AN OUTSIDE VIEW

How to
improve
the patient
experience
© 2021 Qualtrics LLC

1
 Table of 3 Introduction

contents 6 Retail: Embracing the power of omnichannel communication

11 Travel: Cultivating a culture of authenticity

16 Hospitality: Personalizing the end-to-end journey

21 Banking: Capturing timely feedback

26 Conclusion

2
 Introduction

3
 Introduction Today’s patients judge their healthcare experiences against their interactions with
service providers in other industries. Shifting expectations, new technologies, and
markets saturated with competition – not to mention a global pandemic that forced rapid
change to business models – have made it imperative for companies of all types to deliver
positive customer experiences that build and sustain meaningful relationships.

While many healthcare providers are hesitant to think of patients as customers, their
journeys have many similarities to experiences patients have outside of healthcare.
Each interaction, from scheduling an appointment to seeing a doctor to paying
the bill, culminates in a perception of their overall experience with an organization.
Customer experience (CX) programs have been in place in many industries for a while
now, and there is a lot that healthcare organizations can learn from their time-tested
methodologies and strategies.

4
 There are lessons from Looking to research for inspiration
across all industries
The Qualtrics XM Institute 2021 Global Consumer Trends report surveyed 18,000
that are relevant to
people across 18 countries about their experiences within 17 industries. The goal was
healthcare. Look at
to determine how their behaviors, attitudes, and interactions shifted in the wake of the
Amazon. If you think
COVID-19 pandemic, and how that affected their overall experiences. Across all industries,
about their business
there was a strong connection between good experiences and loyalty-driving attitudes.
model, everything
However, four industries in particular – retail, travel, hospitality, and banking – stood out
they do is designed
to make things easier as leading the way in satisfaction, advocacy, and trust.

and more efficient Here we explore four examples of how these industries are reshaping customer
for their customers; experiences and how those lessons can be applied in the healthcare setting.
to understand and
personalize the
experience. We need to
be doing these kinds of
things in healthcare.”

Susan Haufe
Healthcare Chief Industry
Advisor, Qualtrics

5
SECTION 1

Retail: Embracing the power of

omnichannel communication
 Retail: Shopping online is not a new concept, but over the last two years, it’s become ingrained in
our everyday lives. According to McKinsey & Company, since the pandemic, one-third of
Embracing the Americans have routinely augmented their shopping routines with omnichannel features,
power of and nearly two-thirds of those have no plans of stopping.1
omnichannel

75%
communication During the pandemic, more than 75% of
consumers took a new interest in online
activities, and 17% sought medical advice
online for the first time.2

7
 Omnichannel champion: Albertsons

The average grocery shopper visits more than four different stores in a single month. 3
In fact, only 13% of shoppers are loyal to just one grocery chain.4 Customer retention,
unsurprisingly, is a hot topic in this industry. When Albertsons experienced a substantial
influx of new customers last year, Jonathan Nouri, Senior Vice President of Loyalty, knew
he needed a solid strategy to ensure they would keep coming back. “One of the keys
to retaining all of these customers,” he said, “is creating a really seamless, integrated
experience regardless of the channel you’re shopping with us in – whether it’s in-store,
through our drive-up-and-go product, or through our first-party delivery product.” From
point-of-sale feedback cues to a completely redesigned loyalty program that rewards
members beyond the grocery shopping experience, Albertsons is leading innovation in
omnichannel customer engagement.

What keeps customers coming back to Albertsons?

WATCH THE VIDEO
An omnichannel shopping experience

1
McKinsey & Company. “Omnichannel: The path to value.” April 30, 2021.
2
Qualtrics XM Institute. “2021 Global Consumer Trends Report.”
3
Steve Markenson. “How Many Grocery Stores Did You Shop at Last Month?” The Food Industry Association, July 2019.
4
Ibid.

8
 Telehealth will As is evident with retail, organizations must be able to serve customers in whichever

remain a critical way they prefer – be it in the store or via website, app, social media, email, or direct mail.

way of how An omnichannel communication strategy allows businesses to deliver a seamless brand

healthcare is experience on any and all channels, which is what most modern consumers expect.

delivered in the But why should healthcare take note?

future. Optimizing 2020 propelled telehealth into the limelight. For a number of months, it became the main
the telehealth source of care for millions of people. And now that patients have experienced the ease,
experience convenience, and value of this channel, it will become a mainstay.
is absolutely
Just as it has for retailers, ensuring the different channels of care deliver consistent,
necessary.”
positive, and valuable experiences will need to become a relentless focus for healthcare.
Mystique Smith-Bentley Organizations must be able to identify pain points that could not only jeopardize
Executive Director, satisfaction and loyalty, but more importantly, negatively impact patient outcomes.
Service Excellence,
Stanford Health Care McKinsey & Company identified that one of the biggest hurdles to omnichannel
success is the lack of a clear understanding of what experiences should be prioritized.5
And that’s where patient feedback becomes extremely valuable. By listening to what
patients are saying and feeling, organizations can uncover insight into drivers of
satisfaction and adoption. From there, they can prioritize the omnichannel experiences –
web and app interfaces, text reminders, virtual care delivery, and more – that will deliver
the greatest impacts.

