Improving Digital Conversions for Hospitals

Many hospitals have started investing in digital marketing and other digital branding initiatives to attract new patients and also engage existing patients. Before going for the investment, it is important to have a well-defined strategy and back-end operations lined up to cater to the volume and ensure that you give your patients the best experience required so that they utilize your digital storefronts ( Website, Whatsapp, Chatbots, Mobile App) for further healthcare transactions. 

What is the purpose of enabling digital channels for your hospital?

Attracting new patients: With the rise in health query searches happening on Google, Social media, it is important to have a digital presence in all these channels so that the patients are able to find you. Almost 66% of the internet users have looked online for a specific information about their health condition. Don’t also forget that patients seeking emergency will also need an immediate phone number to reach out to and your hospital should have a good brand recall along with the right CTA (call-to-action) on Google, Social Media and Whatsapp with a robust IVR integration. 

‍Engaging existing patients: Digital channels are not only for attracting new patients, but your website, social media strategy should include engaging existing patients as well. Remember, your existing patient base are the biggest promoters of your hospital brand if you give them a good experience. You would want to share health tips, blogs, updates on the latest health camp, new services added and also give them latest offers and discounts. They should also be incentivised to refer new patients and hospital loyalty programs are a great way to retain patients to continue using your services. 

Branding: Online channels should be leveraged to build your brand elements – showcasing the hospital thought leadership, quality of clinical care, achievements, patient stories and educate the patient community. Remember, patients always look for a genuine source of information on the health issue before booking an appointment and social media strategy should ensure that the healthcare content is genuine and authentic so that patients always come to your digital channels for authentic information. 

To summarise, following are the digital channels with the outcomes:

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How to increase conversions from these digital channels to ensure you get your desired ROI ?

Implement Book Appointment with Instant Confirmation

Always remember, patients seek instant gratification online and to optimize patient experience they would want your doctor’s slot to be available online for instant booking. Gone are the days when they would place a query and your hospital will arrange a call back to decide on the date and appointment time. 

In fact, instant booking has the highest probability of patient turn-up compared to other channels.

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Optimize call center operations

Your call center operations should be optimized to understand and analyse incoming traffic and ensure service levels are high. The following are key skills required to optimize conversions from calls:

• Enabling the call center with digital tools to track calls and book appointments
• Training the call center on health queries and medical terminologies to direct patient to the right department
• Tracking call center metrics – missed calls, call duration, conversion % (call to book ratio), ROI on a regular basis
• Tracking queries coming from digital channels and arranging call backs within 10-minutes TAT
• Ability to sell hospital services and convince patients to turn up at your hospital

Always remember – healthcare seekers will drop-off if their query raised is not attended within a few minutes.

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Increase no-show, cancellation call back and patient engagement

A lot of patients are not able to turn up because of some other urgencies, lack of convenient slot. It is important to arrange a call back, allow patient to reschedule the appointment online to a more convenient slot and track no-shows and their reasons rigorously.  Ensure that rescheduling, cancellation flows are seamlessly enabled on your website, app and WhatsApp channels. Also, you don’t want patients to block your appointment slot inventory if they are not able to turn up. Hence, slots should be freed up if patient is not able to turn up. Another good practice is to send automated appointment reminder to patients before the appointment time to ensure they arrive on time and don’t miss the appointment. 

Improve brand recall and engagement through automation via CRM

Even though your patients don’t turn up sometimes, it is important to engage with your patient base to keep them updated about your new initiatives, services, discounts and health information. Short-form content like short videos, reels, health tips, health advisories keep the patients engaged and improve your brand. With the help of CRM (customer relationship management) software, the post-appointment engagement can be automated and personalized. 

‍Update hospital and doctor profile information

Your doctors are brands themselves and it is very important to have a detailed profile of your doctors updated on all your storefronts and online marketplaces. A doctor profile should be detailed and include all the necessary information – profile photo, years of experience, degree details, brief description, education details, experience details, services and surgeries performed, medical registration number, awards and achievements, publications, patients testimonials and introduction videos. In addition to your hospital brand, doctors attract patients and a detailed doctor profile has a major impact on digital conversions. 

Online Reputation management 

Your online audience is continuously looking for the latest feedback of your doctors and hospital facilities. Factors like doctor behavior, clinical excellence, treatment outcomes matter a lot to patients in terms of feedback. The audience also looks at your response to negative feedback and checks the responsiveness and customer focus of your brand. It is important to show relevant hospital feedback from various online channels like Google Reviews, Practo, JustDial etc. to make the interaction and discovery much more authentic. Also, remember negative feedbacks are bad only if there is no reply from the hospital on the clarification regarding the same. It is perfectly all right to show negative feedback as long as it is attended and replied by the hospital marketing team with the RCA. 

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If you want your hospital marketing strategy to be stitched together, implemented and automated using AI, do write to us at connect@docfyn.com.

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