Do Your Customers See You As a Vampire?

I’m allergic to needles. Well, the allergy may be self-diagnosed, but I don’t even like?talking?about needles. I had to go get my blood drawn this week. I was supposed to go in two months ago, but you know, I’ve been “busy.”

I finally made the appointment and went in. I didn’t want to be there and neither did the vampire. The first thing she said was “sit down.” No greeting, no pleasantries.

I was clearly uncomfortable, I had to look away while she did whatever it is that vampires do. I had some questions, she begrudgingly answered them with a grunt as she sent me on my way. Fortunately, I was out of the clinic in just a few minutes.

My discomfort is clearly minor. It’s not life threatening. I even got through an unpleasant experience despite the vampire’s best efforts to make it worse.

What if the patient was my eight-year-old daughter? What if the patient was your child?

What if she had cancer and had to go to the clinic for an MRI scan instead of giving a little blood?

Imagine how terrifying it would be to crawl into a big scary machine and have to be perfectly still while the machine screams a one note song: BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

Doug Dietz at GE Healthcare had just stepped out of the room housing one of his company’s new scanners as a family walked in for a procedure. The patient: a frail little girl battling something worse than a fear of needles. She started sniffling as soon as she saw the big machine and tears started running down her cheeks.

That encounter shook Doug. Despite all of their efforts to build a solution that could save lives Doug and his team hadn't considered the needs of all of their patients.

He and his team went to work coming up with a way to change the experience for their smallest patients.

They added bright colors. They created rooms with fun themes with familiar characters. They changed a scary experience into one that brought smiles instead of terror on the faces of their youngest patients. Click the link to read more about: Doug's Story

Great innovators and great entrepreneurs develop deep understanding of their customers. They understand their customers who are big patients afraid of needles, or little patients afraid of a big scary machine.

What about your customers? How well do you know them? What kind of experience are you creating?

The better you understand your customers, the better the solutions you can develop.