The Power of Patients’ Stories
“Imagine having to run a successful business that requires the innovation of Apple, the commitment to safety of NASA, and the customer service of Ritz-Carlton. Furthermore, imagine that your mandate demands that you be a world-class educator, your work product holds life and death in the balance, and you are responsible for discoveries that shape the future of medicine. But wait; there’s more! You have to achieve your complex mission in a highly political, cost-competitive industry.”
This opening line in “Prescription for Excellence: Leadership Lessons for Creating a World-Class Customer Experience from UCLA Health System” very accurately describes challenges that Gelb’s healthcare clients face every day. This book is an account of UCLA’s amazing transformation to an organization that is truly focused on patient-centered care – and it provides guidance on how to use their principles in almost any industry.
Listening to patients’ stories is a central theme throughout the book, and something that Gelb does every day through Experience Mapping research. UCLA’s leadership recognizes that the voice of the patient is the most powerful tool they have for identifying problems and making improvements that create advocates out of their customers. UCLA’s leadership regularly “rounds” with patients to ask them about their experiences and how they could be improved, paving the way for changes that impact patients and their families on an everyday basis. In fact, UCLA has gone from the 36th percentile in patient satisfaction to the 99th in recent years by changing the culture to an authentically patient-centered environment.
When is the last time you personally listened to stories from your customers? Can you link their stories to your service values across all levels of your organization – from housekeeping to billing to executives? Listening, storytelling and taking action based on the feedback has been a key to success at UCLA, and is a key to exceeding customer expectation – for creating enchanted customers who will advocate for you and recommend you to others.
Read more about experience mapping here
Purchase your copy of Prescription of Excellence on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
The Power of Patients’ Stories
The new role of surveys in assessing damages in patent infringement cases
The New Role of Surveys in Assessing Damages in Patent Infringement Cases
By: Gabriel Gelb
Background: Federal courts are moving toward assessing damages in patent infringement cases with the (newer) key criterion of consumer demand generated by the patents at issue rather than the traditional Entire Market Value Rule (EMVR).
Damages based on EMVR have been set aside in such cases as Cornell Univ. v. Hewlett-Packard Co. and Lucent Technologies Inc. v. Gateway Inc. Numerous legal authorities have discussed how decisions by Circuit Judge Randall Rader, among others, are modifying the entire market value rule toward considerations of consumer demand.
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In Cornell University, for example, the trial judge excluded an economist’s testimony because “despite the court’s repeated exhortations to supply economic proof linking any proposed entire market value royalty base to the market and consumer demand, [the expert] simply could not identify any reliable evidence to support his position.”
This emerging trend suggests integrating the expertise of economists with that of survey experts in supporting or defending a damage claim in a patent infringement case.
Based on my work in helping to rebut damage claims against such technology clients as Apple, Amazon and Dell, I suggest several guidelines for the use of surveys in damage claims based on patent infringement.
The first is: Accurately define the place of the patent-in-suit in the final product. I’ve rebutted where surveys claiming damages for software patents that have presented concepts to consumers that “over-reach” what the patent actually contributes.
Every survey requires asking unbiased questions of a relevant population but that’s just the basics. A very recent decision (April 2011) in the E.D. of Texas illustrates my first point where in Fractus, S. A., v. Samsung Electronics, two consumer surveys were excluded because they over-reached, that is, measured reaction to the product, an antenna, as a whole instead of focusing the survey on the specific technology in the patent-at-issue.
Second: Any survey on consumer demand will be subject to searching scrutiny by a rebuttal expert. This is important for patent attorneys to appreciate as they may not be as well versed in the “battle of the survey experts” as are trademark attorneys. Working toward a “bullet-proof” survey calls for a researcher who is highly experienced in litigation surveys.
Third: As in all surveys for litigation, the patent infringement survey is most open to criticism if it fails to accurately determine the relevant population. Survey experts need to be careful about defining the relevant population. For example, in a recent patent case I participated in for the defendants, the plaintiff’s expert queried retail consumers but failed to appreciate that the defendant’s principal customers were businesses: the purchasers were chief information or chief technology officers.
The survey experts in patent infringement litigation should be well versed in advanced statistical analysis, especially conjoint analysis, which examines how purchasers or decision-makers “trade off” various product attributes.
Step One
Experts should also be prepared to address the possibility that a given attribute or feature should not be assumed a priori to be a decision driver. In cases where the opposing attorney’s expert may challenge the very inclusion of a given feature in a survey, it may be advisable to utilize “heuristic methods” as a first step.
Heuristic methods, a decision shortcut: particularly suited to conservative models
A decision-centered approach yields a conservative estimate of patent value because only respondents who identify a given attribute as important and measure it in a way material to the patent will contribute to the calculated value. Heuristic methods ask about actual behavior, as opposed to hypothetical choices. Thus, if respondents qualified for the survey based on their reported purchases or interest in a particular product category, this approach may have more face validity.
