Feuer: What Do Your Customers Really Think?

SUNRISE, Fla.— Long-time industry consultant Louis Feuer
has devised a new program designed to help HME providers improve
business outcomes.

“There are lots of consultants out there, including me,
who think we have all the answers,” said Feuer, president of
Dynamic Seminars & Consulting, “but the only ones who
really count are the customers. And the best thing about that is,
getting feedback from those consultants is free.”

The only thing is, Feuer said, “We don’t really have
any great standards for customer satisfaction in the HME
business.”

So he decided to create several customer surveys—for
patients/caregivers, referral sources and retail
customers—that are now available through his new website
called MedComment Center (www.medcommentcenter.com), “an
online home for customer feedback, comments and suggestions.”
Through the online surveys, providers can get measurable feedback
from each group—and also gain information for their
performance improvement programs.

“Too many companies continue to fail to take customer
feedback and education seriously. From printing surveys, mailing
surveys and then failing to adequately gather, review and summarize
data, they are failing to reach their number one
consultant—their customer,” Feuer said. He added that
one of his clients told him recently his company had been cited on
performance improvement measures (part of accreditation
requirements) because “we didn’t have enough
surveys;” another said he had lots of surveys “but they
were sitting in a box.

“That’s not doing anybody any good,” Feuer
said, “if you don’t have the personnel with the time to
sort and tabulate the customer surveys.”

With the new service, for an annual fee ($299) providers receive
an individual web page and unique login code, which they share with
customers and referral sources so they can complete the online
survey. Monthly reports are emailed directly back to the company
with all responses summarized for review.

“It’s a quick and easy way to learn from your
customers,” according to Feuer.

He described the surveys as “not too long, clean and
neat” and easy to read. “Remember,” he said,
“it could be an 80-year-old taking the survey.”

The survey for patients/caregivers, for example, includes 13
questions about such things as the correctness of the order and
clarity of instruction. A question on the referral source survey
asks if there are any products or services the source wishes the
company carried. There are several areas for expanded comments and
feedback on each of the surveys.

A big part of the process, however, is what you do with the
responses, Feuer said. “That’s the key to the whole
thing. You have to know how to change your company to meet customer
needs, but to do that you need information,” he said.
“This will give you the information.”

He cautioned, however, that the online surveys are not the only
system providers should use to find out what their customers really
think.

“You still have to call and get the full story,”
Feuer said. “You’ve got to keep tabs on what your
high-use referral sources think, and you may still have to do a
mailed survey for some clients. You’ve got to use a lot of
different tools to get customer information, but not to use the
Internet is to lose out—this is a 24/7 information-gathering
operation.”

Showing that you are conducting the surveys, along with
aggregate data from the responses, can be “good marketing
tools” to use with referral sources, he noted.