Vericom Adds a Key Ingredient to
Erlanger's Marketing Mix |
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A Recipe for Healing, Teaching, and Leading
When most people in Eastern Tennessee
think of healthcare, they think of Erlanger. For
over a century Erlanger has been serving the
communities in and around Chattanooga,
Tennessee. In addition to providing care for
local consumers, Erlanger often treats
patients from Alabama, North Carolina, and
Georgia as well, giving it a far-reaching
reputation for high quality healthcare.
Today, Erlanger encompasses six
campuses'north, East, Soddy Daisy,
Bledsoe, and the Baroness campus in
downtown Chattanooga that includes the
campus of T. C. Thompson Children's Hospital.
Erlanger is also an academic teaching facility,
training nurses as well as doctors. |
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Adding A Key Ingredient
As one would imagine, the volume of calls
coming into Erlanger's campuses is
staggering"roughly 20 million per year. While
Erlanger works hard to ensure that callers are
not on hold or sitting in queue for long, the
sheer number of calls coming in every day
sometimes makes it unavoidable. Early on,
callers placed on hold listened to music or
general "please continue to hold" messages.
As you might guess, this solution provided
little real value.
Seven years ago Erlanger began using
Vericom's SoundCare on hold and in queue
messaging solution to educate and inform
these callers. Today, if you call any of the six
Erlanger campuses, you will hear custom
SoundCare messages promoting everything
from major service lines, screenings, and
events, to fund raising efforts and smaller
services that don"t have large marketing
budgets attached to them. SoundCare
messages are also used to communicate
information concerning health issues and
campus activities, as well as to promote other
marketing vehicles like Erlanger's HealthLink
Plus community service program, e-magazine,
and their web site. "We feel like SoundCare is
an important part of our overall marketing
mix," says Chris Vaughn, Director of
Marketing. "We always get responses from
our on hold messages."
SoundCare adds a valuable dimension to
Erlanger's marketing programs by extending
them to thousands of qualified consumers
every day.SoundCare also serves to increase customer
satisfaction. By providing timely and valuable
information to callers, SoundCare creates the
perception of a shorter wait. "People don"t realize
how long they are on hold, and that's a win/win for
the caller and Erlanger," adds Vaughn.
Flexibility is yet another reason why SoundCare is
highly regarded by the Erlanger marketing team.
SoundCare enables Erlanger to communicate in
"real time" with its consumers. Like most hospital
marketing departments, the staff at Erlanger does
not have the budget to change television ads, radio
ads, and billboards whenever they wish. SoundCare
however can be changed quickly and easily,
allowing marketing to be very timely in their
communications. This ability allows Erlanger to
better serve its consumers and better position itself
as the healthcare leader in the region.
Vericom's SoundView (interviews with management,
physicians, staff, patients, etc.) allows Erlanger's
executives to emphasize high profile events.
Erlanger is an important part of the community, and
SoundViews provide a great platform for hospital
leaders to speak directly to those they serve.
With over 4,200 employees, the internal customer at
Erlanger is also important. "When we have
executives record a SoundView, we keep in mind
that the message will be heard by our employees
on hold as well," says Vaughn.
Nancy White, Chief Marketing and Customer Relations
Officer at Erlanger, relates an unintended benefit of using
SoundCare that occurred in the area of employee
recruitment. Erlanger was running a SoundCare message
promoting their new occupational medicine program called
Work Force. "An area physician was on hold when he
heard the message," said White, "He was looking for an
occupational medicine position in the area, and we
needed one. He called me and we hired him. We get a
great return from our SoundCare programs. It's a critical
component of our marketing strategy."
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Icing on the Cake
Given all of its advantages, you would think that
SoundCare would be costly to use. 'not so" says
Jan Powell, Public Relations Manager. 'soundCare
gives us an economical way to add an important
dimension to our marketing mix. It provides good
bang for our buck, and that means a lot when you
have to answer for your budget."
When programs are developed, the team at
Erlanger works like a well-oiled machine, putting
together a marketing plan that utilizes the right mix
of many different promotional vehicles. SoundCare
is always included as a cost-effective way to
supplement other marketing tools. 'soundCare is an
important piece of the puzzle," added Powell. "It's
great to have something that effective, that is also a
sound investment. It makes me feel like I"m a good
steward of Erlanger's money." |
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