Bill Klaproth (host): This is a special podcast produced on site at SHSMD Connections 2023 Annual Conference in Chicago as we talk with keynote speakers and session leaders direct from the show floor, I'm Bill Klaproth. With me is Carolyn Cook, Director of Service Excellence at the MedStar Medical Group and Kristin Baird, President and CEO of the Baird Group.

We're going to talk about their SHSMD session, The First Phone Call, Where Marketing Plans Die In Four Seconds Flat. Carolyn and Kristin, welcome.

Carolyn Cook: Thanks, Bill, for having us today.

Kristin Baird: Yeah, it's great to be here.

Bill Klaproth (host): So, first off, Carolyn and Kristin. It's my favorite title of the event. So I love it. I think it's great. So Kris, what is the inspiration for the title?

Kristin Baird: The inspiration comes from working in marketing and business development for years, and you can work so hard to create the best campaign, but then the phone rings and somebody has a lousy experience. And you know that you've probably heard the statistic that people form a first impression in like 7 to 8 seconds. It's about 4 to 5 seconds on the phone, right? And so, that's where it came from. It's trying to get marketing and operations working together.

Bill Klaproth (host): So you've got to get this right, right away.

Kristin Baird: Absolutely.

Bill Klaproth (host): That's like when you walk in a store and nobody acknowledges you, and you're walking around and maybe they're helping somebody else, and you're like, why isn't this person...

You start to get aggravated. But if you walk in and somebody says, Hey, I see you. I'll be with you in a couple minutes. Hang on. I'll be right with you. You're more apt to go, Okay, no problem. Walk around happily. So that first instant communication.

Kristin Baird: Exactly.

Bill Klaproth (host): Is really important. So, Carolyn, let's talk about that a little bit more. That first phone call is so important, right? So if impressions are set. You've got to get it right. So how do we get it right, right away?

Carolyn Cook: Great question. I really think about how trust is so important in healthcare. And it's that first phone call that the trust on the other side of the phone that they're going to answer the phone and the start of service begins then.

That's exactly right. So if we can't even get through to the office to establish that connection, how does that set the tone for the experience and for the services that we can provide to our patients in our community? So that's why that first phone call is so important to what we do in the community and for our patients.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah, I love how you said the start of service begins then. That really puts it in perspective. It starts right then and there at that moment. So that really makes a lot of sense. So then, Chris, I'm just wondering, this all sounds good, but how do you monitor and train and know that this is happening?

Kristin Baird: Very good question. Part of what we do at the Baird Group is medical mystery shopping. So we make a ton of phone calls to practices and hospitals all over the country every single day, and we're looking for the facts and the feelings that people have when they come in contact with the organization.

So, forget about answering in three rings. Yes, that's quantifiable and it's easy and you can have your computer measuring how many minutes they're in the hold queue, the abandonment rate, things like that the computer can measure. But what we measure are the feelings and what feelings and facts are most closely correlated with whether or not somebody's going to call back and become a patient, or whether they would recommend the organization.

Bill Klaproth (host): Okay, so feelings and facts. So you're judging, okay, that felt like a good call, that felt like the person got their question answered, they were greeted warmly, they were treated well. When you talk about feelings, is that right?

Kristin Baird: Exactly. They're telling you if they felt something was better than expected, about what expected, worse than expected. So things like your appointment, they can talk about how it made them feel or the way the call attendant responded to their queries.

Did they feel like he or she was friendly? Did they feel that they showed empathy and compassion? Did they seem rushed? You know, we collect their stories because data sits in the head, right? When you look at quantifiable data, it's important. You want that. But the stories come to the heart.

And so when we're talking to staff, when they can hear a story from a caller who says, she interrupted me and I felt that that was rude. I felt like I was being disregarded. Or he ended the call and never said goodbye, he just hung up. Or, they transferred me and didn't give any kind of a warning. It made me feel like I wasn't important. Or, they just wanted to get rid of me.

Bill Klaproth (host): Those are the feelings we don't want.

Kristin Baird: Exactly.

Bill Klaproth (host): We don't want those feelings, right?

