Get the facts on critical contacts in the hearing care or ENT journey.
Digital and print patient touch points, those moments of contact between an individual and a practice or provider during the care process, play a critical part in successful outcomes. They not only influence the overall patient experience but also help ensure people stay atop their health and receive the right care at the right time.
But what are those digital and print touch points? What’s the ideal number of touch points? What triggers them, and how can they best drive the right actions at optimal moments? Understanding these factors and building in processes to align with them can make a difference in supporting your patient-care mission and goals. Read on to learn more.
Digital vs. Print Touch Points
Both digital and print touch points create prime avenues for patient engagement, each offering advantages and, when paired appropriately, working together to keep individuals engaged and the audiology or ENT clinic top of mind.
From the digital perspective, websites, mobile applications, social media, HTML e-newsletters, emails, texts, video chats, and patient portals offer a level of engagement beyond more traditional “analog” approaches. They provide benefits such as:
- Interactivity, whether confirming an appointment by text, discussing treatment on a video call, or handling billing and insurance through a patient self-pay platform
- Convenience, with patients often able to access their chart on demand, schedule a visit with a click of a button, or enjoy expert remote fine-tuning of a hearing device by their provider
- Timeliness, including real-time office updates that could affect an appointment, quick notice about limited-time opportunities, or educational information that leans into current events
- Integration, making it easy for patients to connect across your platforms — from your e-newsletter to your website, Facebook profile, health care portal, and more
Print, an approach with deep roots in patient communication, has its own attributes. Whether brochures, newsletters, flyers, appointment-reminder cards, coupons for free device clean-and-checks, or posters on the clinic wall, they’re familiar, comfortable, and effective.
They’re also:
- Tangible, giving the patient a physical document to hold, refer to whenever they desire, and share with companions or other loved ones — no internet required
- Accessible, able to be provided in various languages, shapes, and sizes as needed for the application, venue, or target audience
- Enduring, having a potentially indefinite life as an important point of education or other information — with no danger of being deleted or scrubbed from a site
- Complementary, helping reinforce digital outreach efforts as well as in-person and phone contact, delivering messaging that’s consistent and focused on education or actuation
Ideal Number of Touch Points
How many digital and print touch points should a practice have with patients in a given year? There’s no magic number. It’s more about maximizing the value of every touch point rather than prescribing a specific volume. The most meaningful interval measure is one that’s based on the need or the focus for the patient’s care.
Take new patients, for example. In addition to the initial contact, which might come through a web form, other touch points may include text or automated-email appointment reminders, a quarterly e-newsletter, and a seasonal print newsletter with compelling health stories and clinic offers. Coupled with in-person consultations and phone calls, touch points in an appointment cycle could number a dozen.
Every touch point is centered on a care interaction — whether it’s focused on a scheduled appointment or in service of identifying the need for one. At their highest use, touch points facilitate delivery of care and education, helping raise patient awareness in anticipating or identifying the need for care and taking action along the continuum of their journey.
Optimal Leveraging of Digital and Print Touch Points
The most effective touch point is often the human touch point, with direct person-to-person engagement. Whether in person, over the phone, or through live video, that interaction allows real-time exchange of information; the ability to clarify on the spot; and the chance to catch important cues of inflection, body language, and tone. This opportunity occupies a singular spot in patient communication.
Digital and print touch points work together as a super team of sorts, supporting and supplementing that crucial person-to-person engagement. Through consistent key messaging, strategic timing, and alignment with the target audience’s preferred form of communication, these touch points help fortify the practice’s brand and deepen patient relationships.
Audigy’s Patients for Life® approach to building loyalty through consistent, high-quality service, care, and messaging across the business leverages both digital and print touch points. It centers on the human touch while also working hand in hand with tactics such as print newsletters, e-newsletters, and marketing automation to help patients at every step of their better-hearing path.
For example:
- Print newsletters work alongside front office staff’s outbound-calling initiatives, providing patient education on salient topics, reinforcing the practice’s role as the trusted expert, and serving as an offline resource for maintaining engagement.
- E-newsletters and e-blasts can bolster the practice’s phone-based and direct-mail outreach to specific segments of the database, getting tested-not-treated patients, for instance, to try new technology, or moving warranty-expiration patients to secure their coverage or update their devices.
- Marketing automation supports in-office patient-retention efforts, with tailored messaging geared toward the patient’s specific cycle of care or stage in life — from new-patient appointment-setting to existing-patient follow-ups, reminders, upgrade opportunities, birthdays, and more.
With competitors clamoring for your patients’ attention, intentional connections throughout every stage of their life is critical. Audigy makes it easy to harness the power of digital and print touch points in hearing care and ENT, helping drive flow, improve patient outcomes, and support your bottom line. So don’t wait.