If you have a healthcare practice, you must focus on patient experience.
That’s ultimately what will keep them coming back to your practice, rather than losing them out the back door. Not only that, if you provide them with great care on top of that patient experience, they may even recommend you to their family and friends.
You’ll not only be retaining your best patients and having them come back to you, but you’ll also be acquiring new ones in the process.
Win-win, right? But how do you put that into practice?
First, You Have to Burn the Ships
To “burn the ships” is an old saying that represented a way to remove any possible path to return back to the way you came. It was a visible, symbolic way to demonstrate that the leaders were all in with the crew on the new journey.
This doesn’t always happen with businesses, though. We’ve seen many leaders set their ships off for the new destination (improved patient experience), their crew begins the work to rebuild the policies, processes, communications…and then the leaders sneak back to the ship and try to turn it around, trying to go back to where they were before, without committing to the new destination.
This is not only hurting their business (and bottom line), but it’s also showing disrespect and inconsistencies to their crew, who are the ones that will ultimately drive your business forward and implement best practices when it comes to driving patient satisfaction.
As a Leader, You Have Decisions to Make
Businesses everywhere talk about customer or patient experience and putting the patient at the center of the care experience. The ones who succeed are the ones who make that decision and don’t look back. You owe that to yourself, to your practice, and most importantly to your team.
If your business or practice is currently stuck between here and there on patient experience or some other culture shifting initiative, maybe you haven’t fully committed to it. Maybe, as the leader, you need to burn the ships and keep moving forward.
In business, as with everything in life, you can’t reach your future without a willingness to leave the past way of doing things behind, and keeping a straight focus on the horizon ahead.
Where Do You Start With Patient Experience?
It all starts with assessing your current customer journey, in order to know exactly where you are and determine where you need to go from there. This is where it’s important to conduct some market research, survey your patients and staff to know what their needs are and what they value, and maybe even have a look at your competitors to see what else is out there.
After that, it’s time to look into all the data collected, as well as the systems and processes you currently have, as they’ll be key to telling your company’s story. Then, once you have a clear image of what your patients value and what you offer, it’s time to look for opportunities to improve and grow your practice by filling in the gaps.
Lastly, it’s time to execute. Once you have a clear plan on how to expand your business growth, you have to commit to it – burn the ships – and move forward 100%.
Boss Lady Consulting can help you with each and every step just mentioned, from the assessment to training your team to become experts in driving better retention and experience for your patients.
Remember: change and culture-shifting initiatives require clarity and smart strategy. If you need help to plan your own unique course, we invite you to book your FREE consultation call today! We’re here to help.