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Focus LASIK marketing on reducing fear, providing service
The surgical center staff has a crucial role in “packaging” refractive services and in directing patients’ impressions.
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SAN FRANCISCO — The current LASIK environment presents an opportunity for surgeons to re-evaluate their marketing efforts. One successful strategy is to focus on reducing fear in potential patients, according to a presentation here.
Just because LASIK has been around and on the market for several years, fear has not evaporated from the public, said Shareef Mahdavi, a refractive marketing expert, during VisionQuest 2002.
“Surgeons need to respect that patient fear still exists. Everything they do in marketing and in the their practice should be designed to help reduce fear when educating potential LASIK candidates,” he said.
Mr. Mahdavi told Ocular Surgery News that fear, not cost, has been the real issue inhibiting patients from undergoing LASIK.
He said the issue of cost was forced upon the LASIK market prematurely, when the bulk of potential candidates was not prepared. The segment of the market that is price-sensitive, known as the early-and-late majority, comprised of two-thirds of all possible patients who could choose refractive surgery, has not yet been established. Such a market will eventually arrive, but the LASIK market remains in the early adopter phase.
“We tried to force adoption before the consumer who is price-sensitive was ready to adopt. That time when price does become the key issue, I believe, is still many years away,” he said.
Marketing considerations
During his VisionQuest presentation, Mr. Mahdavi said the same decision process used by consumers to make general purchases is used in deciding whether to undergo LASIK, and that LASIK marketing should address each step of this decision process.
“We all go through this with everything we buy,” he said. “We first become aware a product or service exists, we develop interest in it because of an ad or endorsement we saw or heard, we consider whether we want to purchase it and then we make a decision. This happens across all product categories and applies to patients thinking about laser vision correction. Good marketing addresses each step in this consumer process.”
Addressing each step is particularly important in marketing LASIK because LASIK is heavily considered by patients before a decision is made.
“Some market research people I have worked with over the years say LASIK may be the most heavily considered consumer purchase in the history of marketing, well above the thought process people go through to buy a fancy new car or a new home. There is a very strong emotional benefit that goes along with this procedure,” Mr. Mahdavi said.
He said the extreme consideration that goes into a decision regarding LASIK forces marketing efforts to focus more on patient education rather than manipulation.
“To get patients to come in today, your staff must become fear managers. For example, you need to have data not just about your results, but about your results on patients with that specific refractive error. This extra effort goes deeper in meeting the patient’s needs during the decision process, from awareness through decision,” he said.
Also, the single most missed opportunity is follow-up of interested patients.
“Think about it as planting and tending your plants rather than harvesting. The truth is it still takes 8 months for the average patient to come to a decision, and a bunch of them take over a year. This is not a wake-up-in-the-morning-and-have-it-done decision,” he said.
Marketing equipment check
In the past, Mr. Mahdavi said, there has been too much hype in refractive surgery advertising at the expense of internal marketing and organization. Internal marketing includes well-trained staff who use educational materials in the clinic to make patients “aware, interested, consider the procedure and have it done.”
He added that the “still water” environment of the current LASIK market presents a prime opportunity to do a marketing “equipment check.”
“You want to examine the different elements of your marketing equipment: promotion, price, positioning, packaging and product,” he said.
External marketing can raise awareness in the community and get people interested. However, conflicting messages in advertising have confused consumers, leading potential patients to wait.
“Internal marketing is really going to carry the day,” he said. “I really stress to clients to continually review their internal systems and focus on the step called ‘consideration,’ getting people toward the decision. I think in the ideal world surgeons would have strong word-of-mouth from patients who have already been treated. They will be providing referrals. Patients will be the sales force and staff will be the sales managers.”
Mr. Mahdavi suggested shifting monetary resources to lead follow-up rather than lead generation.
“The database of leads you have likely cost you a couple hundred dollars each if you got there through paid advertising and promotion. It doesn’t cost but a few dollars to follow up with patients who have showed interest. Keep on top of them so when they get to the point where they are ready, you are ready,” he said.
In the marketing equation, positioning should address the question of why a patient should choose a given surgeon.
“Positioning is really key,” he said. “A lack of good positioning can keep surgeons from doing good volume. Candidates want a reason to decide for or against you. I think most surgeons are trying to be all things for all people, which is a mistake. You need to stand for something.”
According to Mr. Mahdavi, when a surgeon is asked by a patient why he or she is a better choice over another, the general answer relates to cost or better technology. The technology message is an important one to surgeons, but has no place at the patient level.
“This stuff really doesn’t mean a whole lot to the consumers,” he said. “When you bring technology to the front of the discussion with the patient, the patient gets confused. It gives them one more thing to think about. When you start bringing in eye trackers and flying spots and things of that nature, you confuse them even more and delay the decision process.
“It’s a bit ironic, but the promotion of technology that’s making the procedure even better is not helping procedural growth,” he said.