5
McKinsey & Company. “Omnichannel: The path to value.” April 30, 2021.

9
 Omnichannel communication in healthcare:
Why?
Easier access to care Patients
are empowered to seek care
anytime, anywhere, from the channel
of their choice.
Lower costs Telehealth visits and
mobile diagnostic tools reduce
the reliance on costly in-person
appointments and tests.
Increased engagement Automated
appointment reminders, personalized
screening recommendations,
notifications of test results, medication
guidelines, and more help patients take
ownership of their healthcare.
10
How?
Break down silos Assemble a cross-
departmental, multidisciplinary team to
ensure a holistic representation of the
entire patient journey.
Design for the user Put patients at
the center of every decision. Ask for,
listen to, and build around their
needs and feedback.
Integrate into one system
An experience management
platform can help consolidate
and analyze omnichannel data for
actionable insights.
SECTION 2

Travel: Cultivating a
culture of authenticity
 Travel: Consumers are placing a higher value on their ability to trust the brands with which they do
business. But their perception of that trust has changed. Consistency and reliability, while
Cultivating still important, are no longer enough. Consumers are paying more attention to company
a culture of values – including the way employees are treated, the existence of philanthropic initiatives,
authenticity and the ethical sourcing of products – and adjusting their loyalties accordingly.

90%
of customers mentioned authenticity
as an important factor in deciding
which brands they support.6

Travel companies have learned that authenticity is the essential ingredient for establishing
consumer trust. To be perceived as authentic, organizations must engage customers in
sincere and relatable communication along every step of the pre- and post-transaction
journey and provide transparency into prices, policies, and procedures. Tolerance for vague
promises, lack of follow-through, or inadequate support for employees is at an all-time low.

12
 Authenticity champion: Southwest Airlines

According to their website, Southwest Airlines is dedicated “to the highest quality of
Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and
Company Spirit.” The difference between Southwest and many other airlines is not in their
word choice but rather in the way Southwest employees put those words into action every
day. Consistently ranked one of the best airlines for customer service, it’s no coincidence
that Southwest is also considered one of the top companies to work for in the U.S.7
“We truly believe that if we take care of our employees, they in turn will take care of our
customers,” said Lori Winters, Senior Director of Culture and Engagement. Southwest has
remained true to this commitment by actively gauging employee mindset to develop new
solutions for pain points, identify specific training and communication needs, and better
equip corporate leaders to make critical decisions.

Want the full story of how Southwest kept

WATCH THE VIDEO
culture flying high through turbulent times?

6
Michael Georgiou. “How and Why to Build Brand Authenticity.” Forbes, March 15, 2021.
7
Indeed. “Top-Rated Workplaces in 2019.”

13
 So what can healthcare learn from Southwest Airlines and other leading travel companies?
According to Sarah Gilstrap, MS, CPHQ, CPXP, Senior Consultant, Healthcare Customer
Experience and XM Scientist at Qualtrics, “I think one of the greatest opportunities we have
is the connection of customer experience and employee experience. Especially in the wake
of COVID, the topic of employee experience has never been more critical. To what extent
is the organization responsible for taking care of the individuals that are putting their life
on the line every day? Supporting the health and well being of our workforce is integral to
fulfilling our mission and delivering exceptional patient experience every day.”

By keeping their finger on the pulse of what employees are doing and feeling, healthcare
organizations can better understand what’s needed to improve care and the mental and
physical well-being of their staff. By collecting employee experience (EX) and
operational data and then combining it with insights on the patient experience,
organizations can identify ways to improve engagement and experiences for both of
these critically important groups.

Many companies neglect to focus on EX in conjunction with CX. But as Southwest

demonstrates, by taking a holistic approach to EX and CX, their employees can better take
care of their customers – and in the case of healthcare, this means better patient outcomes
and lower mortality rates.

14
 Authenticity in healthcare

Why? How?

Patients behave like consumers Be transparent Clearly

They shop around to compare provider
reviews and find competitive pricing,
and the wide availability of medical
ratings tools such as ZocDoc encourage
this behavior.
communicate with patients about
things like cost of care, appointment
availability, and quality performance
data, and be sure employees are
aligned with these expectations.