Step Two
Conjoint analysis, a 30-year-old statistical technique which results in hard data and has been used successfully in damages cases, including
- Tivo v. EchoStar, in Eastern District of Texas
- Barbara Schwab et al. v. Philip Morris USA, in Eastern District of N.Y.
- U-Haul Int’l v. Jartran Inc., in District of Arizona
- Robert Kearns v. Ford Motor Co, in Eastern District of Michigan
- Continental Airlines v. American Airlines, in Central District of California
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What is so useful about it?
- Conjoint Analysis forces people to make trade-offs
‒ This gives much better data than simply asking people the importance of each component of the product
The results are better in that they predict future outcomes more accurately, and there are greater (and more believable) differences between features in their importance to buyers
From a recent patent infringement damages survey that I rebutted: “… on average virtually all of the features studied for the various ____ devices were rated as important based on the monadic rating scales.”
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In this presentation, I’ve outlined three general guidelines for the new world of surveys in patent litigation, especially those involving technology, and shown what I consider to be the best path to measuring consumer demand for the patent-at-issue. Naturally, in any specific case, the requirements may vary to some degree from these concepts.
The Journey to Develop a Master Brand
Last week the Business Marketers Association (BMA) – Houston Chapter luncheon treated members and non-members to “7+1+6=1 Strategic Market Plans and the Power of One Master Brand” featuring Robin Swanger, Director – Global Branding and Communications from Baker Hughes. Swanger spoke about the oil and gas industry giant’s journey to develop a master brand. To this end, Gelb Consulting helped the corporation evaluate Baker Hughes’ overall brand equity and that of its different divisions to conclude that the master brand, Baker Hughes, is indeed the strongest.
Key Items Needed to get united under one name:
- Have ONE single goal. A company needs revenue, customers and something to sell. Baker Hughes took all these components under one umbrella with a single focus: “Increasing market share with a long-term profitable growth”
- Have ONE strategic marketing plan to achieve their goal: Consolidating different brands and divisions under one brand is a tough process but may be successfully managed by developing a strategic marketing plan that aligns and speaks to the organization as a whole.
- Inspired by the “Wizard of Oz,” Baker Hughes identified 3 things needed to implement their strategic marketing plan and to get through “The Branding Process” (aka Oz)
- Brain: Brand Research, Brand Strategy and Product Branding i.e., data to support the direction and strategy.
- Heart: Since people tend to love their brands and every brand has its own culture, it is a challenging and emotional process to cut ties with those brands and adhere to one master brand; although, it will lead everyone to a better place.
- Courage: Courage is required to manage unexpected issues that come along the way including avoidance, resistance, criticism and gossip.
In the end, what did Baker Hughes learn from this journey? “There is no man behind the curtain,” Robin explained. There are no easy answers, and the journey to develop and build a solid master brand never ends.
Baker Hughes no longer finds itself in a tornado as in 2009 when they faced the daunting task of trying to develop a strategic marketing plan for a corporation with multiple brands. Now that they have united under one brand, it’s a consistent work in progress. Echoing Dorothy’s words, Robin concluded “There is no place like home.”
OTC:Audience shows us where we are going
By Steve Matthews
This week, Houston will experience its biggest annual influx of visitors, with over 75,000 people expected to attend the 2011 Offshore Technology Conference. OTC starts today, and attendance and spending are always good gauges of the health of the industry. This week is set to be a record-breaker. Three days of dazzling displays of the latest technology from companies vying for a share of operators’ wallets; then a half day where students can take a free look around the industry’s premier shop window.
Last year’s show (and OTC really is all about the show, not the tech papers) was something of an anomaly. We had a buoyant market, for sure, but in the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy the atmosphere was somewhat muted. The Macondo well was spewing thousands of barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico with no end in sight, speculation was rife but nobody knew what the ramifications of the spill would be.
Now we know that the oilfield has changed forever. With multi-billion lawsuits in the works, risk analysis has taken on a whole new meaning. The industry may not like it, but tighter US regulation is here to stay. Operators will have to find ways to deal with that regulation if they want to fully restart their major deepwater drilling programs, or – crucially – if offshore lease sales are to fully resume.
All of this takes place against the backdrop of an industry that has never been busier, delivering a product for which demand growth seems unstoppable. Despite protestations about the price of gas at the pump in the US, consumer acceptance seems to be the norm. The mild panic that ensued in 2008 when the price hit $4 a gallon for the first time is notably absent. The difference now is a generally stronger economy pulling out of a recession instead of falling into one.
Lots to be done, then. But…who’s going to do the work?
