Traditional definitions of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) relate to the process that manages an organization’s relationships with customers and selectively retains the most profitable customers in order to increase profitability through meaningful communication. CRM is essentially a one-to-one marketing mechanism that uses IT tools, like databases and portals, to develop and manage the relationship that exists between profitable customers and the organization as a whole. By tracking customer response, interaction, and transaction history, organizations are able to provide products and services tailored to each individual customer in the age of mass customization. CRM not only differentiates high value customers from customers you are paying to give you business, it also considers how to optimize customer relationships to increase the profitability of an organization.
In healthcare, no one gets CRM right better than the pharmaceutical industry. In the wake of high physician turnover due to the changing economy, healthcare organizations could learn a lot from pharma with regard to engaging physicians to create long-term loyalty. The customer relationship management machine in the pharmaceutical industry is intense. Pharma has been dealing with the reality of engaging physicians with fewer sales reps, and they have embraced technology in order to better target potential customers. Pharma reps use CRM to develop tailored approaches to create a mutually beneficial relationship with physicians. Doctors don’t want to spend time with sales reps; they want to spend time with patients and gaining vital information on new treatments. Based on CRM data, pharmaceutical companies now engage with physicians by providing them with the information they want in the form that they want it in. Doctors can now visit a pharmaceutical owned portal to view the materials they need to make better care decisions. Pharma reps can “co-browse” content with physicians, and are notorious for “listening in” to physician interaction through data-mining sites like Sermo and Ozmosis
CRM Lessons for Hospitals
Hospitals attempting to increase loyalty among physicians in an age of increasing physician turnover can use CRM and collaboration tools in a similar fashion. Through using CRM, hospitals can engage physicians in the long-term by providing the content needed to create a mutually beneficial relationship.
In what ways do you think hospitals could better engage with physicians? If you have any questions about CRM and physician loyalty, then join our April 28th webinar “Healthcare Reform and Physician Loyalty”. Topics include:
- Empower Patients and Physicians: Identify and connect high-risk patients with the appropriate physicians and healthcare services that you deliver.
- Physician Referrals: Automate, simplify and manage all the information your referral process needs with one comprehensive set of tools.
- Service: Build and retain customer satisfaction by resolving issues efficiently, thanks to consistent access to up-to-date information from across your organization.
- Integration: Focus high-value resources on your business, not your IT infrastructure, thanks to the only CRM solution that provides Web Services support as well as prebuilt integration to Oracle and other business applications.
- Analytics: Make informed decisions based on deep insight into your business, thanks to the only on-demand CRM solution with a pre-built data warehouse that allows you to combine real-time intelligence with deep historical and comparative trend analysis.
- Call Center: Make your agents more productive and your physicians and patients happier and more loyal with the only hosted multichannel support application that can be deployed in days, not months- without upfront capital expenditures or integration costs.
- Marketing: Transform the way you market to physicians and patients with an integrated solution that makes your team work more efficiently, more effectively and with greater accountability.