Kristin Baird: Right.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah, well thank you for sharing that with us. And Carolyn, then, how did MedStar Medical Group make the VONA experience an important element of your strategic focus?

Carolyn Cook: You have to tie everything back to that strategy and where the healthcare organization is going and what we aim to do. And I just want to go back to something that Krris said, because it is how we make things people feel. And what I like to do is make it real for the staff member, for the clinician who is so data driven, who it doesn't maybe understand the feelings. But when you make that clinician or a front desk person, somebody answer the phone, become the patient, and understanding and connected to their own experiences; they understand it. They understand the feelings. I mean, the best example that I've given is, when you make a phone call and say, you're making a phone call for your mother's appointment you answer the phone and immediately say, hold, please, versus thank you for calling MedStar Medical Group.

I'll be with you in just one minute to help you. You know, those two examples, one message, same message, two completely different feelings.

Bill Klaproth (host): Right.

Carolyn Cook: One where you feel totally fine to help or to wait. The other one where you're just, you feel, if you were cut off, it was very abrupt. So, it's drawing a personal connection for our staff. And then what Baird Group and Kristin are able to do for us , are to put those feelings on paper. So where staff can then read and say, Oh, I didn't mean to make that person feel that way. I'm just answering so many phone calls. I'm answering them quickly. I will now take the time to take a breath, to acknowledge the person on the phone, and if I do have to put them on a brief hold, acknowledge that they're waiting and thank them for the time when we come back.

So once we draw that personal connection and make the callers into real people, it definitely makes a big difference.

Bill Klaproth (host): So, you understood this and said, hey, we need to improve on the phones. Is that how you then came to realize we need to build this into our plan?

Carolyn Cook: Yeah, as you can imagine, healthcare is a very competitive market, especially the region that we're located in. And, there's lots of options for our community. And we have to differentiate ourselves. And we have to grow, we have to survive in a very competitive market. And also, you know, we obviously want to serve our patients, and we want to be there for them and provide the care that they need, and be confident that we can do that. But in order to do that, we need to capture them as patients. We have to be able to provide them with appointments. We have to make that connection that they want to call back to have that appointment. And then if, we ask them we can get you in in two weeks, make them willing to wait the two week wait time, depending on what the need is.

So, that is what establishes the differentiator between us and our competitors is the service that we provide in getting that patient in for their care.

Bill Klaproth (host): That's an important point. The differentiator and being treated kindly and with empathy and warmly can really make the difference. So Kris, how does marketing play into all of this? How do they get involved?

Kristin Baird: Well, I think it's really important for marketing to partner with operations. That is crucial. And I think what MedStar has done is a really great example of how that partnership can work. Because what you don't want to have happen.

Healthcare is riddled with silos, right? So you've got marketing sitting in a silo, and you've got operations sitting in a silo, and if you don't come together, all the ad campaigns in the world are not going to build your volume if operations drops the ball, where the plan goes to die in four seconds flat.

So rather than finger pointing and I gotcha kind of thing, you want to say I've got you, right? And it's more of a we're partners in this. We both want the same thing. We want thrilled consumers that want to be our patients. And so when you partner with operations and they realize how important they are to brand, you know, the brand is a promise that you make and if the frontline feels a part of that, boy you're going to be so much more successful.

Bill Klaproth (host): So marketing does a great job of getting the phones to ring, if you will. And then when they're treated with kindness and empathy, and they're listened to, that's the one two punch it seems like. That's where you really create a real loyal fan is what you're really looking for.

So then you mentioned mystery shopping earlier, Kris, can you tell us about that?

Kristin Baird: Yeah, mystery shopping is a research methodology. Some call it observational research when we're there in person. But mystery shopping is something that has been around for decades in hospitality, in banking, in any number of organizations, retail. I actually ran a call center, a health information call center back in the late 80s, and we were mystery shopped.

And so that was my first exposure. And so what we do in mystery shopping is we help answer questions about why. Why people, if they're not willing to call back, why? Let them tell us what happened. And so, we recently published a white paper that analyzed over 13,000 calls, and we looked at the whys behind it, and we were absolutely shocked to see that 38 percent of first time callers are not likely to call back and become a patient, or to recommend, and that's startling.

