People are changing the way they feel about having to visit and spend time at stores, public service offices, even clinics. You see that change in customer preferences, in customer satisfaction levels and even in the way people plan their day.
Across different verticals I'm noticing a sea change in the role of the physical point of contact and of the customer visit to it. This is true for retail, for governmental and municipal services, and also for healthcare provision.
While healthcare seems all in for going digital, the actual patient visit is still required for diagnosing and treating even minor ailments. The outcome is Retail Healthcare. The guys at Frost and Sullivan describe this as "…primary care services for minor illnesses provided through clinics located in retail environments, such as pharmacies, grocery chains, supermarkets, or departmental stores".
Over in the US, I'm already seeing the dominant pharmacy-style retail chains like Walmart and CVS change the healthcare experience. These chains are engaging consumers in a trend that is starting to spread in regions all across the globe from Asia to Europe to South Africa.
This trend makes everyone happier – retailers get more customer engagement, consumers enjoy more convenient opening hours, more access to simple procedures at less cost, while already being present at the retailer's venue. It also means the traditional healthcare providers are less crowded.
Over at PwC they're taking this even further by envisaging the US pharmacy of the future as a hub of personalised health: a trend driving pharmacies to offer primary care, to the chagrin of many small-practice physicians. I'm already seeing a little of this attitude come into the larger Australian pharmacy chains, right here at home.
Why is this important for omni-channel customer experience leaders? Because very soon they're going to face a reality in which practices from different vertical industries need to be scheduled and managed in a single visit!
Customer experience managers should have the ability to schedule complex appointments, route people to different paths in different departments and divisions of the same venue and manage everything from a single console, no matter what CRM or business process management solution is employed by the retailer and its healthcare delivery subcontractor.
Sounds chaotic? Not with the right omni-channel customer journey optimization solution. NEXA's products offer the perfect answer for the "multiple industries in a single visit" scenario: self-service composite appointment scheduling, smart visitor check in and routing applications; all optimised from a single, technology-agnostic platform.
