Experience This!

While there is a lot of fire and fury over healthcare reform (public option vs. no public option), I haven’t heard a lot of debate over “Health Experience Reform” (with “care” intentionally taken out). What’s the difference? Healthcare Reform involves the politics of healthcare – expanding coverage, regulating insurance companies that deny pre-existing conditions, creating insurance exchanges and deciding on whether a public option would kick in if the private sector failed to address customer needs. However, little if any of this will significantly transform the way customers, patients, doctors and nurses interact and engage.  Health Experience Reform means transforming our collective attitudes, expectations and interactions when it comes to our own health.  Case in point: I recently implemented an outreach campaign for a client who was experiencing a dramatic drain on it Emergency Department resources from patients with non-emergent conditions. Analysis yielded a startling result – 5 patients with non-emergent conditions represented nearly 400 visits to the ED resulting in nearly $700,000 in care.  To help educate the community, we implemented a campaign to educate consumers to “know where to go” –  their doctor, express care, or the emergency department. As healthcare access points expand, consumers need to be educated on the most appropriate place for their care. Also, patients often go to the ED for basic care because they don’t have a primary care physician. Unless we address this issue through recruiting, incentives, nurse practitioners, and 1-800 Get-A-Doc campaigns, expanded coverage will not equal access. Health Experience Reform means: 1) A patient/customer never has to provide the same information twice during the course of their care (proper implementation of electronic health records); 2) A patient/customer has a personal relationship with their care provider; 3) A patient/customer never has to be made aware of the distinction between clinic and hospital; 4) A patient should be able to get a bill that is accurate and understandable; 5) A patient is empowered with the information and tools to manage his/her own health. One company, Hello Health, is going down the path of Health Experience Reform by simply going around the system (and it’s linked into Google Health). The process is simple:

If large healthcare organizations and billions of dollars in government funding don’t address the need for Health Experience Reform, start-up companies like Hello Health just may disrupt the system. Stay tuned.

Finally, someone has the…uh…apples to speak the truth to power when it comes to that customer experience golden boy named Apple. Kudos to Philip Elmer-DeWitt for saying what us Apple lovers and iPhone users have been ashamed to admit: The iPhone is a really bad phone but a great little gadget. In his recent post, DeWitt describes what we iPhone users have all experienced – buggy performance, dropped calls, really crappy battery life, and still no speed dial. My personal experience? When I upgraded to the 3G, I got a little faster Internet speed at the expense of a listless battery that makes the phone virtually tethered all the time, rendering it impractical for business use. When I sought out sage advice from a bearded, modern hipster at the Mac Genius bar, I got an uppity attitude: “You have to turn 3G off if you want to get better battery life. You just can’t have both Internet speed and battery life.” Why not? Combine this with the fact that I am being double billed for my .me account and can’t find a body to talk to.  It makes me wonder if Apple has grown too big for its own britches (or designer jeans). Now don’t get me wrong. I have been an Apple fan since the early ’80s when I worked for one of the first Apple resellers. And I wouldn’t give up my MacBook, even for a free Windows laptop with more power. But I saw Apple’s success go to it’s head in the ’90s, when executives thought they could shove Macs into corporations around entrenched IT interests. Now I fear the company, long praised as the leader in the customer experience game, has lost its focus. If the iPhone is to maintain it’s leadership position, Apple needs to focus more on basic phone reliability and customer service. Cool apps are great, but they don’t make up for customer experience basics. Apple’s game plan should have less gadget plays and more blocking and tackling, to use a bad football analogy.

Okay, so you think you want to get a viral video on YouTube? Wanna generate hundreds of thousands of views? Evian’s skating baby video has been an instant hit on YouTube, spreading like wildfire on blogs and Facebook pages everywhere. Why? Because Evian followed the five basic rules of viral video:

1) Entertain, Then Explain: A great viral video makes the viewer forget that they are actually getting a carefully crafted communication. It has inherent entertainment value without the plug, however, as noted in Evian’s video the message is clear – stay younger by drinking Evian.

2) Challenge Market Perception: The further you go outside the comfort zone of your market, the more likely your video will have dramatic impact. Don’t be shy – shock and awe are acceptable (with taste).

3) Touch the Heartstrings: Video pulls at the heart more than any other media. That means your video should hit on the core emotions – humor, happiness, sadness, etc. However, humor, the hardest emotion to convey on video is often the most successful.

4) Make It Easy to Share: Don’t hide your viral video under a bushel. There are some easy sharing tools on YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter that can help a viral video spread like wildfire. The more platforms you are on, the more likely your video will hit a hot button with your audience.

5) Have Fun: If you don’t have fun making it, most likely your audience won’t enjoy viewing it!

I know, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet but retailers are gearing up in hopes that the biggest shopping season of the year will lift them out of the Great Recession doldrums. And it looks like they will be turning to social media even more this year in order to lure buyers online, according to an article by Retail Customer Experience. According to RCE, “47.1 percent of retailers surveyed will be increasing their use of social media this holiday season. More than half of retailers said they have added or improved their Facebook page (60.3 percent) and Twitter pages (58.7 percent) this year, while two-thirds (65.6 percent) have added or enhanced blogs and RSS feeds. In addition, to provide consumers with an extra incentive to start shopping, one-third of retailers (34.3 percent) say they will offer holiday deals earlier this year.” Stay tuned for a review coming later this month of the best online retail shopping experiences. Merry Tweetmas.