4 Reasons Why Patient Retention is as Important as Patient Acquisition

1. 4 Reasons Why Patient Retention is as Important as Patient Acquisition When was the last time you have conducted a survey within your hospital to know what are the strategies you have been implementing for patient retention? The current trends in Healthcare Marketing give you every reason to focus on patient retention. It has now become as much important as the patient acquisition. And, there are sufficient reasons for you to focus on patient retention couple with the patient acquisition. ➔ The customer loyalty business is increasing at a vigorous rate, thanks to the increased focus on patient retention. ➔ It is difficult to sell to a new customer than selling to the existing customer. ➔ Making a new customer is always costlier than retaining the existing one.

2. Developing a strong patient base is important for a hospital to succeed but having a patient base that is loyal is imperative. New patient visit helps you in grow faster but repeated patient visits are the key for the long-term success of your healthcare practice. It is a known fact that the loyal customers explore the new products that are being offered under the same brand than the new customers. Hospitals are no different on this front. However, patient retention is not as simple as it appears. Here are few steps that you need to follow to maintain a loyal customer base for an assured healthcare success in a long run. Make Everything Right During First Visit – 1. If patients are visiting your practice, you have succeeded in acquisition aspect. And, many hospitals leave the rest with minimum effort to focus on next steps. 2. Focus more and more on various patient touch-points such as the reception, the waiting hall experience, proximity of various departments, consultation rooms, medical labs and diagnostic facilities and review rooms etc., 3. Make sure you are taking maximum effort to impress your customer in the premises, as when it comes to medical care first impression is always the last impression. Make Everything Right During First Visit – Make Sure the Staff is Empathetic - 1. Let your patients know that you care for them. Make sure your employees, both medical and non-medical staff, are empathetic towards the patients and their assistants. 2. It is the small gestures from your employees while interacting and providing information to the patients and their relatives, that make the difference. 3. Let the staff know the importance of being polite and empathetic towards the people who come to the hospitals with a burden in mind. 4. The quality of being supportive and talking to the patients in an assured manner is critical. Make Sure the Staff is Empathetic - Introduce a Loyalty Program - 1. Giving a concession or a discount on the service is something that works for almost all businesses. 2. Every time a repeated patient visits the hospital, give them some incentives or loyalty points. 3. Extended consultation period from the first visit or free consultation by redeeming the loyalty points are some tactics for better customer retention. Introduce a Loyalty Program - Make Use of the Digital Platforms - 1. Leveraging on the Digital Media platforms is one of the easiest ways for better patients retention. 2. Develop the brand on digital platforms and conduct various interactive sessions on the social media platforms. Make Use of the Digital Platforms -

3. 3. Healthcare Marketing researches found that hospitals that have the mobile applications or the interactive websites are having both better conversion and retention rate than the rest. All these efforts yield results only when the operational efficiency is effective in the hospital. Set- up various quality parameters for operational efficiency. There are various healthcare consultancies that could help you in understanding the patient retention in a better perspective. Make use of the expertise of these consultancies as healthcare success depends on how effectively you make use of the resources within the organization and expert help from the healthcare consultancies.