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.

Eye on the prize

Goals. I cannot live with out them. I set goals for every aspect of my life: a goal of how much sleep I should get each night, how many times a week I should make it to the gym, and even how quickly I can finish a book.

I recently led the final meeting of my ImPRessions account, and we started talking about what everyone was doing for the summer and what he or she wanted to do next year. I then imposed my bit of wisdom on them: it is important to have goals. One of the girls told me that I reminded her of Rachel Berry from Glee with her obsession of goals (which I take as a compliment), but I was serious, and still believe that goals help us succeed.

The trick is choosing the right goals. You don’t want to set an unattainable goal; that will only set you up for failure and end in a downward spiral toward depression. For example, I would not realistically set a goal of becoming a Broadway star. That goal is not likely to be met, and setting that goal for myself would only give me false hope.

You also don’t want to let yourself off the hook too easily. Setting goals that are too easily met only limits your potential, which is no way to live. I’m a believer of pushing yourself, because that is the only way you will grow.

So, here is my advice for setting goals: identify two or three things that you most want to accomplish. For me, writing my goals down helps solidify my dedication to reaching it. Then figure out what individual steps you will need to take to accomplish your goal. It doesn’t have to be written by any means, but you should give it some thought.

Having said all of this, sometimes the best option is to simply go where the wind takes you. I’ve realized in my 21 years that on occasion, things do not go according to plan. This has been the most difficult lesson for me to learn, because I try to do everything “by the book” and cannot live without structure. But recently, I’ve been forced to do so (see my post “The power of collaboration”) and have grown because of it.

What are your thoughts on goals? Do they help you succeed? I would love to hear what you think.

This post was inspired in part by a post written by Skip Lineberg on the blog "Professional Studio 365."

The power of collaboration

This quarter I have learned the power of collaboration. While I have worked with many student organizations in the past and still do, my organizations have never done a large-scale collaboration with another organization.

This spring was different. My ImPRessions team and our client, Backdrop Magazine, decided to produce a huge outdoor event to celebrate the release of Backdrop’s latest issue. We couldn’t fund it ourselves, so we looked to two major student organizations on campus, University Programs Council and the Black Student Cultural Programming Board, got funding from Vision Ohio, and the rest is history.

Collaborating is such a unique experience because it allows everyone to bring their most valuable talents to the table to produce something amazing. It also proves difficult at times trying to make sure everyone’s goals are met and that communication is optimal.

Through this event I also learned a lesson or two in crisis communication. The artist canceled 16 days before the event, which is arguably the worst problem that could come up in planning and implementing a huge concert. However, we were not daunted. The team was incredible and acted quickly in searching for a new artist. I was very impressed with UPC and BSCPB in their experience and poise in such a difficult situation, and am very grateful Backdrop and ImPRessions (the rookies in implementing huge concerts), had “seasoned professionals” working with us.

We were very nervous about publicly disclosing the fact that we had no artist two weeks before the event, but we made a statement on our Facebook group and, to my amazement, received nearly zero criticism from students. In fact, many tried to offer solutions to us. This to me is a testament to the power and importance of being open and honest and communicating effectively 100 percent.

Once we found a new artist (two actually: Clipse and Consequence), everything else came together seamlessly. There was not a cloud in the sky on the day of the event and I think people really enjoyed the concert.

I have learned so much from working on this event and throughout the year with my client in general, and I’m actually going to miss it all next year, but I have the utmost confidence in my successors and look forward to seeing what they come up with for 2010-2011.