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.