What is the value of your services? More importantly, who sets the value?
I really love LinkedIn, although just lately I have not been on the site or the forums much. I love it because the forums or groups that I have joined allow me to connect to people internationally with differing life experiences and views. People who see our profession through the prism of their life experiences and culture. This leads to really interesting conversations, it also allows you to see familiar issues from a differing point of view. This can only be good for your professional and indeed personal development.
It was during one of my many conversations on one of the groups recently that I realised something. Something base, a concept that I had nodding acquaintance with but had not really appreciated the profound impact of. I have said before that I believe your Patients in fact set the terms of your brand. It is what they feel about you and your Practice and more importantly what they say about you and your Practice that set the terms of your brand. I suddenly realised that they also set the value of your services.
Let me explain, the conversation was based around the separation of product and services as a commercial strategy. There was debate to and fro with some believing that the bundling of services with detailed cost breakdowns on invoices was the way forward. Whilst others leaned towards the separation of charges as an on-going commercial strategy. I put in my ten cents, as I am want to do, I pointed out that either way it was important for our profession to display our value. That in fact it was imperative for us to communicate our value in the process of hearing well as opposed to just hearing better.
It struck me as I wrote it that whilst we feel we have real value to bring to the process and that that skill is worth a certain monetary reward. Have we ever considered what the perceptions of our Patients are? Because it is their perception of our services that sets our value, that is a sobering thought. Lets say that again,
OUR PATIENT’S PERCEPTION SETS THE REAL VALUE OF OUR SERVICES
It is kind of humbling really and I don’t know why I did not really see it before. The concept is just an extension of my other closely held beliefs about our Patients and the commercial strategy that we need to consider. It is something that we need to consider every day, we may set the price, but our Patients set the real value.
Regards
Geoff