You did it, my friend.
Yeah, this year was weird as heck. Yeah it was tough.
But you did it. You made it. You survived.
Your practice is still alive.
Back in March, you were faced with the unthinkable situation. Of all the different challenges you could anticipate…
Closing your practice was probably not on the list.
But you did it. You adjusted. You made the hard decisions. You got creative. You figured it out. You made it through.
And you learned a few things.
You learned about your weaknesses. You learned about your gaps. You learned about your inefficiencies.
And you corrected them. Pivoted. Improved.
Your practice looks different today than it did in January.
Fewer team members. More masks. But fact of the matter is, you made it through.
This pandemic thing isn’t over. It may not be over for a long time. (It may never be over, if we’re looking at it honestly.)
But you proved to yourself you can do it.
And as much as people wanna hate on 2020 (which is totally understandable), this reason alone is worth a short but important celebration.
As for 2021…
=====================
Fun Fact: 21 is the winning score in Blackjack.
And as you’ve seen from the growing number of patients selecting vision correction and other elective surgeries, there are many chips to be won.
21 is the year you play to win.
Because while the lockdowns and public fear certainly ravaged your practice (and many businesses) for a moment…
It also created opportunities. And you see creative companies that have pivoted and taken advantage of those opportunities.
12 months ago, Zoom was a niche tool used by a small section of B2B businesses. Now, “Let’s do a Zoom” is in the public lexicon.
Amazon Prime, UberEats, Peloton and more. They’ve all taken advantage of the New Normal.
Are you Jeff Bezos? No. But you can look at what people like him and all these companies are doing, and see that opportunity is fresh and ripe for the taking.
You adjusted, pivoted, innovated to make it through the lockdowns. My advice to you?
Don’t Stop.
Your entire industry is built around innovation. Your research, the treatments and surgeries you perform, the results you get for your patients.
They’re all centered around innovation and development of new technologies and techniques.
You are an innovator. Don’t forget that.
It’s easy to coast when times are good. But as we saw in March, times can go from great to god-awful in a matter of hours.
Hopefully that doesn’t happen again. But recent history tells us we need to be ready for anything.
=====================
This whole “New Normal” thing – as much as I hate the term – is real.
Hopefully some aspects of the New Normal – like mask mandates – will go away. (I’m not holding my breath)
But other parts – like the new home-centric lifestyle that the pandemic has brought on – won’t change.
Why? Because this lifestyle is convenient. And people like convenient. Convenience always wins.
Your takeaway from the companies I mentioned?
How can you craft your Patient Journey to hit the same notes they’ve successfully hit in their customer experiences?
=====================
What does that look like?
Convenient Access. You can order groceries or Amazon packages or log into online workouts with the push of a button. It’s dead simple = convenient.
Convenient Interfaces. The user interfaces of all these apps and products are intuitive. Easy to use. Mobile-centric.
Convenient Communication. Phone, email, chat, text. These companies make it easy to communicate with them. They don’t try to reinvent the communication wheel. They look at the wheels we are already using and model them.
Convenient Adaptability. These companies leverage what you’re already doing. You’re already online. You’re already sending DMs and Text messages. You’re already on Zoom and FaceTiming. You’re already on social media.
These companies don’t try to force us down a completely different track. They build their customer experiences around what we’re already doing.
If my Instacart shopper needs to substitute an item I ordered, she sends a DM right within the app. It’s easy. It’s fast.
Simple. Fast. Convenient. Enjoyable. Magic.
That’s what all these companies have in common.
Note what I did NOT include? Cheap. Most of them aren’t the cheapest option.
Hasn’t kept them from making money hand over fist and growing their user base.
It’s proof you can have a premium price and grow your volume…
As long as your patient experience is dialed in.
=====================
The practices who get this right will be the ones who dominate 2021 and beyond.
And for many reading this, that means fundamentally overhauling the Patient Journey.
Better communication. More personality. More education. Streamlined processes. More convenience. Mobile-centric.
For most practices out there, their Patient Journey looks and feels more like a Nokia 5160. It’s time to upgrade to an iPhone 12 Max.
It’s better for your team. It’s better for your patients. And it’s better for your bottom line.
=====================
Questions? Comments? Challenges? Reply. Engage.
But don’t just sit there thinking or wondering or frustrating about what to do.
Figure it out and make it happen. And if you need help, ping me.
Happy New Year, and here’s to winning 21.
– Troy “Blackjack!” Cole