Customer Satisfaction Is All About Recommendations
Practices that are committed to a great patient experience know they need to regularly survey their customers in order to find out what’s working and what’s not. One of the traps in this process is becoming enamored with a high satisfaction score. This often leads doctors and their teams to declare victory as if they’ve now achieved their goal and can move on to the next challenge facing the practice.
Not so fast.
Those of us who are students of methods of improving the customer experience understand that customer satisfaction isn’t all that relevant. What is relevant is WTR or “willingness to recommend.” You’ve probably seen this on a survey you’ve been asked to complete: Please rate your willingness to recommend _________________________ to your family and friends. An entire industry is devoted to measuring consumer response to this measurement in what is known as NPS or Net Promoter Score.
The answer to this single question is what has been shown to drive referral behavior more than any other metric of customer satisfaction. Given that most practices believe their #1 source of new patients is referrals, it’s essential to measure this one question and track it over time. The impact on your business of running a medical practice can’t be overstated. In this excellent blog by my colleague and friend John DiJulius on earned sales, he describes the importance of understanding just how much of your overall revenue is the result of current customers’ either repeat business or referral of new business.
Looking to grow your practice revenue? Look first to your current patients, AKA your practice alumni.