10 years ago, a session at SPE/IADC discussed the Big Crew Change: average age of SPE membership was 53, average retirement age was 57. Nothing much happened, but at least we were talking about it. Five years ago, it finally seemed that the industry was addressing the issue. Thousands of new engineers were being hired (the big three service companies each hired over 20,000 people in 2005), and the Crew Change was apparently underway. But 2008 saw a double-crash, when oil demand dropped nearly as precipitously as retirement portfolio valuations.
Senior engineers who wanted to retire couldn’t afford it, and hung on. Junior engineers were let go almost as quickly as they had been hired a couple of years before. SPE average age continued to creep up. Now the position is reversed. The Dow Jones index has regained its pre-crash value, taking 401(k) valuations with it. Demand for oil continues to climb. With the anticipated growth, are we going to be able to attract the engineering talent that we need? How much damage did the “ramp-up and lay-off” of 2005-2009 do to the industry’s perception in the student body?
The answer may lie in the findings of a recent study by Schlumberger Business Consulting, predicting that the Oil & Gas industry can expect a net loss of 5000 experienced engineers in the next three years, the implications of which are project delays and increased risk. The standard response to mitigating that risk is through technology. The study finds that graduate supply can meet recruitment demand, but those grads will not be coming from the best American universities. Indeed, many won’t be coming from American universities at all. Increasingly, those recruits will be female – another area in which the US has a lot of catching up to do.
It will be interesting to take a stroll around OTC this coming Thursday. Those companies who will have spent the first three days of the show selling their wares hard to the buyers of today should be selling their companies just as hard to the engineers of tomorrow. The organizations that successfully make that sale will be the ones occupying the prime OTC spots in 10 years time.
Marketing Research with a Focus on Patient Experiences
Earlier today I had the pleasure of describing some of the leading research techniques to the NACCDO/PAN marketing group, this year hosted by UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Our discussion was focused on ways to elicit feedback from patients, families and referring physicians to guide understanding, delivery, and monitoring of the patient experience.
Below is a recap of key observations, followed by a copy of the presentation.
First, any objective feedback is better than none at all. Incorporating the Voice of the Customer is critical to ensure that scarce marketing and operational resources are put to greatest use. However, the use of marketing research tools is only intended to reduce decision risk, not eliminate it. Strategic prioritization includes a combination of both insights and instincts.
The most important elements of research include well-designed materials (prior experience and expertise in this area helps) and taking action on the results. To ensure action, I recommend engaging implementers as early in the process as possible, not only at the end presentation of results. Rather, they should guide the study materials development and engage in decisions throughout the process. One of the most important questions to ask executives is what they expect to see as an outcome of the process – their response may surprise you and might cause you to re-frame the entire study.
Experience Mapping is a valuable technique to understand patients’ functional AND emotional needs. Functional needs are commonly addressed as efficiency issues – parking, scheduling, discharge, etc… The emotional needs are often overlooked and harder to act upon (but not impossible) – hopefulness, safety, and empowerment are examples. The experience map also provides a framework for action by giving team members a common orientation to what happens before the hospital visit (a part of the process often managed by marketing and community physicians), “inside the walls,” and after discharge (an often neglected piece of the patient’s journey).
Quantitative research can link brand performance to experience management. In fact, marketing’s role to establish expectations as a basis for preference over competitors must be fulfilled or patients will become detractors rather than advocates. Gelb’s brand trust model is used by academic medical centers around the country to establish meaningful differentiators across market segments. Prioritizing these areas of importance and focusing communications and operations is key to building a strong brand.
Finally, accountability comes from measurement. Nevertheless, commonly used satisfaction or performance measurement tools are too late or, at worst, ad hoc. These tools should be viewed as additional “listening posts” for patients and referring physicians to provide feedback in the context of their journey, not an arbitrary date. This approach improves feedback quality and online tools provide a mechanism to for real-time service recovery.
Merger Success Begins with a “Wedding Planner”
With the recent uptick in oilfield mergers and acquisitions, many organizational and marketing issues have surfaced. There’s so much excitement around the “wedding” – finances, working the deal, anticipating all of the great things that will come from the union. Merging organizations need to harness this excitement and ensure there’s a long-term game plan.
The wedding itself doesn’t result in all of the great things you were expecting. Things change including finances (who pays for what), responsibilities (who makes decisions), and where you live (or how you serve the customer).
- How will the teams get along (especially with kids from other marriages)? Examining existing practices in each organizational culture is imperative as a starting point. Is there true alignment around priorities (e.g., sports, scholastics, TV time)? Analogous to business, the strategic priorities of the organizations will shift if each wants to benefit from the promise of cross selling, pull through and other benefits of a union.
