Push Your Customer Out and Someone Will Pull Them In

Attracting new customers in these economic times means new ideas. Those ideas will require an investment, but sometimes help comes from unexpected sources. The customers might be standing around outside your door ready to walk in as soon as you open.

The H1N1 flu season that began last fall tested the ability of the health system to react and prepare for a pandemic. This week the World Health Organization declared that the H1N1 pandemic is over, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation to get flu shots beginning in September brought an opportunity to drug stores and they are already capitalizing on it. The shots are available before Labor Day making them available at the same time families are purchasing supplies for back-to-school. The new product service draws customers into the store and they might also buy food, drink, or shampoo.

To make it easy, the drug stores such as CVS are allowing customers to make appointments by computer, phone or in person so they can avoid waiting in line. They are also promoting the service through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Traditionally, many consumers get their flu vaccines from their doctor. Last season, the difficulty of getting an appointment with a doctor coupled with the low number of vaccine doses available at physician offices caused many to seek out other sources for getting their flu shots. Drug stores had the vaccine while many physicians were empty-handed and did not know when they would receive a supply. Doctors’ offices are pushing customers away.

The drug stores adapted. They trained more pharmacists to administer shots, ordered more shots for this year and are making it convenient for the consumer by taking appointments.

Doctors offices can’t do much differently. They have the same infrastructure and cost overhead. It is doubtful that they could realistically squeeze in more patients a day simply for flu shots without drastically changing the workflow of the business.

So what’s to keep your existing customer from exiting?

  1. Offer options. Show that you care. It may be old fashioned, but companies who are interested in the wellbeing and satisfaction of their customers will give their customer alternatives to meet their needs if they cannot. While the immediate business is lost, the company will have other tactics that engender loyalty and bring their customers back.
  2. Prepare your organization for quick responses. Even if alerts and quick responses are not part of your daily business, customers will look to their suppliers to provide relevant and pertinent information. Let them know the current situation and what you are doing to deal with it and how they can make requests. Use all appropriate media including social media. A good example is the recent egg recall that involved millions of eggs. Stores that did not carry the recalled eggs, could have let their customers know easily with a posting on their web site or a tweet. Customers who shop at only a few stores would have been very grateful to hear that they didn’t need to check their egg cartons or throw out all their eggs because they no longer had the cartons. This type of information attracts customer loyalty because your business is helping their customers stay safe and healthy.
  3. Proactively manage your customer. A customer will feel special when a provider contacts them for their benefit. Patients are happy to be contacted by their doctors and dentists reminding them to make an appointment for a routine checkup. For appointments that are annual or semi-annual, reminders take the burden off the patient of trying to remember when they are due for an appointment. This is especially helpful if scheduling systems are unable to make appointments six months or a year in advance.

You can’t always keep your customers from leaving, but you don’t need to push them out. Make it harder for them to leave by being prepared.