Almost every physician has had the experience of ordering a product from Amazon. It is seamless, human-free, and only requires two clicks: “add to cart” and “place your order.” You immediately receive confirmation of your order and when you can expect delivery, often in 24 to 48 hours. Amazon supplies tracking information with a single click on “Where is it now.” You know when your order has left the warehouse. Amazon also often provides a picture of the package left on your doorstep. Also, Amazon offers a free subscription service, including Amazon Prime, that exceeds what is available from other online companies or brick-and-mortar businesses. With their user-friendly interface and their accurate and quick delivery, Amazon generates a jaw-dropping 90% customer retention rate.
Another feature of the Amazon website is a powerful AI-driven recommendation engine highlighting products of interest to a specific customer based on their previous buying experience. This feature, using memory of what you purchased in the past, has the uncanny ability to predict other items you might want to consider.
How has Amazon used the digital experience to generate an incredible retention rate? Amazon creates the illusion that the customer is interacting with a human being. The take-home message is that the Amazon experience is frictionless, making it easy and fast for the customer to interact with the website. Unfortunately, most medical practices do not meet the Amazon online standard for ease of use.
Getting Started
One of us (SH) describes the “human touch target,” which connects with patients meaningfully. Creating the human touch should be part and parcel of your communication with your patients.(1) The simplest, most obvious, most impactful, and easiest way to implement this is sending a personalized handwritten note. This note could be a thank-you note to your patient or a patient who referred a friend or family member to your practice. The message could be an acknowledgment of any meaningful occasion, such as a birthday, an accomplishment by the patient or one of their family members, or an anniversary. The note need not be for any reason other than the opportunity to express gratitude. These notes demonstrate to your patient that you are thinking of them even when the two of you are not eyeball-to-eyeball.
Let us be clear: human-touch communication has a powerful effect in this age of digital communication. In the opinion of one of us (SH), emails and text messages don’t count for creating the human touch target. Email and text messaging don’t have the emotional impact of a personalized letter.
One of us (NB) often is the beneficiary of lunches provided to the office by a pharmaceutical company’s representative. Each of these lunches can cost the pharmaceutical company several hundred dollars. The office policy is that if any staff member partakes of a lunch provided by a pharmaceutical rep, they must send a handwritten thank-you note to the pharmaceutical company stating our appreciation for bringing the lunch. The response from the pharmaceutical representative nearly always is disbelief. We often hear that they have been providing lunches for years and never received a thank-you note. As a result, our practice is the rep’s favorite one to provide lunches for, and both the practice and the reps feel appreciated, acknowledged, and valued.
Another example occurs around the December holidays. One of us (NB) receives dozens of holiday cards, many wishing me a Merry Christmas. Nearly every sender of those cards knows that I am Jewish, and those who send me a Happy Chanukah card rather than a Christmas card demonstrate that they are knowledgeable and attentive to my religious affiliation and have taken that extra step. (Note: I’m never offended when I receive any holiday card as I celebrate the season, not the holiday.)
Handwritten notes are the best way to demonstrate appreciation and gratitude. However, there are other methods of creating that human touch.
Don’t forget that a low-tech approach using Alexander Graham Bell’s invention, the telephone, is still effective. Calling a patient at home and checking on their progress is appreciated. A phone call is very effective if you discharge a patient from the hospital or after a surgical procedure. You check on their progress, answer any questions they may have, and just let them know you are thinking about them. This phone call is a powerful way to give the patient that human touch. Another benefit of this call to a patient is that you will answer most of their questions and concerns, and you will receive fewer calls from your patients or their families.
Another way to remove friction from your practice is by becoming more accessible. You want to make it easy for patients to call the office and be able to speak to a nurse or a doctor. Patients’ phone calls and emails should be returned within a few hours or at the end of the day. When a patient calls with a question, the nurse or the medical assistant should triage the call and, if possible, answer the question or email. If the nurse or medical assistant cannot answer the call and needs to have the doctor return the call, tell the patient when the doctor will be returning phone calls. That reassures the patient that they will hear from the doctor at a designated time.
Accessibility also includes making it possible for the patient to make an appointment within a reasonable amount of time. A patient with an acute problem cannot wait for weeks or months for the next available appointment, nor does the patient want to go to an urgent care center. Not being accessible creates friction between the patient and the practice and must be avoided. If you are not accessible, you will drive your patients to a competitor’s practice.
Technology does not replace an empathetic and caring physician. Technology can only go so far. It is essential to give the patient the option of human interaction. Phone trees could be more attractive and effective in creating the human touch target. If a patient calls the office and wants access to a human, it is important to let them opt out of the phone tree early in the phone call and allow them to access a real person. Remember, technology may be able to create a repeat patient, but for most practices, it’s unlikely to create a loyal patient who will tell others about their positive experience with the practice. One of the best ways of making that loyalty happen is to connect the patient to another human being.
Baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) and millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) differ in more than date of birth. Baby boomers are more receptive to human touch and prefer face-to-face interactions. After the COVID-19 pandemic, however, baby boomers may be more willing to accept telemedicine or video conferencing as a fallback to in-office encounters with their doctors. Millennials, on the other hand, are more interested in accessibility. They will accept virtual visits, chat sessions, texting, and other digital interactions. Our take-home message is that it is imperative to provide options that allow patients to engage with the practice in a manner that feels most human to them. Therefore, don’t rely on technology as the only or main method of communication between your practice and your patients.
Bottom Line: Friction causes problems that ultimately will affect the relationship between the patient and the doctor. If there is too much friction, patients will go elsewhere for their care, or there may be a deterioration in their medical conditions. It is imperative to identify the friction in your practice and make your patient experience frictionless. When you can remove the friction in your practice, you are on your way to creating an Amazon experience for your patients.
Reference
Hyken S. I’ll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again & Again. Sound Wisdom, 2021.