How to Engage with your Community as a Pharmacy
Which would you prefer: a trip to the convenience store or a vacation to Disneyland? One is sufficient in terms of functionality, convenience, and friendliness. However, the other is a place where dreams are realised! Each visit is unique and fascinating, each encounter is relevant and enjoyable. This is an example that reflects directly on how your pharmacy can be viewed by your community. There is a lot to learn about how to participate with your community as a pharmacist. Continue reading to discover proven patient engagement strategies.
What factors influence patient engagement & what are the solutions?
You’ve established a regular customer base and a range of pharmacy services to suit their needs. And, thanks to advancements in technology, it’s never been easier to spread the word about your pharmacy. It’s important not to neglect the interactions you have with your patient while they’re in your store. Establishing a positive relationship with your most devoted customers will surely help you in “spreading the word.” However, how can you convince your most devoted advocates to become active members of your community?
Begin by following the guidelines below to develop an involved and engaging community that your patients and customers will adore.
1. Begin each patient’s trip with a warm greeting and end with a sincere thank you.
All it takes is a few brief words of encouragement and advice to reassure your consumers that they’ve arrived at the correct location and with the appropriate personnel.
Gratitude is one of the most powerful methods to engage your community. Receiving expressions of gratitude instils a greater sense of self-worth in the community, which prompts additional helpful behaviours toward both the person we are assisting and other individuals.
2. Be receptive.
You’ve developed your website, drawn visitors, and gotten things started — the dream is on track! Now for the exciting part… developing genuine relationships with people who share your goal online as well as in-store.
It’s all about dialogue, and your patients expect you to lead them in the right direction. It is not sufficient to post and then disappear, or to initiate dialogue without listening for the response. Instead, you should respond to comments with observations, feedback, follow-up questions, or by tagging other members who may be interested. Otherwise, your patients may develop a sense of invisibility.
As a pharmacy, you are not required to micromanage every discussion, but you should strive to be accessible and friendly in your internet presence.
3. Utilise Social Media to connect with your patients and form a community around them.
You are almost certainly already aware of who your consumers are. You simply need to determine their location. It is advisable that while determining your target audience, you begin with their demographics. Following that, you’ll want to consider who they are as individuals. This requires an awareness of their interests, attitudes, and information-seeking behaviours. Once you’ve gathered this information, you can connect with them on their favourite social media platform.
Once you’ve identified the social media platform where your audience congregates, you may wish to build a pharmacy-specific community or group on that platform. Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, as well as Google+ Communities are all excellent channels for customer engagement.
Learn how to increase your pharmacy footfall in our previous blog post here:
4. Maintaining a hospitable environment is among the top patient engagement strategies.
Who would want to spend time in a pharmacy that is cold or uninviting? It’s likely that you certainly would not. And your audience shares this sentiment. To contribute to the creation of a friendly environment in which people like interacting with one another, you should begin by welcoming newcomers. Tailor your communication to each patient. Offer services that meet their needs.
5. Involve your community & let them participate.
If you’re a pharmacy looking to involve your community, you can do it by asking them questions, hosting a contest, conducting a poll, or having them contribute images that represent your brand.
If you want to go deeper, consider collaborating with your community on a project. This could range from having members contribute articles to your blog to soliciting their feedback on your new webpage.
6. Making use of pharmacy screens is also one of the best patient engagement strategies.
Consider a digital sign to help effortlessly push services that your patients may not have otherwise been aware of constantly. Rather than pinning paper copies of notifications and other messages to the wall, pharmacy screens can now display fascinating 1080p Full HD photos, videos, and live web page content on a digital screen. Digital signs are a form of visual communication and when used properly, they can be highly engaging.
Pharmacy screens give you more time to focus on helping your patients as they handle most of the communications including spreading the word about your services.
Learn more about our digital pharmacy screens here:
Why is it critical to apply patient engagement strategies in your pharmacy?
- It encourages patients to stay with your pharmacy rather than seek out other options.
- Engagement tools can assist in cutting costs, waste reduction, and lowering the burden on your personnel.
- Increased patient participation results in improved health outcomes.
- Engaged patients are much more likely to feel satisfied, which increases their likelihood of returning.
Get in touch with us today to get a quote for our digital pharmacy screens and start your journey to improving your finances.
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