Advertising
Mr. Mahdavi said advertising has a place in marketing, but the ideal marketing campaign would have no paid advertising. He explained advertising can be expensive, and research has shown some consumers have an “allergic reaction” to seeing medical advertisements, which results in the opposite effect than what was intended.
“It is because LASIK is a hybrid product. There is this subset of consumers who put more emphasis on the medical aspect and get turned off by a retail-type ad. They don’t think the two should go together.”
He said LASIK is a word-of-mouth product, where a personal referral from a friend who has had the procedure or from a trusted doctor the patient sees is critical.
“That’s more compelling and much more motivating to someone than seeing an ad. It’s been proven over and over again. Referral is key to the business,” he said.
If a surgeon does decide to advertise, then the ad vehicle should also be market-specific.
“There’s no one-size-fits-all. People in some markets do not read newspapers as much as they listen to the radio. In other markets, they watch TV but they don’t read magazines. You cannot make across-the-board statements about what type of advertising will be most effective,” he said.
Mr. Mahdavi stressed not to advertise price.
“Advertise position in the market, advertise name, advertise what is offered, advertise financing plans. But do not advertise price. That’s done more harm than good,” he said. “It is going to take a long time to unwind the consumer perception that LASIK is a cheap commodity whose price will decrease if they just wait a few months.”
Pricing
During his VisionQuest presentation, he said many patients actually inquire about price because they simply do not know what else to ask.
“It is easier for them to ask about price than it is to tell the truth, that they are afraid. They are scared out of their wits about sitting under a laser and having that beam come across their eye after you have run a carpenter’s plane across it,” he said.
Contrary to popular belief, today’s patients are generally not concerned with the cost of LASIK, and recent surveys have found less than 10% of patients state low price as the reason for choosing a particular surgeon, according to Mr. Mahdavi. A recommendation from a doctor or a friend and the confidence of the surgeon’s staff rank highest among reasons for choosing a LASIK surgeon.
He said staff members need to be scripted and trained to use a nondefensive approach to people inquiring about price.
“You need to know where price fits into the equation. Providers try to use a lower price to get more procedures to happen and it just hasn’t worked in expanding demand,” he said.
The most critical element in a LASIK marketing strategy is maintaining a customer service approach.
“What I’m observing is that truly outstanding customer service is an exception among providers when it should be the rule,” he said.
Medicine has traditionally been a reimbursement-driven industry rather than a customer service-driven industry, and LASIK is a consumer product that happens to be delivered medically.
“I call it medical-retail, a hybrid,” Mr. Mahdavi said. “It has the guise of being high-tech medical, but it also has the retail component requiring customer service. Both elements are equally important. You can’t do one and not the other. If we saw an across-the-board improvement in customer service by all LASIK providers, that alone would have a meaningful impact and increase procedures.”
Packaging LASIK
Mr. Mahdavi said packaging is also important in LASIK marketing and is often overlooked, believed to be inconsequential because a “superior product” is being offered. Packaging is about the little things not ordinarily considered because surgeons are focused on the surgery itself.
“Its importance often defies logic,” he said. “If we did a test where on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we gave every patient coming in for LASIK a teddy bear to hold while on the laser tables and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays we did not, then we would get more referrals from those patients who held the teddy bear. That may sound crazy. It has nothing to do with visual outcomes, but it is about the packaging,” he said.
“If you take a look at successful products out there, it’s the product packaging. Is it a car, or is it the allure of driving a Jaguar? Is it laser eye surgery, or is it something else? That’s the question to answer,” he added.
According to Mr. Mahdavi, the packaging of the procedure should exceed expectations. The most important aspect is the environment, which should make patients feel important.
He cited Starbucks coffee as an example of great packaging of an environment, saying the company had no paid advertising for the first 10 years of its existence.
“Starbucks…has managed to charge two or more times the amount for a cup of coffee than what we used to pay, and we stand in line to get it,” he said. “Clearly they have done something right by paying attention to the other aspects of the marketing equation. LASIK is much the same. It is a premium product, especially when you compare it to the alternatives, like contact lenses and spectacles.”
He said wavefront technology as it relates to LASIK is probably more about packaging than it is about product.
“We will see some incremental improvement, but we are not talking about something that makes it twice as good. There is a huge opportunity for manufacturers and physicians to work together to create the packaging of a custom treatment that could have a two-to-threefold impact on the market, but there is no guarantee,” he said.
The staff at the surgical center is also very important in packaging the procedure, he added.
“If you are a typical surgeon who sees maybe 80 patients a day and you have five or six staff members, you have just gotten nearly 500 opportunities to positively or negatively influence patients with your packaging,” he said.
VisionQuest 2002 was jointly sponsored by Stanford University and the LASIK Institute. The LASIK Institute is a division of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.
For Your Information:
- Shareef Mahdavi can be reached at SM2 Consulting, PO Box 5505, Pleasanton, CA 94566; (925) 425-9963; fax: (925) 425-9900; e-mail: shareef@sm2consulting.com.