Transforming Customers

This summer's hottest movie is expected to be “Transformers.” We all like the concept. Just the idea that one thing can be transformed into something else is pretty exciting.

In home care, we all probably do some transforming every day. We transform new employees with little sales and marketing expertise into health care product experts. We transform delivery staff into product experts. Many of us have transformed unsophisticated businesses to those where computers and state-of-the-art software allows us to monitor operations.

Having been in the industry an eternity (or so it feels), I remember well that providers with retail stores were few and far between. Most HME companies worked solely out of warehouses, and retail was something left for the local food market or drugstore. When someone did come into the location, we sold products out of the back warehouse — no showroom, no advertising and concern only for where employees, not customers, would park.

Now, it is time to take transforming out into the marketplace. We need to begin transforming our “over the telephone” referral sources into customers who know all about our retail operation, our full product line and the service component of our businesses. We need to transform those who have never visited our store, referred a patient for a product purchase, or even know where we are located into new retail customers.

Transforming these customers will take some time, but you can begin with a plan and a strategy. Here are some suggestions for making it happen:

• Develop a small flyer discussing and focusing on your retail products and programs. Include a picture of your store that referral sources would recognize if they drove by. If there is a well-known store nearby, use that as a landmark to help people find you.

• Create a postcard referral sources can share with their customers that talks about your store and the products you offer. Ask referral sources if it would be OK for them to share the postcard with the customers they refer.

• Continue to emphasize your store in all of your marketing materials and when appropriate include a small map and easy-to-understand directions to your store.

• Make sure your delivery staff reminds all who receive products in their homes about your store.

• When attending meetings of health care professionals, make sure you continue to let them know about your store.