Creating customer loyalty

After working for a health system two summers in a row, I’ve become very immersed in many if not most aspects of the company. You would never realize unless you were on the “inside” how much work it takes to run a hospital on a daily basis. The sheer amount of organization necessary to just keep up with the basics is unreal.

As an employee of the marketing office, I’ve had the unique opportunity to look at the system in a different way than most of the clinical staff. While doctors and nurses are working tirelessly day after day to keep up with the patients’ needs, my office researches and creates ways in which we can better serve our patients. This has lead to the realization for me that patients are the customers.

Just like any other industry, those in the health care field must strive to keep their patients—in other words, create customer brand loyalty. While many things in the health care field are industry-specific, there is a lot to be learned from a health care model in terms of customer service.

After participating in service learning training in the health system, many connections between marketing/PR and health care have been solidified in my mind. Here are three tips for building customer loyalty to take to heart no matter what industry you work in:

1. Anticipate the needs of your customers/audiences/clients. Whether you are a nurse taking care of a patient or an account executive working for your client, it is important to know what they expect of you. Go above and beyond when at all possible, and not only will you impress them, but they will turn to you for all their needs in the future.

2. Be open and honest. Sometimes the truth hurts, but it is never as painful as a lie. If you are straightforward with your customers, you will build a sense of trust that is vital to any working relationship.

3. Stay calm in a crisis. No matter how hard you try to prepare, unexpected problems are bound to come up during your career. While your first reaction might be to run, take a deep breath to clear your head and begin finding out key information about the issue. Once you’ve done that, decide how to move forward to correct the problem and to alert your audiences. While developing a public message, refer back to number two.

If you follow these steps, you will gain a great deal of respect from your customers and will benefit from their loyalty because of it.

Some information taken from ServicePlus training at CAMC Health System.

Photo from Google Images.