Bill Klaproth (host): So is that because they weren't treated warmly? That was a bad feeling that we talked about earlier.

Kristin Baird: Yeah. Yeah, it's the empathy, compassion, consideration of their time. Those are things that are key drivers, right, along with the appointment access.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah, for sure. So how do we keep data on all this, Carolyn? How do you do that? Do you keep records or track this?

Carolyn Cook: Yeah, by partnering with Baird, we're able to have a nice set of data, both qualitative and quantitative, which is really key to taking action. You know, we can see the data of, again, was there a wait time? Was I able to even get through to somebody? Because there can be challenges with that, believe it or not. And then we can say, well, how did it make the person feel? Why aren't they going to come back? Why don't they recommend our medical practice? So lots of data that then we can. We tie everything back to our measure of likelihood to recommend the practice overall.

So if we can't establish that in the beginning, in that initial phone call or we don't even get them through the door to then be able to measure how their experience is with the provider and then to keep them coming back as a patient and build that loyalty as patients.

Bill Klaproth (host): So do you create data points like Kris was just talking about, similar to that, 38 percent didn't feel like they were greeted properly.

Carolyn Cook: Yes, we do. Yeah, we do.

Bill Klaproth (host): Well, that helps you work on, hey, we need to get better at this. This is an area that keeps surfacing. We need to pay attention to this.

Carolyn Cook: Yes, exactly. I mean, and we look at it as a whole experience from the first phone call to the initial attempt to make that appointment through the, it'd be to medical practice appointments, but technically the discharge, the appointment and we measure ease of contacting and treating with respect to compassion or, you know, and empathy, exactly what Kristin was just talking about, whether or not they felt that way. Could they get through and could that be improved? So, and all of those things are key drivers into that overall experience and likelihood to recommend. So, and then the qualitative, those comments, those how you made me feel, that gives life to the actual data points. That makes us understand them. And be able to then take action to improve those measures so we aren't taking a shot in the dark on what's going on and what's wrong. We can get that information through the qualitative part of it.

Bill Klaproth (host): This seems like it's so important, but is often overlooked. Would that be a fair statement?

Carolyn Cook: Definitely.

Kristin Baird: Absolutely.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah, for sure. Well, this has been fascinating. What a great conversation. What a great title. The First Phone Call, Where Marketing Plans Die In Four Seconds Flat. Carolyn and Kristin, thank you so much.

I'm sorry. I've called you Kris and Kristin throughout the whole interview. I apologize. But if I could get some final thoughts from each of you, I would love to get that. So Carolyn, final thoughts on this.

Carolyn Cook: My final thought is really to establish a successful program, break down those silos. Break down the silos. Get the providers, the staff, the leaders involved in what you're doing. It is not just a marketing. You know, I'm coming from the patient experience side of things because experience, like Kristin said, we have to live our brand. We have to treat our people well. Not just clinically, but also but also that give them the feeling of, you matter to us.

We want to be there for you. So break those silos down, and get the more data analytical people to understand the feelings as well. And connect with them.

Bill Klaproth (host): That sounds great. Well, thank you for that. And Kristin, final thoughts from you?

Kristin Baird: Yeah, just don't be afraid to actually take a good close look. Don't be afraid of that, because people are often guessing what that first phone call is really like and what's really happening. So I say, be ready to pull back the curtains and take a good deep dive and look because what you don't know is hurting you.

Bill Klaproth (host): Yeah, great way to put it. Well, Carolyn and Kristin, thank you so much for your time. We certainly appreciate it. Once again, that's Carolyn Cook and Kristin Baird. And sign up for the SHSMD Connections Virtual Conference, October 20th, 2023, plus on demand through the end of the year. The virtual conference will feature access to 50 plus sessions recorded from the September in-person conference, plus all the new live sessions. Just go to SHSMD.org/annual to learn more and to get registered. And please join us at SHSMD Connections 2024. You've got plenty of time to sign up for it. It's next October in Denver. And of course, if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels.

And please access our full podcast library for other topics of interest to you. Just visit SHSMD.org/podcasts. Thanks for listening.