What is a Customer in the Healthcare Eco-System
During this weekly series of articles about effective healthcare Outreach, the term customer will be used often. Before providing you with field-proven and effective Outreach principles, methods and tactics, we need to define: What is a customer in the healthcare Outreach eco-system.
How Do You Define A Customer
First, in your scope of operations and Outreach – what is your definition of a customer? If someone were to randomly ask an employee at your organization to define a customer, what would the universal response be?
Did you know that the origin of the term customer, as far back as 1540 is, “a person with whom one has dealings.”
As it relates to Outreach there are many kinds of individuals with whom we have dealings. Those that we must inform, understand, astonish, and earn their trust to request, refer or utilize our services or products.
For most clinicians, we will default to stating the patient is the customer. For suppliers to healthcare organizations a customer is often a decision-maker that may be a clinician or a hospital CEO or DON. For individuals in Air Medical Transport a customer is often an individual like a Fire Chief whose department could be requesting their medical helicopter. My point, there are many categories of customers – persons with whom we have dealings.
Each of these and many more types of individuals are included in the Orbit of Outreach initiatives.
Therefore, even though some of us in healthcare recoil at using the word “customer,” this will be the term that encompasses those we serve, those we must astonish, those with whom we have dealings in our Outreach efforts.
To be more precise, we will define a customer as;
An individual or organization essential for (your organization here) to exist.
Who is essential?
- Patients? In many instances, yes.
- Physicians that request your services, are they essential for your organization to exist? For many yes.
- Legislators that may enact laws that impact on how you operate, are they essential for your organization to exist? They sure need to be factored.
- Individuals and organizations enrolled in your insurance or membership program?
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A NO STRAINER ™ on that one.
- What about peers, fellow employees. Are they essential for your organization to exist? Of course. Always remember that you have important dealings with fellow employees, and they should be prioritized.
A wide array of individuals occur within the orbit of essential for your organization to exist. So let’s begin to narrow our focus. There are three general categories that our firm has used with our clients in critical care. These can apply to all sectors in healthcare Outreach.
Time For Some UTI
In general, there are three customer categories.
- ULTIMATE – END USERS. Patients and loved ones that your organization diagnoses, treats, transports or provides direct interventions and services or products. They benefit from pre-emptive, direct diagnostic or medical interventions and rehabilitative services and products. Those that use your technologies or products.
- TRANSACTIONAL – those with whom your organization transacts that support your efforts – vendors, business partners, suppliers, professional services providers, your fellow employees, etc.
- IMMEDIATE – individuals that make (or influence) direct requests for, refer or directly purchase what you offer. As an example in Air Medical Transport – our immediate customers are individuals that make flight requests by calling our Comm Centers. Immediate customers often have final decision-making and contracting authority.
The point – patients and suppliers are important in our Outreach orbit – but – they are not the individuals with whom we are directly and immediately engaging to understand, astonish, and earn their trust to result in obtaining our services or products.
IMMEDIATE CUSTOMERS are categorized and prioritized in detail using the TargetingMatrix®. This proprietary methodology our firm developed will be essential in your Outreach triaging. Future articles will elaborate.
Okay, What Is Outreach
Now that the general categories of customers have been defined, in the next OutreachBEAT ™ article we will clarify, what is Outreach. Hint, it’s not sales. It’s not marketing. It is unique and requires a specialized mindset, a wide array of fine-tuned skill-sets and performs very specific and important functions in our healthcare eco-system.
Communicate
Healthcare Business Today reaches a wide array of professionals in healthcare. I realize your use case and your Outreach eco-system is unique. Communicate with me on how you define a customer. Or, if you are having challenges with doing this – be in touch. I want to help you succeed in your healthcare Outreach endeavors.
Richard M. Obertots, MBA, NREMT-P (ret.) is CEO/Drummer of ThinkThroughTools, LLC. & OutreachU, ltd., based in Canfield, Ohio, USA. He has 45 + years’ experience in EMS, air medical transport and critical care healthcare. He began as a Nationally Registered Paramedic, then Hospital EMS/Trauma Coordinator and Financial Analyst. Rich has instructed full-time at the University level and been a non-stop business creator and owner for more than five decades. He and his companies have operated in nearly every state of the USA, and he’s had numerous healthcare business endeavors throughout Australia and Canada. All of these involved designing and implementing healthcare Outreach Operating Systems, methods and supporting software.
He is the author of THE BOOK OF OUTREACH for HEALTHCARE; How to Grow Revenue by Astonishing the Right Customers Consistently, the newest edition scheduled for limited release later in 2025. He can be reached at [email protected] 330.623.5910.
