branding strategies that don't necessarily demand the
consistent delivery of exemplary customer service. However, as these
platforms become less differentiating, there are some leading healthcare
organizations that are making a go of service delivery as a powerful brand
message or complement to an existing strategy.
Laura Harner, Director of Guest Services for Lehigh
Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pennsylvania, describes it this way.
"Instead of the term customer service, we refer to it as
'compassionate' service. This is most successful when it is
'hard-wired' into the operations of a healthcare organization. For
example, valet parking is no longer about the safe and efficient retrieval of
cars; it's about decreasing patient and visitor anxiety."
Harner adds, "If a patient has made the choice
to come to you, they assume clinical quality. And while they are likely
to forgive you for long lines or waits, they are less likely to forgive you for
lack of courtesy and compassion."
Jodi Levine, currently Vice President,
Corporate Business Development for Stericycle, has been on all sides of the
hospital-based customer service equation as an administrator, patient, and
brand-builder. According to her experiences, "healthcare organizations
must rise to a higher standard of customer service, they must deliver
'human service'. Unlike the vast majority of other businesses,
healthcare customers are most likely to be obtaining services they do not want
and/or fear receiving. Healthcare brands, or more specifically, the
people of healthcare organizations, must focus on recognizing and responding to
how patients feel in order to even attempt to create a positive
experience. The patient experience begins and ends with human contact –
sometimes physical, always emotional."
Levine recognizes that a platform of "human service" depends on an organization's ability to recruit, train, and retain individuals who live the brand. She adds, "Without first investing in initiating and nurturing the internal actualization of the brand values, external branding is a mere facade."
According to Harner,
"compassionate care is a feeling that people remember long after they've
left the hospital. We have so many opportunities in the course of a day to make
the emotional connection that the best brands are made of. They are right in
front of us, every day, and when every interaction is viewed through the lens
of compassionate service your patients, and your brand, will benefit."
Unlike heat lamps that keep food "hot and fresh," sandwich shops that deliver "super fast," or coffee stores that are built to be a "home away from home," hospitals and healthcare organizations can't really standardize the brand promise of customer service. But they can, as Lehigh Valley Health Network is doing, create a greater standard of compassionate care. Or, as Levine suggests, they can raise the stakes even higher toward the notion of "human service." The problem with "human service," however is it's delivered by humans and somewhere along the chain, it's going to breakdown.
Cleveland Clinic, long known for
medical excellence but less than compassionate care, is striving toward
"human service." The video, "Empathy. The Human Connection to Patient Care" is amazing but,
can it be standardized across every location, department, and person that is
associated with the brand? Probably not...but, that doesn't mean that as
an internal branding message it won't resonate and create some new patient
interactions.
Brand strategy must be delivered upon day in and day out within any organization. For hospitals brands, the more tried and true approaches will live on for a while. The idea of branding "customer service" is too difficult to achieve, but the standardization of customer service protocols is within reach. The idea of "human service"...what a great idea! But until it's, as Harner states, "hard-wired" into each and every hire, it's probably not a big branding idea, because it depends on humans, not robots, to deliver on the promise. And the former just can't be hard-wired. All it takes is one bad day.
Rob Rosenberg is President of Springboard Brand and Creative Strategy, a brand strategy and communications firm located in the Chicagoland area. For more information on Springboard or to discuss this and other ideas, please contact Rob at 847.398.4920 or rob@springboardbrand.com
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