Patient loyalty drives profitability Be consistent Empower staff with

The average patient will spend about the tools and skills they need to deliver
$1.4 million on health-related expenses consistent quality of care. Stanford
in his or her lifetime.8 Health Care learned through their new
telehealth experience program that
Burnout is worsening In a February
when patients don’t understand doctors’
2021 survey, 42% of physicians
instructions during the virtual visit,
across all specialties reported
overall satisfaction drops by 30%.
feeling burned out.9
Be aware Continuously seek input from
8
B
 rian Wynne. “What do you really know about patient loyalty?” patients and employees to produce
Becker’s Hospital Review. October 2018.
9
M
 o Kasti. “Medscape National Physician Burnout & Suicide Report positive outcomes and cultivate loyalty
2021.” CTI. February 2021.
for both groups.

15
 SECTION 3

Hospitality: Personalizing the

end-to-end journey

16
 Hospitality: Personalization can go a long way in delivering exceptional experiences. The benefit of
understanding individual customer habits, preferences, and motivators is three-fold.
Personalizing First, it lowers the level of effort required for customers to provide feedback, since much of
the end-to-end the information typically requested is already known. Second, it allows for hyper-targeted
journey offers and content that they are very likely to engage with. Third, it provides unique insights
that can help you anticipate trends, drive future business decisions, and fuel further
market research. Combined, these three benefits lead to increased revenue and stronger
long-term customer loyalty.

The hospitality industry is a clear winner in the personalization game. Many hotel
chains, for example, track guest behaviors across hotel properties and analyze patterns
in geography, length of stay, booking preferences, interactions on site, face-to-face
conversations, and guest surveys to create completely customized interactions – from
initial research and reservation to onsite amenities and checkout.

10%
Brands that create personalized services by
integrating data and analytics can achieve up
to a 10% increase in revenue.10

10
“The importance of personalisation in the hospitality industry.” Criton. June 2019.

17
 Personalization champion: Biltmore

Biltmore is an 8,000-acre estate in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Featuring America’s largest
home, plus hotels, a winery, gardens, and more, the property welcomes more than 1.5
million visitors per year. When COVID caused Biltmore to shut its gates to guests, they
needed a creative way to generate alternative revenue and stay top of mind with tourists.
“We needed to understand this new paradigm and the impact it was going to have on
our business, short-term as well as long-term,” said Peggy Dalman, Director of Guest
Intelligence. Through market research, customer feedback, and guest profile analysis, they
learned several key insights about traveler preferences. While guests were eager to start
traveling again, they wanted to drive rather than fly and were more interested in outdoor
activities. Using Qualtrics to listen to customers in real time, Biltmore was able to alter the
images and messaging in their advertising and develop special offers to keep annual pass
sales going despite the temporary closure. The number of passholders grew by almost
20%, and Biltmore was able to keep revenue flowing until they reopened.

Want to learn more about how Biltmore

WATCH THE VIDEO
stayed relevant while guests stayed home?

18
 Like hospitality, healthcare organizations can use what they know about patients to
streamline routine processes, anticipate needs, and produce better outcomes. After all,
healthcare isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Personalized medicine can have a significant
impact on individual and population health, aiding in everything from risk assessment,
prevention, and intervention to diagnosis, treatment, and post-care monitoring.

Customizing the collection and application of patient data also helps healthcare
organizations focus on measuring what matters, points out Lauren Helbig, Head of
CustomerXM for Locations Strategy at Qualtrics. “The real purpose of any CX program is to
do something; take some action based on the information your customers are providing,”
she said. “If not, you’re not using your time, or theirs, very wisely.”

19
 Personalization in healthcare
Why?
Meet patient demand 72% of
patients said they want more
personalized care that is tailored to
their unique disease states.11
Improve patient outcomes
Research shows that personalization
increases patient engagement, and
patient engagement leads to better
health outcomes.
Increase operational efficiency
Personalized healthcare helps
increase the speed and accuracy of
diagnoses, decrease medicine trial
and error, and prevent adverse events
and readmissions.
11 “ Going Beyond Intervention: Impacting Patient Outcomes.
” Abbott. August 2020.
20
How?
Communicate effectively
and regularly Ongoing engagement
is critical in gathering the patient data
needed to create effective and tailored
care plans that enable improved health.
Invest in modern technology
Patient data means very little without
the machine learning and advanced
algorithms necessary to derive
actionable, evidence-based insights
from that data.
Implement a coordinated
care model Sharing information
among all of the participants in a
patient’s care helps ensure their needs
and preferences are communicated at
the right time to the right people.
 SECTION 4

