Building Patient Loyalty in Healthcare Industry

If you aspire to establish yourself in a particular region as a pre-eminent choice, be it an organization or

a professional, you must understand the principles behind Creating and Sustaining Loyalty. As is well
known, the cost of acquiring a customer is much higher as compared to getting your already existing
customers to buy repeatedly from you. But how many of us actually maintain a priority on building a big-
enough client base and then serving them in a better manner than our competitors? Well, very few of us
and that creates an entire difference between an avalanche of abundance and a never-ending struggle
to get noticed.

So, lets understand Loyalty. And how does it apply in the context of the Healthcare Industry. Loyalty
means whenever the need for the corresponding service arises, they have a fixed option. Loyalty is
essentially, consistency of choice. So, how do you build that consistency of choice? The first key is to be
effective in creating value during the current transaction. If you are incompetent in your endeavor, it’s
hard to be able to sustain long-term clients. The rest boils down to the customer perception. It turns
out, there are 6 aspects you could immediately focus on, in order to make a favourable impression on
the current client/patient, so that they want to return the next time, be it for themselves, their family or
someone in their community.

These 6 principles have been outlined in the best-selling book, Influence by Dr. Robert Cialdini. They are:

1. Social Proof: The human mind has its own humour. Not that it is lazy, but it can’t evaluate all the
little things all the time as it will be really cumbersome and won’t allow us to even function.
Hence, sometimes it makes a complex decision just by seeing what everybody else is doing and
copying it. There is an interesting example related to this. ___ Your clients also prefer those
doctors/physicians who somebody else in their community goes to. One way to harness this
principle is via testimonials. You can circulate written testimonials of your patients among
people from similar regions. Any prospect who sees a written testimonial knows that the
service-provider can be trusted because someone else who is similar to them is testifying for the
quality of service. I have not seen testimonials prevalent in healthcare industry while they are
quite prominent in other industries. Why not leverage this strategy and take your marketing to a
newer dimension?
2. Liking: People get easily persuaded by those they like. And people like those who are similar to
them. Application? Learn and speak the native language of your clients. Similarity instantly
builds rapport. More on this on later reports.
3. Reciprocity: Be it culture or human nature, we feel obligated to give something back to people
who invested some resource of theirs on us. It may be their time-energy-money-connections-
knowledge etc. In fact a study showed, … So, how does this transcribe to your practice? You can
accomplish this simply by creating more value. You can offer some discounts to first-time clients
on Pathology tests, if you have an in-house laboratory. Mention it to them during the
consultation, to invoke reciprocity. They will want to come back because you did something for
them. Plus, they will give referrals to the people around them. Ask your receptionist to give
 chocolates to their kids. A simple way to delight your clients can always soup things up. There
can be a dozen ways to utilize this principle in building great rapport with your clients. Let them
know how much you care in every interaction you have with your clients and their families.
Make them want to see you again!
4. Expert: We consistently rely on experts for our decisions because they are generally equipped
with much more information. You can instantly increase the trust of your clients by displaying
your degrees and achievements. Publish some articles in the newspaper or speak at conferences
and put the corresponding information on a display in your clinic/organization. I have seen this
tactic being employed by a lot of people in press and restaurants.
5. Commitment & Consistency: Due to cultural pressures, we need to be consistent with our
commitments. Several studies have showed this to be quite true and this strategy has been
exploited by some conmen in the past as well. Small commitments made by someone go a long
way. You can use this principle too. Just introduce a feedback form. Ask your patients how well
did they like the service. Ask them whether they will refer someone they care about, towards
your organization as well. If they say and give it in writing, they surely will.
6. Scarcity: The fear of missing out is a powerful driver. __ Anything that is limited and unique.
That’s the key. Limited promotional offers work this way. Camps are quite prevalent in the
healthcare industry and they work on this same principle. They are specially designed packages
that have a promotional offer only for a limited time-frame. Implementing the other principles
during camps like Reciprocity, Commitment & consistency can convert one-time buyers into
repeat clients and hence create a much higher RoI out of the activity.

These principles provide a basic framework for your marketing efforts to be based on. Just thinking
about their implementation in any situation can dramatically increase your effectiveness in building
and sustaining a client-base. The more creative you are about their implementation, the more
returns you can generate out of the same costs you spend on Marketing.