I have the incredible honor and the work that I do at the Center for Innovation at Western U of working. You know when you get to be older you get jaded and you’re and you lose your enthusiasm you know? And, to be around the amazing students and to and to see through their lens the incredible opportunities to be able to improve and to really scale the value. Right now, we are all, you all are in a very labor intense business. It’s kind of a one off. If we can leverage innovation we can scale our intuitive genius and transmute that into things that provide care to thousands of patients. You know I think I would be remiss and I only have a few minutes to bring this to you but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Patient Experience Design. In my book What customers crave it’s one of the books on a on patient experience and consumer experience design that came out last year. And one thing I learned about that experience is that there is a different expectation from patients today. And if we ignore it we are not going to be able to have successful practices and we’re not ultimately going to be able to engage patients in a way where we can learn from them ways to improve regiment compliance. We can help them doing a better job in post procedural compliance. So there are there are clinical benefits and beyond that of just business benefits but there is an incredible opportunity for healthcare providers and hospitals and clinics to square up with patient experience.
In fact eighty nine percent of the top brands in the world are doing that. But people say, but Nick, that’s ridiculous it’s not going to impact us. Think about optometry. Now in optometry historically you’re getting your your call and then you would have this deal you do a deal with them right. And the deal was “Hey can I come in tomorrow to get my eyes checked.” Are you kidding me. Two weeks from now we can get you in…but you’ve got to wait for two hours as usual. That’s how we used to do it. And in fact most optimetric practices are really having a hard time bringing in contemporaneous patient flow approaches to be able to solve that problem and patients won’t stand for it. I mean think about it from this perspective, how many of you are Prime members in the audience. Like how do they talk us in to paying them to buy stuff from them. What is that? It’s weird but they do it because the experience is beautiful. I don’t know about you guys…I’m pretty busy and so when I go on to Amazon I cannot be going to a product, and then like you know taking my index finger, and like put it in the card I mean I’m not retired after all right.
I can’t do that. So what did Amazon do? Buy with one click. My wife is here she’ll attest it cost me like seven grand last month. Right. Swedish massager. Yeah. You know I come home and there’s all these things I remember buying that. So you know the point is is that it is incredible. And what Amazon knows is that patient experience is about friction. That’s the level of friction that patients are willing to look at. It’s now and no longer going from here to there. But yet interestingly enough there is a study that just came out that found that if your patients wait more than 15 minutes they go from liking you, to not liking you. 15 minutes is the new number. But think about Opternative. Now from your connected device in the time that you actually beg your optometrist to let you in so you can give them your money…for a lot less money you can go on and get refracted…it’s reviewed by a board certified opthomologist and you get your prescription. Now I’ve been warned by our dean of our optometry school to never tell the story without telling the whole story. And I have to agree with her. This is not really an eye exam right? I think we can all agree where’s the tonometry? Where’s the slit lamp? Where is really taking a look at this human? But in markets where there are bad up optometric practices they are being displaced digitally.
They’re being displaced digitally. That’s incredible. And this will continue as we move from this concept of just to a one touch now…I think that it is having an amazing impact. I mean think about Amazon. Amazon didn’t destroy Borders. Borders destroyed Borders. Borders created this complicated horrible experience of one hundred and thirty thousand books that you had to find. And 80 to 90 percent of them according to the hyper influential community of book readers, the star rating, they all said those books are irrelevant. So it didn’t turn out that Amazon killed Borders because of the fact that it was digital. They killed them because the experience was much better. And after they killed them they brought in the bulldozers, cleared off the area, and they put in the Amazon stores. Which you’re hard pressed to be able to get into because they’re so busy. There’s 5000 square feet about three thousand books and every book in that store is perfect. Not according to Amazon but according to the influential community of book buyers that buy books and read those books. That’s incredible. And that’s the kind of level of experience that we need to deliver. We also need to deliver amazing digital experiences. Your patients see you across five touch points. The pre touch moment. 98 percent your patients…their first touch point with your practice is digital and there are three things you have to be.
There. You have to show up on search. Number two you have to be relevant. And number three you have to be valuable. Are you there? Are you relevant and are you valuable. Yeah I just went to I got called by a practice, and they said, “Hey can you take a look at my my website?” And I took a look at it. Yeah, Dr. Johnson was a you know this, and doctor has pictures of him running, and him climbing, you know you Yosemite. Where’s my value? I don’t get that. And he went to this school… That’s not what patients wanted. Patients want a guide to the 20 things you should know before knee surgery. They want your web properties to be value dispensers. 98 percent of them begin their journey on that digital touchpoint. Then it’s the first touch point. What’s that reception like? Is it beautiful? Is it really consumerized. In my consulting firm that provides customer experience consulting to practices I will not take on…we just turned one down on Friday….I will not take on a practice if they’re not mature enough to call their patient a consumer. Of course you’re delivering special clinical care. I get that. But if they’re not a consumer if we can’t recognize the fact that we’re competing at a consumer level the chances are we’ll never get to a better place.
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