Empathy, transparency, empowerment: Key factors for long-term business vision

Recently, HOYA Vision Care conducted a research study to better understand the patient journey – and find out ways to help Eye Care Professionals (ECPs) to improve their service and offering during different points of that journey.

At HOYA, we strive to be the best business partner to ECPs, so they can give the best support to their patients. By understanding and prioritizing the challenges faced by customers during the patient journey, your support can be targeted where it’s most needed.

We surveyed 1000 patients across five markets: USA, Germany, France, China and Singapore. While 78% of eye care patients responded that they were proactive about regularly visiting their ECP, and not overly concerned about their results, the research also showed that patients feel heightened emotions at certain points during the patient journey.

Eye care patients in Singapore were most likely (56%) to delay scheduling a necessary eye appointment, with the most common reason cited overall for putting off an ECP visit was due to lack of time.

To fully understand the patient journey, we broke it down into five distinct phases. (As patients return to their ECP for check-ups, updated prescriptions and new products, consider this journey cyclical.) These phases were categorized as: trigger, initial consideration, active evaluation, purchase and post-purchase.

The most emotionally intense phases for patients were found to be the active evaluation and purchase phases. Influenced by potential frustration during the initial consideration phase, patients’ emotional intensity reaches its peak during the active evaluation phase.

Concerns regarding potential diagnosis, invasive procedures and having a lack of control over or during their treatment can trigger this heightened experience of stress. 40% of patients are concerned about their potential diagnosis, outdated equipment, invasive procedures and not having enough agency during the active evaluation phase.

Only 1/3 of those surveyed gave the highest satisfaction rating during this phase. Positive contributing factors included welcoming staff, high-quality expertise and an empathetic experience.

While less emotionally intense for patients, the purchase phase can trigger feelings of confusion and overwhelm. With many options and various price points, patients prefer to look to their ECPs for guidance regarding the best, personalized solution to suit their needs and budget requirements.

Overall, the survey allowed HOYA to identify four main principles through which ECPs can drive trust, confidence and connection with their patients: empathy, transparency, empowerment, and technology.

These focus areas aren’t just qualities that are preferable for ECPs to display during patient visits. The research found them to be key across the whole patient experience: from navigating opticians’ websites to interactions with staff members and during the vision screening process.

The research study also showed some more surprising findings. While eye care patients suggested that brochures in store and constant communication after a visit were unnecessary, the research found that the most influential way patients decided on a new ECP was via. recommendations from friends and family (49%) and positive online reviews (31%).

However, the results also indicated that more work was needed to empower patients to learn more about their own eye health. While 36% of patients trusted their ECP’s recommendations, a not insignificant 28% of patients preferred to seek the opinions of their friends and family. This just shows: trust matters. How can ECPs build trust and ease with their patients? Through three of the main focus areas: empathy, transparency and empowerment.

By utilizing digital tools to inform patients about their sight and lens choice, ECPs are also able to tactically adopt technology to provide a more personalized and seamless vision experience, that transparently presents the various options available to a customer, enabling them to make an informed and empowered decision about their own vision care choices.

The most impactful opportunities to win over patient trust are also those that enable the most personalized experience for the patient. 41% of eye care patients answered that their favorability rating increase if their ECP had a website that allowed them to easily contact them for questions or bookings.

Moreover, the research found that phone calls and emails were the significantly preferred methods of follow-up communication: speaking to someone on the telephone personalizes the experience, and more easily allows any questions to be asked. However, ECPs are most frequently found on the social media platform Facebook. Moving communication from a social platform to the personalized routes of an ECP website or calling patients on the phone, could significantly increase the patient relationship

Nearly all eye care patients said that they were at least somewhat prepared to maintain their eye health after the appointment, with 59% of American patients saying they were very prepared. When patients are keen to maintain their own eye health, how can ECPs facilitate this independence during the patient journey? By encouraging, informing, and empowering their patients while in store.

In summary, our research study showed that by using technology from an empathetic perspective, aiming to transparently empower a patient during a visit, is the most effective way ECPs can improve the patient experience.

While the business of sight may be focused on eye health, by taking the time to understand and empathize with a patient’s motivations and hesitations during the patient journey, ECPs are better able to grow their business with long-term vision.

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