More and more customers rely on the online - to shop, read news, pay services, etc. Increasingly, smartphones can be found at the forefront of a change in mentality that seems to able to imprint even older generations. One of the consequences of the paradigm shift is that people start to apply the expectation they have acquired from one broad domain to another. If someone is used to seeing price comparisons when shopping online, that same person would be frustrated when there are no price comparisons shown for medical treatment costs, isn’t it? So, what sort of expectations would unavoidably “infect” this change-resting mammoth that is the healthcare industry?
Why healthcare should pay attention to marketing research
Without a doubt, smartphones had proved to be a disruptive technology. Broadly speaking the concept describes innovations that are both, unexpected by the market and that force significant change (even abandonment) of whole market segments. Some authors want to make the term even more exclusive by applying it to technologies that change society as whole - vaccines, mass production of penicillin, introduction of contraceptives are examples of the often invoked small changes that produce an unpredictably big 'butterfly effect'.
Why are smartphones disruptive? In short, online shopping put a lot of pressure on brick-and-mortar shops by significantly reducing in-store traffic. To understand how the expectations of shoppers changed in a world with ubiquitous access to the online, Google in partnership with Ipsos Media CT and Sterling Brands recently commissioned a study that is thought provoking and to some degree surprising. Without going into too much detail (you can read the white paper), results show that consumers want more information, openness and personalization. What strikes us from this study, however, is how many of those expectations listed in study are directly transferable to the healthcare sector.
Customer expectations in the age of smartphones
First of all, 80 to 90% of people using smartphones to look for information before or while in the store. So, why then in healthcare those responsible do not expect to do the same during hospitalization? Or any other medical procedure?
Secondly, shoppers feel frustrated by lack of information. When information is not present they want to go elsewhere. Is this is not a sign of how bad things are that healthcare customers - who, normally, will display the same tendency - do not go elsewhere?
Access to information is the key
Actually, this study is only useful to objectively confirm what we - each of us - already know based on personal experience. Below you can see an infographic copied from the report showing categories of information shoppers find useful. Replace 'item' with 'medical service' and 'store' with 'hospital' and try a mental experiment: is there anything on this list that is NOT relevant to the healthcare customer? Why is it that this concerns are not properly and openly addressed?
Personalization: can healthcare ignore it?
Personalization gets a big emphasis in this paper: businesses need to offer an informed and customized experience. How do you make it a customized experience? In retail, 85% of shoppers say they want coupons and exclusive offers customized for them, 64% want customized product recommendations and no less than 54% want recommendations based on friends / family purchases. In your experience, is healthcare implementing personalization strategies? I would say this is a rhetorical question, but I happen to know the exceptions.
At CashDoctor we actually DO think we need to address customer expectations such as these. CashDoctor is saying no to insurance company control. We are saying no to hospital control and we are saying no to doctor control. The core of our vision is to help consumers share information while taking control of the healthcare model in their own community for their own benefit. For all those that share our values we offer a fully developed infrastructure to share with others information related to the quality and the costs of medical services you needed.
Why not join us and find out a different way of doing healthcare?
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