Hospital Internal Marketing

There are three kinds of organizations; those who make things happened; those who watch things happen; and those who wonder what`s happened.

If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.

As the world spins into the challenging phase of economy, both citizen and business wonder what is ahead. There is not only change, but the rate of change is accelerating. A twelve-year old girl said of her ten year old sister, “She is of a different generation.” Her younger sister listens to difference music, plays different videos, knows different movie stars, has different heroes.

Organisation or companies often fail to recognize that their marketplace changes years to year. Last year winning marketing strategy may become today`s losing strategy. As someone observed, there are two kinds of companies: those who change and those who disappear.

We at Trizone always believe in Knowing is Knowing & Doing is Doing, hence we keep on inventing new strategies which really works for our healthcare clients.

In this blog you will know more about Internal Marketing & how to create brand ambassadors.

In a competitive and dynamic environment, healthcare organizations need to continuously revolutionize their business practices so as to deliver better value for their patients. The healthcare sector is subject to transformation and advancement; and in order to sustain their business performance, these organizations need to be well informed about the present market trends and formulate strategies in accordance. While facing the various challenges of marketing strategy development and implementation, branding, positioning and assessment of the market and ever changing clinical demands, these organizations also has to uphold their performance amidst uncertain market behavior.

Objective:

·        Create Your Brand Ambassadors

·        Create positive attitude & ownership towards Organization

·        Engage Maximum Footfall & capture their eyeballs on your Brand

·        Cross Selling of offered services

·        Word of Mouth

·        Engagement in social media

·        Utilization of Existing workforce & footfalls to increase business

Step involved in Internal Marketing

Phase 1:

1.  Articulate Vision & Mission

2.  Gauge the existing scenario

3.  Segmentation of existing workforce

4.  Communication Plan

5.  Execution of communication Plan

6.  Internal Events

7.  Measure impact & re-planning accordingly

Phase 2:

1.  Feedback [Patient, Relative & Visitors]

2.  Cross Selling

3.  Social Media Engagement

4.  “Thanks for Trust on Us”

5.  Patient Welfare Officers / Floor Managers

6.  Delight Team

7.  In-house referral scheme

8.  Data Collection

PHASE 1:

1.  Articulate Vision & Mission

For Example: Some Hospital has following:

Vision

Striving with excellence to create world-class integrated healthcare delivery system, entailing finest medical skills to fulfill the needs of the community in its chosen field of medical treatment

Mission

To become a global healthcare institution, which encompasses latest technology and best medical practices with an emphasis on ethical principles, in a caring environment, to preserve and enrich the quality of life with a respect for human dignity

Values

Setting the best practice standards in services, continuously improving performance and exceeding the expectations of patients as well as their families.

Believe in building and maintaining long-term patient relationships, so as to become an essential resource for their well being.

We believe in:

Training and developing the best medical practices as the key to deliver superior service.

Consistently investing in technology and infrastructure to match international benchmarks.

Continuously educating the community in the context of women and children welfare

2.  Gauge the existing scenario [internal Customers]:

One can do the Gap Analysis between Vision, Mission & actual practices on the basis of following parameters:

·        Ownership

·        Commitment

·        Opinion Poll

·        Word of Mouth

3.  Segmentation of existing workforce:

Understand the existing Gossip centers in and Around hospital thru Identification of common gossip topics & gossip mongers, Corrective steps & policy

Healthcare organizations must have defined their SOPs for each process, It should also well communicated amongst the team members so that they will understand work segmentation and their individual roles & responsibility for the particular task. Following are the few points on which organization can do segmentation of existing workforce:

·        Understand the existing patient, relative visitors flow

·        Segmentation of workforce according to their skills & ability

·        Medical & Non Medical

4.  Creation of Communication Plan:

Identification & creation of various groups & align communication strategy accordingly

In today`s world communication is very easy but at the same time right communication at right time is also very important aspect of the communication. Healthcare organizations must create their master plan for various communications. 

