MARKETING - Becoming Remarkable

“It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”  – Jeff Bezos

The customer experience is the New Marketing!

Being similar in terms of price and quality only gets you in the game; the patient experience wins the game.

So, to win when it comes to a second opinion, your new patient experience only needs to be a little bit better.

• Their first call to schedule with you needs to be a little bit better
• The material you send them needs to be a little bit better
• The reception they receive when they visit needs to be a little bit better and
• The experience in your office needs to be a little bit better.

 But to become the Premier Practice in your community, your patient experience needs to be significantly better.  Remember, a patient can only choose one office. So, even if you’re their second choice, you’ve lost that patient to your competition.

But do you need to be twice as good as your competitors to have twice as many patients?  Do you need to have a “twice as good” patient experience, or “twice as good” clinical results, or twice as friendly staff or a twice as nice office decor?

NO! All you have to be is “remarkably” better.

Seth Godin says that businesses will grow only when their service become “remarkable”. That is, a customer experience that is so outstanding that current customers will “remark” favorably to potential customers.  If you can create an experience at each patient visit that is “remarkable”, then your practice will become:

• Remarkable on social media
• Remarkable when someone talks to their neighbor
• Remarkable when someone recommends you to someone else at work or socially.

So, how do you become “remarkable”? How do you become the Premier Practice in your area?

First - You must “Meet to Compete”. You can’t make lasting improvements between patients.

• Spend time with your staff improving every aspect of the patient experience
• Redesign every part to “surprise and delight” them.
• Make it so that they leave your office thinking, “I love coming here!”

Second - Stop competing with your competitors and start competing with yourself, making everything 2% better this month.

• 2% better at being on time for appointments
• 2% more efficient at scheduling
• 2% more organized for every chairside procedure

Use the power of compounding interest. If you get 2% better every month, you’ll be 26% better in one year and 63% better in two years.

Third - Don’t ever stop getting better. 

• If you persist at getting 2% better each and every month, you eventually will become so “remarkable” that you’ll evolve into the “First Choice” and the Premier Practice in your community.

And once you do get to the top, don’t rest on your laurels.  Instead, have as your internal staff slogan, “We’re the best getting better”.

If you persistently work on continuous improvement, no other practice will be able to surpass you.  Because no other practice will be willing to match the time and energy that you will spend always becoming 2% better.