Today, it’s not just about customer service; it’s about the customer experience. In your pharmacy, the quality of your patients’ experience can make or break your business.
The patient experience refers to everything that happens to your patients in relation to your pharmacy. Everything from your staff’s attitude to the accessibility of your store to product availability can influence a patient’s experience. The patient experience can also be a single event, or a culmination of all of the experiences a patient has with your pharmacy. It can also be good or bad, like a staff member quickly resolving an issue, or a long wait for a prescription. It’s formed from peoples’ perceptions, and every patient will have his or her own personal experience.
The patient experience is only becoming more important. By 2020 experience is expected to surpass price and product in importance to consumers, according to Walker, a business consulting firm.
Other businesses are already planning to improve the customer experience. More than 80 percent of retailers plan to increase spending on customers’ experiences in 2015 according to the results of an online survey, The Retailer’s Imperative: A Strategic Approach to Customer Experience, conducted by Econsultancy and SDL, a global customer experience provider.
If you’re among the 20 percent of businesses that aren’t convinced about the need to invest in the patient experience, you might want to reconsider. Here are a few reasons why you should invest in improving your patients’ experience.
1. Quality of experience drives patients’ decisions
It shouldn’t be a surprise that negative experiences push patients away. According to a survey from Harris Interactive, 82 percent of consumers reported that they stopped shopping at a business because of bad customer service.
Investing in the patient experience can help you nab patients from your competitors. According to the same survey, 40 percent of people reported switching from one business to a competitor because of its reputation for great customer service.
How to improve: It’s not only inside your store that the patient experience matters. Are your store’s hours incorrect on Google or Yelp? Is it hard to find parking around your pharmacy? These situations can all contribute to the patient experience.
2. Good experiences are bankable
When patients abandon your pharmacy because of a bad experience, you lose sales. Investing in the patient experience can help you keep those patients. Even a small improvement in your patient’s experience can lead to fewer defections and more profit. Reducing your patient defection rate—when they leave to go to a competitor—by just 5 percent can increase your profitability by 25 to 125 percent, according to the book “Leading on the Edge of Chaos” by Emmett C. Murphy and Mark A. Murphy. These gains mean an investment in patient experience can pay for itself.
How to improve: Send patients who haven’t been to your pharmacy in a while a “come back” offer. Or, give them a personal phone call or email to find out why they haven’t returned to your pharmacy.
3. Patient experience is the root of word of mouth
One negative incident might have a larger ripple effect because patients share their experiences, especially negative ones, with friends, family and colleagues. According to Harris Interactive, 79 percent of people who had a bad experience with a business told others, and of that group, 85 percent told others to warn them about doing business with the company. If you’re not investing in the patient experience, you could be hurting your pharmacy’s reputation as well.
How to improve: Send personal, hand-written notes to patients. Write them a thank you card when they switch their prescriptions to your pharmacy, send patients birthday cards, or write an apology note after a bad experience at your pharmacy. The personalized effort won’t go unnoticed, and it’ll give your patients a positive story to share.
4. Patients expect more
Forbes reported that an emerging consumer behavior trend is the expectation of more. With big box store pharmacies and other independent pharmacies in your area, patients are faced with more choices than ever when selecting where to fill their prescriptions. Choice creates higher expectations, so if you’re not providing excellent experiences for patients at your pharmacy, someone else will.
How to improve: Find opportunities to give patients more. Hand out giveaways that promote your pharmacy, provide pamphlets with health tips or donate your time to a community organization. Search out opportunities to go above and beyond for your patients like staying open a few minutes later when a patient is running late to pick up a refill, or by offering to deliver a prescription to a parent home with a sick child. These extra services don’t have to be standard. Instead, making exceptions for patients in need will make patients feel special, and serve as highlight of your pharmacy’s patient experience.
5. Improvement is achievable
According to LivePerson, an online marketing and web analytics firm, 82 percent of survey respondents said resolving issues quickly is the number one factor that contributes to a great experience. Make sure to pay attention to how your pharmacy resolves issues with patients.
How to improve: Resolve patients’ issues quickly by training all of your employees to be problem solvers. That way, whenever a problem arises, they’ll be prepared to fix it in a quick and appropriate manner. Also, make it easy for patients to raise their concerns by giving them as many points of contact as possible. Dedicate a section of your website to soliciting comments and concerns, and have a box in your pharmacy where patients can leave notes or questions. Check these regularly and respond promptly.