·        Identification of communication channels

·        Maximum utilization of Social Media Platform

·        Merchandise

·        Whatsapp Groups, Social Medias, E-mail [Education, motivation, promotions]

5.  Execution of communication Plan:

To connect with internal customers effectively, organization should be more careful while executing the communication plan.

·        Work Station Posters

·        Workforce Education & Training on Who, Why, For What, When, How etc.

·        Social Media Platform

·        Merchandise

·        Whatsapp & E-mail [Education, motivation, promotions]

6.  Events:

Internal events are essential for any healthcare organization, as we all know healthcare workers are in tremendous work pressure and stress, to feel them happy at work place, organizations must plan yearly event calendar for internal customers:

·        To create employee ownership & transform them in to Brand Ambassador

·        To increase synergy between internal & inter department functions

·        To increase bounding between all stake holders

·        Increase Brand ownership & loyalty

·        Events like Director`s Day, CEO`s Day etc to interact with all levels of internal customers, Team Building, Quiz, Get together, birthday celebration

7.  Measure impact & re-planning accordingly:

Healthcare Organisation should measure impact periodically to understand strategy impact on business. On the basis of impact measures one should always re-plan the strategy acoordingly:

·        Feedback Overview

·        Result Overview

To measure the impact thru interview, observation, feedback, spy etc. & act accordingly

PHASE – 2:

1.  Feedback [Patient, Relative & Visitors]:

In today`s healthcare organizations, many of them are practicing patient’s feedback capturing practices at various level like OPD, IPD, Billing, discharge etc. but organization must follow the right way of taking feedbacks. Few points are:

·        Who is filling it

·        Who get it filled

·        Consideration of last few experience

·        Mental Status

·        How many forms

·        Satisfaction v/s Delight

·        Follow up Action

·        Feedback Process analysis

2.  Cross Selling:

Cross selling means attract existing patient or attender to avail other available facilities at hospital like health check ups, package booking, etc.

·        Cross Department Selling

·        Create service awareness

·        Brochures

·        Digital / interactive signages

·        SMS, Emailer, Posters, Merchandise

·        Promotional Scheme

·        Package Scheme

·        To engage & convert existing customers for various other offered services

3.  Social Media Engagement:

In today`s world of digitalization, organization must practice tactics to connect internal & existing customers to their social media platforms:

·        Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Google+, blog etc

·        To connect with patients & Visitors

·        Free internet access to main foyer

·        Kiosk to “connect with us”

·        Membership scheme

4.  “Thanks for Trust on Us”:

Once patient or attender or internal customer depart or leave the organization after availing your services, one should always greet them:

·        Message card to each patient by consultant after consultation, on discharge, during ward visit etc.

·        Carry Bag / special bag

·        Souvenir

·        Create positive bonding between patient & consultant

·        Unique way to connect with patients emotions

5.  Patient Welfare Officers / Floor Managers:

Healthcare service providers have to practice like hospitality industry does for their customers, on each contact point in healthcare organization there should be someone to assist patient and attenders e.g. patient welfare officers / floor managers who take care of:

·        For coordination between doctor and patient`s relative

·        Coordination between relative and hospital administration

·        Coordination between internal and external doctors

·        Patient`s support service monitoring

6.  Delight Team:

To achieve higher success in healthcare businesses one should understand customer delight and monitor delight experience of each and every customer by appointing Delight Team:

·        Patients satisfaction v/s delight experience monitoring

·        To provide customized support services to patients

7.  In-house referral scheme:

As we discuss in starting internal customers are best brand ambassadors for any organization, to motivate them one should start internal referral schemes:

·        Incentive scheme for employees on patient refer by them

·        Incentive scheme for clinical team on inter department patient referral

·        ‘Health Referral” Free/discount Health Check Up coupons to existing HCP clientele

8.  Data Collection:

Last but not least, organization must emphasize on data collection tools and technologies.

·        Identification of available opportunities for data collection

·        Process establishment of Data Collection

·        Periodical updation

·        Utilization of Data

·        Dala Analysis for various schemes

·        Clinical Research

Hope this article must have given you the complete knowing on Internal Marketing and how one can utilize this for their business success.

Do Remember Knowing is Knowing & Doing is Doing.