This being my first appearance on the Bowen’s Blog scene, I figured it makes sense for me to cover a topic on which I’d consider myself fairly well educated and can hopefully share some helpful expertise. Before diving into a conversation about consumerism and consumptive trends (my own as well as others), I’d like to preface with a quick personal story from a couple weeks back I believe will illustrate my point perfectly.
I have a good friend and now roommate named Danny. He’s from Colorado and came here to Nebraska for undergrad, ultimately deciding last year to stay an extra few years and complete his Master’s Degree in Animal Science. A few months back, Danny volunteered to be a “model” for some photos we were taking for a new vision therapy practice here in Lincoln, and as a thanks for volunteering his time, they offered him a free eye exam. This was perfect timing, as over the past several months, Danny has mentioned a number of times thinking he needs to get some glasses, and upon their offer, admitted to not having an eye exam since moving to Nebraska.
Danny’s suspicion of needing glasses was confirmed when he received his updated and significantly changed prescription. As solely a VT provider, the practice did not have frames or lenses to offer him, so Danny walked out with the easiest imaginable scenario to jump online and buy his glasses from a cheap, convenient internet-only distributer. He did quite the opposite, however. He came back to our house, and immediately asked me where he should go in Lincoln to try on and pick out frames in a physical (bricks and mortar) office, claiming he wanted them to be perfect and did not trust that that would be the case if done online.
How about that? A young, tech-savvy consumer consciously making the decision to leave his house and go someplace he’ll likely spend more money on frames and lenses, and without anyone trying to “sell him” on the value in doing so! This is exactly what I, another young and tech-savvy consumer, would have done (although I will admit to having a bit of bias), and I know many others (I would venture, in fact, to say most of my friends) who have done or would do the same.
So, alas, we arrive at the point I want to make. Although we are living in a time when the internet is king, online presence is everything, E-Commerce is rapidly growing, and internet distributors are shouting their convenience and low prices from the rooftops, your physical location is still a huge advantage in today’s consumer market. We’ve mentioned this over the months in a handful of our SUMMIT TALK Podlectures, but I think this is a topic worth setting aside a bit more time and focus. Here’s why:
First and foremost, even patients that have not been specifically educated on the differences (in terms of knowing the value your practice provides compared to an online distributor) have already proven to you that they’re capable of valuing the entire scope of what you provide. How do we know this? Simply put, they’re still YOUR patients. With a quick google search, you can find a variety of online “eye exams,” (or at least perceived as such) and assessments through which a prescription can be confirmed/achieved and then filled and sent to you door. This type of service is currently offered and allowed in 37 states, and it seems safe to assume that number will likely increase, and do so quickly.
It’s also worth mentioning there’s absolutely no doubt that if your patients are able to drive themselves to your office today, they are well aware of these online offerings. So by coming in to see you, they’re proving this is not a battle to convince them to value, but rather, simply teaching them what to value and the level at which to value. No matter what the internet distributors, media, or big box marketers tell us, there will ALWAYS be those of us (including your patients and others out there in ALL current consuming generations) not only tending toward bricks and mortar for health care and health care product consumption, but that also WANT to work with actual people -- with you and your team in-person and in-office — to have100% of their vision and eye care needs realized, understood and met. The challenge we face is that some consumers out there don’t realize that yet, because they haven’t been educated yet.
So that brings us to our next question: How do we teach patients/consumers what to value, and the level at which those considerations should be valued? Again, this is a topic we’ve given some good coverage over the past few months, but as we near the end of 2021 and prepare for challenges, opportunities and initiatives in 2022, it seems a great time to quickly revisit a few things. In doing so, I’ve asked Tom to jump in and review three of what he considers the most game-changing educational points/initiatives of our 2021 help desk discussions, blog posts and podlectures on patient/consumer education. Here are his picks:
1. Vision VS Future of Vision
It’s important we teach patients/consumers to understand these as two totally different things… two different considerations for why we’d receive regularly scheduled (as opposed to “routine”) vision and eye health care. It’s asking a lot of consumers to understand the difference between “vision” and “eye health,” but they totally get the concept of their vision now vs their vision in the future. That’s the consumer educational opportunity.
2. Vastly Differing Results from Filling a Given Prescription
It’s important we teach patients to know the difference between filling an Rx for meds and filling an Rx for spectacle lenses or contact lenses. Consumers are long trained in the assumption that when they have a doctor’s prescription for meds, it does not matter where they have them filled. Some places might be faster, cheaper or have a drive-through window, but once I’ve purchased that bottle of pills from the pharmacy, regardless of from what store (even what country!) or website I purchased them, my experience taking that prescribed pill will be EXACTLY the same once I’ve purchased and have it.
NOTHING COULD BE FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH with specs or contact lenses, but they don’t know that. So like all applications of Marketing Rule #2 — If you want someone to know something (i.e. be educated on something), tell them!
3. Stand Behind UVP’s
They say talk is cheap. But talk can actually be really expensive for consumers if they buy the talk but providers don’t deliver! So if we’re going to talk the talk, let’s walk the walk with what we call Unique Value Propositions, or UVP’s. Accuracy guarantees, product warranties, no-risk product/program policies (if I don’t take to the progressives, for example), value discovery opportunities (contact lens “test drive” for example) -- programs that allow consumers to contrast and see value differences between providers in walk the walk terms.
Those quick specific strategies outlined, it seems a good juncture to wrap-up this installment of Bowen’s Blog. In short, Partners, you are more aware than anyone of the value and benefit patients/consumers receive from and in your physical practice in comparison to ANY online-only alternative. And to a certain degree, all of your patients, and a good many consumers, are aware of this as well. So again, we don’t need to convince anyone that we are valuable, we simply need to teach them how valuable we truly are, which is a much easier quest!
Like all THRIVE content, the purpose of BOWEN’S BLOG and SUMMIT TALK Podlecture conversations is to keep us driving toward IMPACT. If something here has struck a chord, shoot us an email or give us a call and let’s talk it out! E=mail tbowen@mythrivecoaches.com or call 402-794-4064.