Banking:
Capturing timely feedback

21
 Banking: Another silver lining on the COVID cloud is heightened awareness of the ability of fast,
targeted feedback to influence positive customer experiences. Routine transactions
Capturing became suddenly personal and more effortful, and financial institutions quickly realized a
timely new urgency to monitor customer needs and respond as quickly and relevantly as possible.
feedback And it worked: 3 out of 4 banking customers said they were satisfied with their financial
institutions’ response to the pandemic.12

33%
of customers who had a negative
experience with their bank would
recommend it to family and friends.13

22
 Timely feedback champion: Bank of Montreal

When Bank of Montreal’s employees found themselves newly separated from the clients
whom they were accustomed to seeing and hearing from daily inside branches, Tom
Jones, Head of Customer Loyalty, knew it was imperative for the bank to reconnect with
customers in a meaningful way. They acted quickly, developing a three-point engagement
strategy to understand customer needs and reactivate the net promoter score program
accordingly. This included altering and shortening existing surveys, as well as designing
new ones specifically focused on customers’ mental and emotional well-being. “Our
customers are more engaged than ever before,” said Jones. “It is due to our frontline field
and the amazing work that they’re doing day in and day out.”

Learn more about how Bank of Montreal

WATCH THE VIDEO
found new ways to nurture relationships.

12
“Consumers Report High Satisfaction With Banks, Industry Response to COVID-19.” ABA Banking Journal. March 2021.
13
Qualtrics XM Institute. “2021 Global Consumer Trends Report.”

23
 The Consumer Assessment Just like financial services, healthcare is an essential service – and one that can be fraught
of Healthcare Providers and with stress and uncertainty. And that makes it even more important to understand what
Systems (CAHPS) surveys
people are thinking and feeling in the moments that matter.
were never designed to
deliver quick insights to According to Steve Basilotto, Senior Vice President and Chief Experience Officer at
respond to consumer
Froedtert Health, the majority of interactions a patient has with their healthcare providers
needs, or to be a system
of action for meaningful, are not directly related to receiving care. They’re tasks like scheduling appointments,
timely service recovery. filling out paperwork, and paying for care. But each of these interactions can have a
It was intended to report significant impact on a person’s experience – and they are opportunities for improvement,
outcomes as a system of
especially as financial institutions and other industries reshape what these customer
measurement, and it has
served us well in meeting service activities look like.
this need for more than
In the world of healthcare, traditional surveys were designed to measure patient
25 years. Beyond meeting
this need, the challenge experience, but they don’t provide the ability to act on data. Through tools like speech
we face today is healthcare analytics, smart routing, and automated feedback requests across a variety of channels,
consumer demands are healthcare organizations can rapidly understand, prioritize, and respond to their patients in
changing and expectations
time to make a difference.
for customer-centric
experiences have never
been higher.”

Sarah Gilstrap MS, CPHQ, CPXP

Senior Consultant, Healthcare
Customer Experience and
XM Scientist at Qualtrics

24
 Timely feedback in healthcare

Why? How?

Enable meaningful action Respond Make it easy Keep your surveys short
to patient needs while they are still in and your questions simple, and make
your care, rather than weeks later. them available on a variety of channels.

Gain valuable context Qualitative Make it secure Partner with a trusted

questions asked in the moment experience management vendor to
provide a more accurate and personal protect patient privacy and comply
perspective on a patient’s experience. with industry regulations.

Inform broader strategic decisions Make it count Utilize modern

The ability to correlate real-time technology such as artificial
feedback with traditional patient survey intelligence to uncover trends
data can inform decisions far beyond and predict future events.
the walls of the healthcare facility.

25
 SECTION 5

The time to rethink

patient experience is now

26
 The time Shifting expectations, new technologies, and markets saturated with competition – not to
mention a global pandemic that forced rapid change to business models – have made it
to rethink imperative for healthcare organizations to deliver a holistic patient experience that builds
patient and sustains meaningful relationships. And by looking beyond the confines of healthcare,
experience these organizations can find innovative ways to embrace change and deliver the types of
is now experiences that patients are yearning for.

Change can be slow and difficult, particularly in healthcare. But there are effective CX
Healthcare has the strategies from other industries that healthcare organizations can adopt immediately to
opportunity to see deliver the consumer-like experiences that modern patients increasingly expect.
experience like other
industries do, because
it is one of the most
important drivers to
the things that matter.
Safe care, quality care,
positive outcomes –
patient experience is
core to that.”

Susan Haufe
Healthcare Chief Industry
Advisor, Qualtrics

27
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