Joining me in this discussion were Garrett Miller, vice president of strategic marketing and creative director for healthcare, education and government at Herman Miller; Peter Ruppe, senior vice president of footwear at Under Armour; and Matthew Von Ertfelda, senior vice president of food and beverage for the global operations of Marriott Corporation.
Our conversation took a deep dive into not only the consumer experience but also what it takes to understand consumer behavior and how that understanding informs the design of that experience.
Of the many valuable observations offered by these experts, three key insights stand out:
Consumers expect an experience
At the heart of a consumer experience is the brand they’re engaging with, and when you inject your organization’s values and mission into each touchpoint of the consumer experience, your brand is reinforced. But it’s important to look at every generation in order to understand their needs today and in the future, because that will help you constantly revise and redevelop your values and mission.
Millennials, for example, are changing consumer patterns “from ‘abundance’ to ‘better,’” Miller said. “There are many translations of this trend, but what we’ve seen is that millennials want to spend money on experiences rather than things.”
Understanding your consumers—patients in the case of healthcare professionals and administrators—is critical. The first step in that understanding is to explore patients’ expectations of the healthcare experience. At Under Armour, for example, they know that their consumers are informed. “The way a kid sees sports today is very different than in the past,” Ruppe said. “They can observe and break down everything the high performance player is doing, can understand it, and can go much deeper into the experience of what it takes to get there.”
He also talked about the importance of peer-to-peer influences. “People inspire you and give you clues … but what matters most are those who are similar to you, who are in your world socially and with whom you are connected and engaged,” Ruppe said. “If you want to operate a brand today, you have to think about how you’re connecting to the consumer [to] understand their identity and how they see themselves in their world.”
Get Musical
How a patient views a new experience—whether it’s the design of a new space or a new care process—can establish whether or not they’ll want to continue that experience in the future. For Miller, his musical theater background has translated as a metaphor for the launch of new products and the initial experience.
The ‘50s and ‘60s saw the golden age of musicals, which held certain refined and well-crafted elements, Miller said. “They followed a set pattern, a formula that made for a great musical and that told the story.”
The first two parts of a musical, the overture and the opening number, equate well to thinking about the design of a new experience or product, Miller said. “If you listen to an overture and watch an opening number, you should have a pretty good sense of the entire show.”
“In the overture … you’re trying to prepare somebody emotionally for what they’re going to experience,” Miller said. “Is it going to be funny, sad, dramatic, light-hearted? All of the light motifs and different musical genres that are going to be represented in the show take you through a mini-journey, like a trailer for the musical right before you go in … [to] set the right grounding mechanism for what experience you’re going to have.”
The next stage, the opening number, is an important story-telling component, he said. “This is where you’re introduced to all the main characters and what they care about. But you’re also introduced to the key tension.”
How does this apply to the consumer or patient experience of a new process or product? “I equate the overture with the moment when you’re first in front of a product, before you get close up and see all the details, but you have a general sense of purpose and emotion that is a part of that experience,” Miller said. “If you think about a healthcare environment, you’re not just going to put a recliner that somebody sits in at their home in the middle of the exam room, because different products have different overall aesthetic, look and feel with an emotional context. It is important to ground a consumer and make sure they feel like they’re in the right place at the right time.”
Create authentic human connections
Service delivery design is about engagement and making authentic human connections. I asked Von Ertfelda what surprised him about his healthcare experiences and if they have been better or worse than the experiences he tries to create for guests at his hotels.
“When we think about hospitality and my focus area of food and beverage, it’s all about emotional engagement,” Von Ertfelda said. “Restaurant and bar experiences are the last frontier for true human service, touch and connection in a typical hotel.”
Service is a vehicle for true human connection that allows us to deliver a “people-first philosophy,” Von Ertfelda said, and he described a personal experience. “My dentist has a wonderful, progressively-designed waiting area, lots of natural light, forward-thinking, organic tones. I feel healthy. The associates at the desk address me by name, look me in the eye; they’re courteous and preemptive.”
Contrast that with other experiences in healthcare, he noted, that have been “completely institutional, where there haven’t been any hero moments from a service perspective and have been purely functional.”
“I equate these experiences with how hoteliers approached brands way back when, where brands were substitutable. Now it’s about through-service and delivering differentiation by brand,” he said.
“In healthcare, there are certainly opportunities for service to deliver similar distinctions and that’s how you deliver humanity,” Von Ertfelda said. “That connection is very important for people to maintain.”
The second part of this series will explore critical insights on driving innovation and change from within your organization.
Read the full panel discussion.
The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker’s Hospital Review/Becker’s Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.
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