Successful enterprises and businesses don’t just communicate with prospects and their existing customers on special days. Relationship building is indispensible in today’s competitive world and is a vital key to marketing success. The concept aptly applies to healthcare, as well, where relationship marketing is now seen as a proven way to add value to a practice, build brand equity and position against competition. Here are some relationship marketing strategies for healthcare providers that will help you create trust-based relationships with your patients/potential patients:
Know your patients well and always follow the “patient first” policy
The healthcare sector deals with a very critical aspect — a patient’s health. Therefore, the primary goal of all healthcare providers should be patient care and satisfaction. Start thinking about ways you can add value to their experience at your practice. Implement the lessons from patient feedback to improve their experiences. Patients have an eye for every detail while they are at your practice, so treating them well and building a good rapport with them will essentially differentiate you from your competitors.
Build trust and strengthen relationships by touching human emotion
Relationship marketing experts suggest customer satisfaction and trust as major determinants of customer commitment. Patients look up to healthcare experts for a solution to their health problems, so it’s a moral responsibility of the healthcare providers to be a faithful representative of their patients’ interests. Developing any serious medical condition is always a sensitive matter for a person. Show compassion in your gestures and actions which will give them the satisfaction that you understand their problems. Make sure that you always provide information that is scientifically correct, unbiased and useful.
Communicate frequently
Like in any other industry, relationship marketing in healthcare focuses on fulfilling patient needs, wants and desires by listening, responding, providing and adapting. But how often do you reach out to your patients? It’s very important to communicate frequently to your patients and know what they think and feel about your practice. By encouraging open communication, you can build positive relationship with your patients, which in turn will help you understand what they feel about the services offered at your practice. It’s possible to combine email, face to face, social media, physician-review websites and phones for connecting and communicating with your patients. Carefully analyzing and proactively tracking what services patients look for regarding their health needs can give you insight into their minds.
Relationship marketing through patient engagement on social media
People across the world are increasingly adopting social media as a means of instant communication. It’s the need of the hour for all healthcare providers, hospitals and physicians to include patient engagement through various social media channels as a part of their relationship marketing plan. Being active on various social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs and Twitter helps physicians to stay well-informed about how patients perceive healthcare, that too directly through their eyes. Connecting directly with patients gives them insight about the problems patients face with healthcare services, their own health in general and issues they come across while working toward their healthcare goals. Physicians can provide thought leadership to patients and can share their knowledge and expertise with those who need it. Sometimes, it’s just an experienced opinion they need. But ensure that you always remain professional and remember to keep private discussions/details offline (keep the HIPAA guidelines in mind).
Relationship marketing is a smart approach for healthcare providers to market themselves well to attain their business objectives. It may rather be stated as a strategic lever for your marketing objectives and helps manage and create lasting relationships with patients.