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Excellent Customer Experience is a Competitive Edge

Improving the referral experience was essential for continued growth.

Growing volume through better customer experience

Retaining customers is less expensive and more productive than attracting new ones. At Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, I used this rule of marketing to retain referral relationships with pediatric subspecialists nationwide.

Today’s consumers – even doctors – quickly change purchase preferences if they experience difficult or frustrating interactions. Whereas a great experience increases loyalty and repeat referrals.

I identified the opportunity to enhance the customer experience for the referring subspecialist physician, those who refer children with rare or complex diseases and conditions. Once approved, I led the system-wide team charged with identifying ways to improve the referral process. It wasn’t as straightforward as we expected.

Pilot studies helped gain support for a customer experience initiative
Three divisions participated in a pilot study - Gastroenterology, ENT, and the Perinatal Institute. We interviewed a panel of 55 subspecialists who may or may not have referred to the divisions.

The findings indicate areas for improvement based on the referral stage and treatment of the referred child.

Conclusions & Actions

The pilot studies and exploration took 14 months, and the organization became committed to improving customer experience with the referring physicians. The system-wide team continued to test improvement ideas while larger, more complex system improvements were underway.

Medical staff members were surprised by the results, yet motivated. The three divisions created early tests of change to improve the way they interact and communicate with long-distance referrers.

Conclusions

Making the referral, treatment, and communications process easier and more informative will be a competitive advantage. No children’s hospitals were reported to do this well.
Communication before and after the visit is where the greatest opportunity lies – from receiving updates and official doctor notes on the visit, tests, diagnosis, and recommended treatment plans.

Actions

The Physician Services team created outreach plans to visit the distance-referring MDs to establish closer relationships and better understand how to improve the customer experience.

System issues that impeded the ability to send reports and identify the initial referring physician needed to be addressed. The issue is complex and would take a few years to address, as some children had up to 20 referring MDs due to their condition.

The customer experience team visited hospitals to learn best practices in customer experience.

Results

The initiative continued long after I left the organization, with the pilot divisions becoming advocates for a more formal way to work with referring MDs.

Improving the referring physician experience was formally adopted by the organization as a priority, and Patient Registration was charged with overseeing it.

The pilot study divisions incorporated the activities into their annual goals, with medical staff members leading the efforts to improve the relationships. Their successes influenced the adoption of practices across the organization.