Industry White Paper: Deploying "Customer Evidence" to Overcome the Fear Factor Among Healthcare & Government Buyers

By Raffetto Herman Strategic Communications

The Risk Averse Healthcare and Government Buyer

"No one ever got fired for buying IBM." This oft-repeated mantra exemplifies the core emotion of a healthcare or government buyer. Professionals in these markets carry the burden of ensuring that all funding decisions benefit the public at large. Should they take a chance on an innovative technology that fails, the consequences are dire. Often risk averse, buyers in these markets are fearful of making the wrong decisions that could bring headlines and recriminations, or worse, impact constituents' well-being.

Risk takes on many forms:

1. Risk of poisoning the evaluation process, particularly in government, is tops. Buyers are wary of appearing cozy with vendors, and fully aware that a legitimate and transparent decision-making process is paramount.
2. Risk of losing control through outsourcing. They believe their obligations, and those of their stakeholders, are quite distinct from the private sector. Often their first instinct is to develop solutions internally. If they choose to buy a vendor's solution, they want to control as much of its customization and operation as possible.
3. On occasion, healthcare or government will produce a buyer that is a risk taker, motivated by saving money or achieving something remarkable. This is rare, and is more often found at the political or executive layer of an organization.

Regardless, buyers in these markets are always looking for cover. The best way to mitigate risk is to point to the success of a similar organization with the same solution. Whether it is measured in cost savings, improved service, or any other form of ROI, success is proven and the decision to replicate it in the buyer's organization is a safe one. This is the rationale behind the use of customer evidence when marketing to buyers in healthcare and government.

Headlines Feared by Government and Healthcare Decision Makers

Attributes of a Government or Healthcare Decision Maker

• Hands tied by process and internal policies
• Seeks political cover
• Dislikes outsourcing
• Fears headlines
• Shuns experimentation
• Keeps vendors at arms length
• Respects peers' experiences
• Aware of obligation to public interest

Converting Loyal Customers into Marketing Gold

Customer evidence is based on the premise that every successful business has wildly loyal customers. These are the customers that would never think to do business with your competitors. They consider you to be their partner. If you could send them on sales calls for your business you would be overwhelmed with qualified leads.

But of course, you can't. They have day jobs. So how does a marketer bottle their best customers' enthusiasm and hand it out to prospects over and over again?

While these customers are busy earning a paycheck, they are usually happy to take an hour and talk about their positive experiences with your products or solutions. Documenting their experiences, and then communicating those stories to your prospects (through publicity and marketing, described below), is an effective means to reduce the perceived risks of working with your company.

For prospects that are already aware of your solutions, a peer's success story can make your solution a safer choice. For prospects that are not yet aware of your solutions, the attention created from a well-publicized customer success story can encourage them to get in touch to find out what all the hubbub is about.

Search for the Best Customer Stories

• Incentivize sales reps to inquire & share
• Conduct an e-newsletter poll
• Troll user forums
• Run a contest on your Web site
• Network with customers at industry events
• Run a customer focus group at a trade show

Building an Internal Process that Reveals Loyal Customers

While many marketing executives are aware that these hyper loyal customers exist within their network, they often have not established a regularized way of pinpointing them and pre-qualifying them for customer evidence. In these environments, customer evidence is purely anecdotal, and sourced from a sales-level interaction.

For example, a sales rep receives a call from an extremely satisfied customer, who indicates they saved thousands of dollars with your solution, and the sales rep sends an e-mail to management that reads:

"I just heard from Don Carlson over at Unity Health, and he said he is LOVING the new system and thinks we walk on water! Yeah!"

This story gets passed around the company, and maybe the sales rep cites it to another prospect in a future sales call. But there is no concerted effort to do more with that story, and it simply passes into company lore.

A software asset management company in Seattle, Washington, had a similar challenge. It had dozens of highly satisfied customers, with real ROI – they knew this because the marketing director often quizzed sales reps about their customer interactions. She realized she was sitting on a marketing gold mine.

She implemented an inexpensive incentive program that paid sales reps $50 for any anecdote that resulted in a fully published case study. She invited her PR & marketing firm to come in and brief the sales force on the kinds of stories that capture headlines and excite prospects. Sales reps immediately shifted from waiting for customers to speak up to gently probing them about their experiences.

