Hospitals
Physicians
Nursing Homes
Physician Offices
Healthcare Managers
HMOs and other managed care organizations

What is the difference between patient satisfaction and patient loyalty?
According to research reported in the Harvard Business Review, customers who rate the service they received as a 4 (satisfied) on a five-point scale, are six times more likely to defect than customers who rate the service a 5 (very satisfied). When your customers say they are 'satisfied' it means you met their minimum expectations. It does not mean they believe you are any better than your competitors.

World class service organizations like Disney have stopped reporting the percentage of satisfied customers to their employees. They benchmark only the percentage of customers who mark 5 on a five-point scale. This is the score that really matters. It is also the score that shows significant room for improvement. There is a lot of difference between a score of 98% (the percentage of 4's and 5's added together) and 55% (the percentage of customers marking a 5). This latter score takes the complacency out of employee response to the former near-perfect satisfaction scores. And it raises their sights from satisfaction to loyalty.

Aren't All Customer Loyalty Strategies About the Same?
First of all, it is significantly more difficult in healthcare than in any other service industry to meet or exceed customer expectations. The interactions between staff and patients are far more intimate and unique. The patient's emotional state is much different and more difficult to respond to than that of a customer in a store or at a resort.

Fred Lee’s clients are healthcare organizations. The needs of patients and their families have been the subject of his research and the basis of all his strategies for over 10 years. His programs bear the imprint of patient representatives, nurses, physicians, nurse educators, clinical psychologists, and experts in healthcare marketing.

What approach does Fred Lee use?
His approach is participative. He likes to work with the senior leadership in each organization to develop a program that fits them, their management team, and their existing culture. He also finds the Baldrige Award Criteria especially helpful, but has learned that the deployment of any approach works best when:

1. It has middle management’s consensus and ownership, not just compliance
2. It is comprehensive and permanent, not just a program of the year
3. It is the foundation of all quality efforts, not separate from them
4. It is a cultural cornerstone, not a strategic initiative
5. It has top leadership’s conspicuous attention and involvement, not just lip service

Can this be done in small steps or do we have to launch a major undertaking?
Fred Lee will consider any steps your leadership and managers think will work best within the constraints of the organization. However, he will be an advocate for the five principles above, which would involve everyone and raise the service bar in every department. He also has a bias for using the Baldrige criteria as a way to reach world-class excellence.