- What will we be called? In marriages, it’s a common practice for the wife to take the name of the husband (we will call this the monolithic brand). But, the name could be hyphenated (co-branded), endorsed (part of this union, but retain my name) or even stand alone (until you get to know me do you really know I’m “married”). Our experience indicates that these discussions should be held BEFORE the merger to ease heartburn later and avoid uncomfortable conversations.
- How will we make decisions? Each union has it’s own set of rules, but the most successful are those that have an objective, pre-defined process.
- How do we get to know each other? It goes without saying that communication is key, but identify and commit to the methods of communication. Will email do it? Definitely not. And, while town hall meetings create lots of excitement, there’s a need to establish upward channels of communication and frequent updates through other modes. For the oilfield, this is particularly important in establishing a common sales process and providing customer-facing employees with sufficient information about the other’s technical services and strengths.
A “wedding planner” or outside third party will help organizations outline these necessary steps and provide the counseling needed to make the event a success.
AMA Crystal Awards
Title: AMA Crystal Awards
Location: Hyatt Regency Downtown Houston
Link out: Click here
Description: The Crystal Awards is AMA Houston’s premier event, honoring Houston’s best marketing work.
Gelb is a finalist in the following categories.
Qualitative Research Project- Mapping the Proton Therapy Patient Experience – MD Anderson Cancer Center
Quantitative Research Project
Global Brand Equity Research – Baker Hughes Inc
Website – Most Improved
G2M Partners – Delta Rigging and Tools
Date: 2011-05-26
American Marketing Association Crystal Awards
Title: American Marketing Association Crystal Awards
Location: Hyatt Regency Downtown Houston
Link out: Click here
Description: The 25th Annual Crystal Awards is AMA Houston’s premier event, honoring Houston’s best marketing work. Gelb Consulting is a finalist in the following categories:
Qualitative Research Project -Mapping the Proton Therapy Patient Experience – MD Anderson Cancer Center
Quantitative Research Project –
Gelb Consulting Global Brand Equity Research – Baker Hughes Inc.
Website – Most Improved
G2M Partners – Most Improved Website – Delta Rigging & Tools
Start Time: 6:00 PM
Date: 2011-26-05
Seismic Shift: Are Geologists at the forefront of the Big Crew Change?
By Steve Matthews
Walking the aisles of the exhibition hall at this week’s American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Annual Convention in Houston, I was struck by a couple of things about the attendees: considering the buoyant state of the industry, attendance in the hall seemed fairly light, and second: for a geologists’ show, not very many of them were actually geologists.
It would be nice to think that the geologists were all busy at their jobs, or perhaps upstairs in the technical sessions – judging by the growth in crowd when the late afternoon social began, that may well have been the case.
Those who had attended the tech sessions would have been able to find some geologically-focused presentations (four of 11 tracks by my reckoning). Those in the exhibit hall found that for the majority of the show – and at all of the big booths on the floor – the talk was of geophysics, the focus was software, and the demos were all showing 3D manipulation of seismic volumes – preferably combining drilling data to update the earth model in real-time.
OK, so this is hardly news. Relentless growth in computing power has brought us to the point where it is feasible to bring drilling engineers and reservoir engineers together in a software environment in which they both feel comfortable. As an old drilling hand, it makes perfect sense to me for Operations and Asset Management become seamlessly linked by mathematics, process and engineering. But even I find myself asking whether there is any room left in between for the artful geologist?
One final observation about the attendees. The technological shift may be driving a demographic shift: as I remarked to another 40-something colleague: for a change, I didn’t feel like I was one of the youngsters. After a false start that was nipped in the bud by recession, could it be that the Big Crew Change is finally getting underway and that geologists are the first wave?
My Job is to Save Your Ass, Not to Kiss It
At a recent presentation, an attendee provided an enlightening example of the frequent disconnect between clinical and service excellence. She shared the story of a nursing unit in her hospital (which shall remain nameless) whose nursing staff had put the following on the unit station wall:
“Our job is to save your ass, not to kiss it”
Having visited hundreds of units, this was a new one. While pithy, my main concern is that this attitude is permitted by nursing management. This sign, when taken down, only found a new home in the lounge (at least it’s out of patient view now).
So the struggle between clinical and service excellence continues. Our experience indicates that patients appreciate the positive medical outcome. However, nurses (and other health professionals) cannot always guarantee a positive medical outcome which makes creating loyalty even harder when one chooses to ignore the service delivery component.
Both are needed and can be accomplished rather easily. Instead of just executing the task, explain why you’re doing it (why are you taking out the IV pump – to make the room safer…HCAHPS anyone?).
Finally, management cannot tolerate this type of behavior. It’s not only mean-spirited, but fails to remind healthcare providers why they got into the professional in the first place – to care for others.