Editor's Note: this is a guest post was written by David Chase, CEO of Avado.com, a patient relationship management company, which was a finalist in the TechCrunch Disrupt. Previously, he worked as a consultant for medical practice management, Accenture's consulting for 25 hospitals and was the founder of Microsoft in the field of health care business. You can follow him on Twitter @ chasedave.
ZocDoc has just announced a $ 50 m from the daylight saving time. Where many have failed, ZocDoc showed that subversive new model implemented properly can actually work in the field of health. Healthtech run may take a few lessons from ZocDoc experience monitoring by what they have accomplished.
Scrappiness questions. ZocDoc CEO & Co-founder, Cyrus Massoumi was tenacious in getting close to its first customers and doing what it took to close its first customers. He shared that he was waiting in the waiting room of a doctor for 5 hours to talk to a doctor, he wants to. In another case, he was escorted from the building for security due to its retention.
Focuses on the ZocDoc seems to ignore the siren song of the diversion of their principal. This could include getting into price elasticity or electronic medical records. They do one thing extremely well-they fill open slots for doctors and dentists appointment calendars. Now, they have proved that there is a logical place to magnify. For example, think about what happens after registration (insurance law, reminding patients of appointments, etc.). With the authority to which they are created, they can increase revenue per customer if they offer these services.
Great help investors. Although I'm sure that will give their investors most of the credit team ZocDoc, it doesn't hurt to have a better Mark Benioff Vinod and Jeff Bezos followed SV Angel Fund founders and investors.
Development of their sales model. It seems they don't use their website for sale for clinicians. Their Web site is almost entirely focused on the acquisition of the consumer. Their strategy to acquire their client could be regarded as "old school" (that is, from the inside and field sales), but it has been effective. It sounds like they are making significant investments in sales, which is a great way to maximize the value of salesforce.
Word of mouth still works. Doctors and dentists to talk with each other and by giving them a great experience, they get a lot of inbound lead generation. Too often startups peak growth and she bites them back with a negative user experience and negative word of mouth. Without a doubt this helps drive incoming interest.
Start small to go big. As demonstrated by Salesforce.com and others, from small clients is a great way to get initial traction. In the case of ZocDoc, they went in separate doctors instead of continuing to hospitals and clinics. There is no doubt that the opportunity is there if/when they want, but they showed you can build a business with small suppliers first. This may open later than possible with hospitals.
Introduction to geography. This is particularly important in their model, but I think this is an issue for many healthtech startups. Having a critical mass in particular geography makes sense in terms of sales and marketing, helping to shrink the sales cycle and the learning curve. The alternative would be staged in – i.e. emphasis on one specialty before moving to another.
Lead with doctors. As Google health giving presents, leading to a consumer and looking forward to their doctors do not pull in the chances of success. ZocDoc, especially for doctors on Board have a critical mass of available assignments. Although they did consumer marketing, my impression is that doctors now encourage their patients to schedule appointments, thus creating a positive cycle. If the doctor (or any business) will issue the preferred way to interact with them, most consumers will continue to do so. In contrast, most doctors don't listen to the patient or two telling them to take advantage of several new tools.
Call for support of health services. Doctors, for the most part, don't care about technology. I doubt they think about the underlying architecture ZocDoc in solution. Rather, they care about the outcome provided by ZocDoc – fill in the blank appointment slots. For many of their clients, they are the # 1 source for new patients. WhiteGlove health is yet another startup, technology-enabled services with success — their IPO — this week. Technology as the driving force, not as in, more than less profilethis generally.
Congratulations to Cyrus Massoumi and ZocDoc, knocking it out of the Park. This is a good example of the collapse of the health care that is essential. Read more about Cyrus blog.
Very informative post. As pressure mounts to include patients in improving their health outcomes, patient relationship management
ReplyDeletestrategies have become a priority for many healthcare companies. This paper gives you the six key factors for success: http://mobileprm.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Patient-Engagement-Key-Factors-for-Success.pdf