From the Top Down and the Bottom Up

As I outlined in my previous blog post, Flight Path for Success, the incident that took place on United Flight #3411 and the ensuing response could have been avoided. It would have entailed United putting the customer first, empowering team members to do the right thing and owning its mistakes. This incident also signaled a CEO that was out of touch with his customers.

Regardless of the size of your organization, a connection to one’s customers is critical to the success of any business. When you understand customer behaviors - for instance, what motivates them to engage, what causes them to look for services elsewhere - you will have a greater chance for success and a better handle on how to make a course correction when needed. You also demonstrate to your team that you personally care about the business.

One way to ensure this type of connection is to focus on your organizational structure. You want to keep the management layers between leaders and customers to as few as possible. For example, in most cases at Jupiter Medical Center there are only three-and-half layers between me and the patient. As a leadership team, a (relatively) flat organization allows us to have a real handle on who our patients are as well as what their needs are. We also continually look for opportunities where we can engage directly with them. Whether that is spending time in our clinics or treatment facilities or doing frequent rounds to each floor of the hospital.

Another way to maintain a connection is to provide a space to hear suggestions on new or improved customer service initiatives. Sometimes these are in the form of town halls or small group meetings with my team, but hearing from team members like this on how to continue to provide world-class service to customers is critical. Not only do we discover new and exciting opportunities to engage customers but you empower your team to take ownership of customer relationships.

In addition to listening to your team, you also need to be proactive in listening to the customer first hand. Consistent with this thought, Jupiter Medical Center has a Patient and Family Advisory Council that consists of former patients and their family members who volunteer their time and input to help improve the experience for others. This council ensures the patient’s voice and needs are integrated into hospital committees, task forces and daily decision making. In its second year, the council has grown to 15 members and has made a great impact on the organization.  

For us at Jupiter Medical Center, connection with our customer is simply embedded in our culture. We care for the health and wellness of our community one patient at a time. At the end of the day, this type of culture makes a difference - and our scores don't lie. We continue to rank #1 in overall patient satisfaction in Palm Beach and Martin County for the past 7 years as well as being #1 in likelihood to recommend. This alone outpaces the national and statewide averages but has also allowed us to remain the preferred institution in our community.

But for any organization, the bottom line is that a connection to your customers is critical and it starts from the top down. Think about it: as a leader, understanding the customer is our primary job. If we cannot stay attuned to the needs of the customer, then how can we expect our business to thrive?

Read More

Grow the Core

As I mentioned in a previous post a couple of weeks ago, I recently spent an invaluable day at the corporate headquarters of American Express in New York along with key members of my marketing team. As we discussed the practice of consumerism and marketing our services directly to consumers, the folks at American Express reiterated the importance of focusing first, and foremost, on one’s core customer.

During that conversation, I was reminded of cautionary tale about Gatorade, the leading sports drink manufacturer, and what happened when they strayed away from their core customer. Since its inception in 1965 when it was first formulated as replenishment beverages for the University of Florida football team and for years that followed, Gatorade’s core customer was the “athlete” looking to energize pre-workout or recover after a game or training session.

In 2001, PespsiCo acquired Gatorade and Coca-Cola, in an attempt to compete for a share of the sports drink market, created Powerade. As a result, the two companies engaged in a price war, along with over 1,400 other brands of noncarbonated beverages. Gatorade saw short term benefits, due to their discounted prices, but it wasn’t long before they started realizing their loss in brand strength.

The result was a decrease in market share as their new customers proved to be elusive and the core athlete started to leave in pursuit of other sports drinks. Gatorade has since recovered by refocusing its brand and marketing its sports drink lines to appeal to athletes of all different levels from the high school student to the marathoner. They invested in innovation, differentiating their core products, and expanding their footprint globally. Their focus was now on defining the sports drink category rather than being reactive and playing defense.

The reality is that in most for-profit businesses, core customers are responsible for the largest percentage of a company’s revenue. Subscribing to the Pareto Principle, some would even say that 80 percent of revenue is generated by 20 percent of customers. Core customers are also more likely to be in it for the long haul and will be the most forgiving when external forces hit. As they like to say at American Express, we should be “growing the core, then adding more.”

At Jupiter Medical Center, we have developed a continuum of care that is completely patient centered. Everything from outpatient ambulatory services, through acute care to a post acute environment, the continuum is designed to support the medical needs from birth to end-of-life care. As our continuum of care expands and the market shifts, there is a greater need to refocus on the idea of our core customer. Historically, our core has been the critically ill. We have been taking care of and marketing to this consumer segment for years. But as we move towards a health and wellness platform, we need to ask ourselves – is our core customer changing? Or perhaps, consider the idea that we may have more than one core customer? Asking these questions and having these conversations will become crucial if we are to remain successful.

Read More