Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

Disclosure: This presentation is by Kent Seltman from Mayo Clinic’s Division of Marketing. I’m also from Mayo Clinic, where I work with National Media Relations, Research Communications and New Media. We’re both probably biased. But here’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

Kent’s three lessons (which are in the book he is writing with Len Berry) include:

1. Attend to the Values
2. Play Defense, not just Offense
3. Turn Customers Into Marketers

A related article appears in the current issue of the journal, Business Horizons.

The Presented Brand is what the organization controls, and directly affects brand awareness. Examples are advertising, brand name, logo, web sites, employee uniforms and facilities design.

External Brand Communication includes Organization-influenced communication. Examples are media relations and word-of-mouth, which we can somewhat influence but cannot control. Presented Brand and External Communication influence brand meaning, but indirectly.

Customer Experience is the cumulative experience with a company, and is directly and disproportionately influential in creating brand meaning. Nothing trumps the customer’s actual experience in creating brand meaning. Customers’ actual experiences have large influence on word-of-mouth communications.
“Mayo Clinic” is created every day on the fly by every employee in every interaction with every patient. (I also would add that this applies to interaction with other clients such as, in my team’s case, news media. And news media give word-of-mouth with a megaphone.)Over 37 percent of Americans know someone who has been a patient at Mayo Clinic.

Brand History: In the 1890s Dr. Will and Dr. Charlie Mayo gained notoriety for good surgical outcomes because they were early adopters of aseptic surgical techniques, and in 1905 Dr. Will became president of the American Medical Association.

Journalists at the turn of the 20th century wrote several articles that made the Mayo brothers extremely uncomfortable, making outlandish claims about how wonderful they were, like “not a single patient died under their knife” and that they were “the court of last appeal for the sick of all the world.”

Kent observes that “The Mayo Clinic brand became the leading healthcare provider brand in the United States WITHOUT a marketing department or brand manager, just a combination of outstanding healthcare and vigilance to preserve a great REPUTATION.” I agree with him to a point, except when he says “just” outstanding healthcare. Those early newspaper articles played an important role in building the reputation, even though there was no media relations team. The Mayo brothers didn’t like the articles because they created animosity among other physicians. But there’s no denying they played a role, because Mayo Clinic is still seen as that “last hope” for many patients.

Lesson I: Attend to Values First. Key values are “The needs of the patients come first” and “Teamwork.” Here’s a case in which both of those values are exemplified, and infrastructure such as the integrated medical record (since 1905) which is now electronic, vertical buildings, wide halls and priority paging infrastructure helps teams collaborate.
Lesson II: Play offense (extend the brand appropriately) and defend it against well-meaning internal people who might dilute it and against external groups that want to trade on Mayo Clinic’s name.

Lesson III: Turn Customers into Marketers. In our studies, 95 percent of our patients said “good things” about Mayo Clinic after visits to an average of 46 people, and 90 percent advised people to come to Mayo and claimed an average of 7 actually came.

Capitalizing on Word-of-Mouth (WOM) requires providing a service that exceeds customers’ expectations. “The real brand heroes are those industrial engineers and other leaders who design the service processes and the line employees who perform – often on the fly – their individualized service for patients.” Efficiency of care correlates most highly with patient satisfaction at Mayo Clinic.

Technorati: Mayo Clinic, Healthcare, Brand, Service, Word of Mouth

Today’s presentation was from Wayne Sensor, CEO, Alegent Health, who gave what he calls: A Marketer’s Call to Action.

Mixing metaphors, Wayne says our industry is “at a crossroads” and “facing a gathering storm:” rising cost of healthcare, number of uninsured and questions about whether not-for-profit hospitals are keeping up their end of the bargain. He says this will be the age of the consumer.

Consumerism isn’t new in America, but it is for health care…and it has reached its zenith in TiVo, iPods, consumer-generated Super Bowl ads and you/me being the Time Person of the Year.

He says our choice is whether we embrace or deny consumerism. We need to have Tools to empower consumers, Access Points (e.g. clinics in grocery stores) and Incentives for good behavior.

He discussed some of the drivers of rising costs, including pharmaceutical costs, defensive medicine, aging population, lifestyle choices and failure to practice evidence-based medicine.

He outlined solutions in three categories:

Tools – Reporting meaningful quality data, with composite scores based on CMS data. Alegent’s first set of quality ads showed performance data that were below the regional average. Now the scores have gone up because they focus on what creates the scores at monthly clinical practice meetings. They publish their scores on the Alegent.com web site, and report that they not only have surpassed regional competition but also national levels of some elite centers.

Another tool they are developing is a personal cost estimating tool. “Instead of a list price we provide the consumer with the ability to find out how much tests and procedures cost and how much they will actually pay.” The program asks the consumer to enter their insurance plan and checks the co-pays to give a bottom line estimate. This is another big blue button that says “My Cost” on the Alegent.com site.
Access — studies said consumers generally like the care they get (but can’t afford it), but it doesn’t look anything like what they would really want: quick, convenient, with easy-to-understand costs. They developed Alegent Health Quick Care to give care in grocery stores, for everyday illnesses such as sore throats, sinus infections, etc. Nurse practitioners provide the service for $24-$52.

Incentives: As more employers offer Consumer Driven Health Care, we will see consumerism take control. More premiums and co-pays are being pushed to employees, which makes them unhappy but doesn’t necessarily really engage them. Wayne says we need more than that to be truly effective. We need to have programs to encourage preventive care and lifestyle modification.

For Alegent Health’s 8,500 employees, 88 percent chose consumer-driven options. Here are some of the plan elements:
If it’s preventive care, it’s free. Use of preventive care among employees is now 40 percent above the national average.
Healthy Rewards: All employees get an opportunity to do a health risk appraisal, which kicks out a list of risk factors. They get $100 in their health savings account just for doing the HRA (although this may be only for those at higher risk), and if they have significant risks they get lifestyle coaching. If they get to within 10 percent of the healthy level on that risk factor, they get another $400 in their HSA.

Early results: those participating in the weight loss program have averaged 15 pounds lost, the workforce is healthier, and Alegent spent less on health care than the previous year. They also gave a $750,000 rebate of premiums to their employees because the goal was health improvement, not saving money. Sort of a “profit sharing” plan for health.

These are some interesting thoughts, especially in an environment in which we’re seeing double-digit cost increases. The quick clinic and employee health plan perspectives are particulary relevant for the Health Policy/Health Reform debate.

Technorati: Healthcare, Consumerism, Alegent, Quality, Prevention