Building up a brand for medical facilities requires a balancing act that involves a holistic approach to brand management and service provision.
Ayala Health is in a unique position to
define its brand and build up customer loyalty through well thought out
programmes both in the front end and the back end.
After baseline market research has been
conducted, one can proceed to building up the back end programmes that will
serve as the foundation of its front end activities. By this we mean the
facility itself, the soft component, which is support services, and the health
care providers themselves.
All must adhere to the goals of Ayala Health
as a company, which can be the provision of high quality care, services,
medicines and products at reasonable price points, or price points perceived as
providing good value for money for its target market. This can be achieved
through standardised training programmes, developing and establishing treatment
protocols, constant personnel and service evaluation, and such.
To standardise the quality of care
delivered by its health care professionals, the company should not only
communicate to its staff the goal of delivering high quality service to its
clients, but also the reason behind it?
Why was Ayala Health established? What
gap in the market does it hope to address? Why? By giving its health care
providers a sense of purpose, there is a chance that the fulfilment of the
company's goals will become their passion and motivate them to work
individually and as a group for the achievement of the higher purpose that is
the company's raison d'etre.
Constant service evaluation is a good way
to ensure the consistent delivery of such quality of care.
Admittedly, surveys
and forms are tedious to fill out, and clients would not normally accomplish
them of their own volition, so doing such should be made into a pleasant and
rewarding experience. For instance, develop a viable and cost effective promotion,
such as a raffle, that will somehow involve getting feedback from your clients.
Ensuring across the board consistency of
service could inculcate loyalty to the brand because they know that whichever
health care provider they see for a consult will deliver the same quality of
care they have gotten used to from their other doctors. Part of the reason why people come to St.
Luke's and Makati Medical Centre is that these facilities have become
synonymous with the provision of good quality care, that patients are assured
their concerns will be competently addressed if they come to these
institutions. This should be the same goal for Ayala Health.
As a start-up, it is in a good position to
leverage the Ayala brand, but also redefine it. By this we mean, Ayala has
always been associated with the delivery of high levels of quality services and
products, which is a good base for branding, but its chain of clinics can
endear it to a new segment of the market it has not traditionally served, which
is the middle class, lower middle class markets.
Front end marketing activities can help
achieve this. Study your market, what price points are perceived as providing
good value for money for them? Bundle services and products, initiate loyalty
card programmes (provide discounts for regulars, for instance).
Engage the market as a community. Work with
institutions, such as schools, churches, and local governments to implement
initiatives that will help improve health consciousness in your market.
After school family activities co-hosted
with local schools have a good potential for brand building and establishing
loyalty. Do soft marketing, such as simple association with Ayala Health by
resource speakers, tasteful banners and collateral could be used to support the
programme.
Didactics could be a good avenue for brand
building. Topics can cover, but should not be limited to, basic health; and
sound nutrition, parenting and hygiene practices. It could go as far as
addressing social ills such as drug addiction, mental health problems, teenage
pregnancies, and such. Didactics are, to
me a very practical, useful , and effective marketing tool. With a minimal
investment, one addresses misguided beliefs in communities, thus alleviating
social ills, but also establishes an emotional connection with the communities
which comprise the market. As lives of the members of the communities served by
such programmes improve, there is the possibility that they will remember Ayala
Health as their ticket out of misguided beliefs, improved knowledge, and
therefore improved lives.
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