It takes a lot to satisfy customers these days. Social media acts as a tool to anticipate customer needs and improve service time and efficiency.
Health care sector entities today are infinitely more engaged and committed to their target audiences, and that has paid dividends in improving brand loyalty and overall patient experience. That said, there is still a huge chasm between those who love and advocate for a brand and those that simply use their favourite products or services out of a sense of loyalty or habit. The goal for any business owner must be to convert customers into brand ambassadors.
The following tips will actively convert patients into brand ambassadors:
1. Deliver an Amazing Customer Experience
Nurture your patient relationships. When a patient has a positive experience with a company, they are much more likely to remain loyal and even refer their friends. Modern Heath care sectors have a competitive global commerce arena and have virtually guaranteed that the services they provide are nearly flawless. Therefore, the only differentiating factor may be the overall patient experience created by your business. Are your services slow? Is it tough to navigate within the hospital? The answers to these come easy, if you are managing the patient’s experience from the first touch to the last. If not, you’ll have a tough time converting patient’s to brand ambassadors. Every patient’s experience that a brand provides depends on how it is perceived and received.
2. Create Value through Cost
If something is free, patients may feel that there is no actual value to the offering. So create value to services. Help, educate and inform the employees that not every interaction needs to be a sale. In fact, if you try to sell something to your patients in every interaction, they will more likely become disillusioned with your brand and may even label your brand as “annoying.”
Instead, try to make sure that your customers feel like your company is giving them worthy information. Promote learning corners and make sure that patients who are struggling with your products are helped on time.
3. Turn your employees into brand ambassadors
What’s true of patients is true of employees. Every company’s employees have their own audiences. Often, these audience members have emotional connections to the employee, giving that employee influence and power. That is the power of word of mouth. It turns happy patients into brand ambassadors. Companies embrace this form of outreach by creating social media sharing guidelines, encouraging employees to become brand ambassadors, and rewarding those employees for making these extra efforts.
4. Stress Honesty
If you’ve messed up – confess! Don’t be afraid to admit to a mistake, just do everything in your power to fix it. Remember to apologise, analyse the situation, offer a solution, and seek agreement with the patient, and always follow-up to ensure an agreeable resolution.
5. Personalise the Experience
Brand ambassadors want to feel valued, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to personalise their experience with your business. Use their name, and keep it simple and professional. Relate to customers, advocate for them, support them, and they’ll eventually return the favour.
6. Create Loyalty Programs
The goal is to drive brand loyalty through repeated business. Do that often enough, and the customer will become entrenched in your brand… Simplicity drives loyalty and adoption.
7. Keep Patients Informed
If your services operate via e-commerce, make sure your site is designed to update new technologies and services to patients.
8. Implement a Referral Program
If you do this the right way, you’ll effectively increase new patients acquisition, and turn these patients into brand Ambassador who can encourage others to adopt your services, which may lead to a larger pool of patients who will eventually become brand ambassadors themselves.
9. Ask for Feedback
Potential brand ambassadors will want to refer their friends and families to your business. You can embed a rating scale on your site or through a post-purchase survey that asks for a reply to a “how likely are you to recommend” message, then add those who rate you a 9 or 10 to your potential pool of ambassadors. In today’s digital world, it is easy to listen to what your patients and potential patients are saying. Listen to conversations about your brand, product, or service. If people are raving about you, you have a brand ambassador. Monitor mentions of your brand on Twitter, posts on Facebook, mentions in blogs. Monitor your product or service meets. Importantly, make sure your brand Ambassador know you heard them—respond to them, engage with them, and use the information they provide.
10. Ask for UGC (User-generated content)
UGC, or user-generated content, is a powerful tool that can help you to market your brand and create a base of brand ambassadors. It’s free, it acts as a relevant and valuable feedback on a patient-to-patient basis, it validates your business, and it converts a customer to a Brand Ambassador. Say “thank you”: When a patient goes out of their way to do something nice for your company, you should make sure that you are showing appreciation. 68% of patients leave because they feel that companies are indifferent to them. Sending a brief “thank you” email after a service or an interaction can make the customer feel appreciated.
If you’re looking for ways to turn your business into a top-tier player within your field, you absolutely must leverage the power of brand Ambassador.
Written by M. Bhaskara Rao,
AGM Operations, AS Rao Nagar branch.