As case study leads rolled in, the marketing director parsed them down to the most promising, and then handed them off to her PR firm for an initial interview. The most compelling stories were turned into case studies; the sales reps were paid their incentives; and the process continued. As the case studies emerged, they became the content that drove media coverage, speaking placements, Web marketing, and more.

Happy customers can also be revealed by searching user forums and reaching out to those who appear to be cheering for your company; by embedding a poll or survey in your next customer newsletter; running an informal focus group at an industry trade show; or by soliciting comments through your Web site. A little incentive payment or contest can go a long way toward making it worth your customers’ time to submit their stories.

The Interview

The primary vehicle for capturing customer evidence is the case study or success story. Most case studies begin with an interview. While there is a certain amount of journalistic skill required to capture a compelling story from an interview, the most important success factor is bringing in a third party for this purpose. This is because interview subjects are far more likely to be candid and even flattering when speaking to an unbiased third party than when speaking to their solution provider.

The interview should seek to establish the 'old way' of doing business, the process used to evaluate vendors, and the return on investment achieved. To give the case study some color and depth, the interview should also reveal anecdotes, compelling statistics, unexpected challenges, lessons learned, additional interview subjects, and sources for graphics, images, and b-roll.

If possible, conduct the interview(s) in person, on video. This enables you to record the interview for writing, and utilize segments of the video for Web testimonials. In today's world, Web video is king, and extremely affordable. People do not expect to see high quality, professionally-produced video on your Web site or on a blog. A HD Flip Camcorder or other equivalent, which can be had for less than $200, plus a well-placed lamp, is all you need.

Finally, before you spend too much time packaging the case study, ask what approvals will be necessary to make it public. Buyers are often happy to talk first and think later about the permissions they will need to sign off on a final case study.

Get the Most out of a Customer Interview

• Incentivize sales reps to inquire & share
• Use third party interviewer
• Capture the interview on video
• Establish the 'old way'
• Outline the evaluation criteria
• Solicit anecdotes & statistics
• Look for unexpected challenges
• Ask about lessons learned
• Survey available graphics, images and b-roll
• Request referrals to more resources
• Understand the approval process

Ten Ways to Publicize Customer Evidence to the Masses

Once a customer success story is well documented, there are countless ways to cost effectively promote it to prospects.

Score Media Coverage

1. Pitch the story to trade publications or even national business publications, with emphasis on ROI. Some trade publications will print a case study word-for-word. Larger outlets will review the case study, then conduct their own interviews and produce an original story.
2. You can also pitch the story as a bylined article under the customer's name (with prior permission, of course) – this not only gets your story in print but throws some limelight to your customer as well. Publications that are case-study friendly include Government Technology News, Healthcare IT News, and Health Management Technology.

Light Up the Speaker Circuit

3. Some people love to teach, citing their own experiences. Use the case study as a speaker abstract to book your customer in speaking engagements at national trade shows and local events.
4. Invite them to be a guest speaker at your user conference. Offer a small honorarium if appropriate, and offer to write the presentation or talking points.
5. Feature your customer in a Webinar, or
6. As a special guest at a trade show dinner with prospects.

Elevate to Celebrity Status

7. Use the case study as the basis for award nominations in the customer's trade associations, media outlets, and local business groups. Look for awards that recognize the customer or the customer's employer.
8. Your company can even create an award program of its own.

Promote on your Web Site

9. If you captured the customer's story on video, promote clips on your Web site in the form of video testimonials. Send the clips to industry bloggers.
10. Invite the customer to be a guest blogger at your site, and offer to write the content based on the case study. Offer a payment, if appropriate, for any time the customer puts into the blog.

Case studies can also easily be folded into white papers, marketing kits and trade show collateral.

Summary

It is important to be strategic about customer evidence. It takes resources, so make sure the time invested maps back to your marketing plan or business objectives. If plans call for promoting a new product suite or a new market, make sure the evidence acquisition strategy matches those plans.

A complete customer evidence program requires story telling and writing talent, plus a full toolkit of public relations and marketing tactics. For healthcare and government markets, familiarity with the nuances and risk aversions of these buyers is paramount.

About RH Strategic

Raffetto Herman Strategic Communications is a full service marketing and PR agency that specializes in reaching decision makers in the healthcare I.T. and government tech markets.

The company is based in Seattle and Washington D.C., and represents clients nationwide. More details are available on the Web at www.rhstrategic.com.

For a client list and work samples, or to schedule a meeting, please contact Jason Poos, Director of Marketing, at (202) 585-0203 / .