[00:00:00] Stephanie Wierwille: Welcome to the No Normal Show, brought to you by BPDA marketing services firm that delivers the future to healthcare’s leading brands. This show is where we leave all things status quo, traditional old school, and boring in the dust, and celebrate the new, the powerful, the innovative, the bold, all focused around the future of healthcare, marketing and communications.
Hello, I’m Stephanie. We, and I am joined by Chris Bevelo, chief Transformation Officer here at BPD. Hi Chris.
[00:00:25] Chris: Hi, I, my video’s so weird. It looks like I’ve all these bright lights on my face, so sorry for the reflections off my glasses.
[00:00:33] Stephanie Wierwille: You are just in the spotlight.
[00:00:35] Chris: I, I don’t know what’s happening. It’s, look at that. You can kinda, you can see. I don’t know what it’s reflecting. I think it’s reflecting my own BPD background. It’s like a weird loop.
[00:00:46] Stephanie Wierwille: There you go. You’re double branded. Um,
[00:00:49] Chris: I’m branded this too, by the way. If you can’t see go cyclone. Iowa
[00:00:54] Stephanie Wierwille: go.
[00:00:54] Chris: cyclones go. Yep.
[00:00:57] Stephanie Wierwille: unfortunately. I know you know, but I am a [00:01:00] Hawkeye, so sorry.
[00:01:02] Chris: Oh, gross. You didn’t go there though, did you?
[00:01:05] Stephanie Wierwille: No, I didn’t, but that’s my affiliation. So
[00:01:09] Chris: well, too
[00:01:10] Stephanie Wierwille: wah, wah.
[00:01:10] Chris: Since we beat you already. We beat you this year,
[00:01:12] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay. Okay. Oh, so we’ll get into our headlines then. On that note, we have a couple headlines we’re gonna cover today. Um, we’re gonna get into a new news from Meta. There’s actually a lot of new news from Meta this week. Uh, this week they launched their new glasses.
Yesterday they launched a Vibe, ai. Feed Anyway. Z’s been busy apparently. Um, and then we’ll talk about a really interesting article from Adweek called Mindset Marketing. And it’s interesting data and research about how weather can affect consumers’ mindsets. Those are two headlines. And then our main topic will be, um, I think our last segment on the future of the CMO report.
So we’ve covered it now. Um. And, and we’ve kind of covered the report overall, and we’ve dove into four of the five opportunities, and today we’re digging [00:02:00] into the CMOs role in the patient experience. So super exciting to get into that one. Few quick housekeeping items before we get in. Um, next month, join us at Health, HLTH, uh, the conference in Las Vegas that we’re super excited to be at.
It’s always my, my favorite moment of the year. I love health. I just, um, am obsessed with the gathering of health tech and retail health and hospitals and health systems. And what we’re doing this year is we’re gonna be live on the ground. We’re going to be recording podcasts just like this one, talking about what we’re seeing and hearing, and we wanna talk to you if you’re there.
So reach out, we wanna interview you, we want you on the show. Join us and you can reach us at info@bbdhealthcare.com. And then Chris, you’ll be at Schmid. What’s going on at Shush schmid?
[00:02:45] Chris: A whole bunch. There’s a lot going on Schmid. We’re doing a, a panel on the future of the CMO and the burning of Rome, uh, with my pals, Vic and Matt and maybe one other person, maybe a surprise guest. We’ll see. [00:03:00] And then we’re doing another presentation on, uh, this amazing piece of content we have coming out. It’s titled The Courage to Save Millions. Uh, the huge opportunity for health systems that are involved in m and a to make some tough decisions, uh, during the deal process around brand identity. But if you can do that, you can literally save millions of dollars in ebitda. So, uh, super intriguing teasing that out.
We’ll have a paper soon that we can share and we will spend time on the show talking about it. But that’s the other thing. Plus we’re gonna do all kinds of fun stuff. I think we’re going bowling. Um, it’s always great to see people there. So all the things at Shiz mid.
[00:03:42] Stephanie Wierwille: Bowling. That sounds amazing.
[00:03:45] Chris: Bowling is always amazing.
[00:03:48] Stephanie Wierwille: You said courage to save millions in ebitda and I went to bowling. That’s what I heard from your whole,
[00:03:53] Chris: Well, that’s how you do it. You have to like go bowling during the m and a deal, and then you will,
[00:03:57] Stephanie Wierwille: that’s right.
[00:03:59] Chris: find all the money.[00:04:00]
[00:04:00] Stephanie Wierwille: Where the deal happens. Um, all right, A couple other notes. Uh, make sure to sign up for the Joe Public Retreat. It is filling up the theme for 2026 is the AI Dream, and we’re gonna be all together coming up with the biggest, boldest ways to use AI for marcom functions at health systems. So join us, uh, in South Beach in Miami, Florida on February 18th through 20th.
And then, um. Read our latest blog@bbdhealthcare.com, which we covered, I believe last week on the show, um, titled The Einstein Divide. Much more coming there. Very much tied to that AI dream that we just mentioned. And then last note, uh, we say it every week, but if you haven’t already sign up for the No Normal Rewind, which is our newsletter that digs into all the things we cover here and more.
So, um, with that, uh, we’ll get into it. Uh, actually before I go down my Zuckerberg route, Chris, you had shared with us the other day that there’s a lot of interesting, uh, [00:05:00] fall TV that you’re watching, keeping up with. You had a list? I think so. I don’t know. I need to take notes here, but, um, what are, what are you tuned into?
[00:05:09] Chris: Well, our producer, Mari, also like kicked us off with Welcome to Dairy, which I cannot wait for. I’m such a Stephen King’s probably my favorite author. I’ve read it probably five times. The first IT movie was incredible. The second one was like, whatever the new show that kind of talks about the origin of that. Monster, uh, that’s coming out. There’s so many slow horses, five, which is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. That’s already out Gen V, if you like The Boys, which I love the Boys. Gen V is a spinoff season two of that Black Rabbit, which is already out, which Jason Bateman and uh, Jude Law is super cool.
Landman two. Which was really good coming out task, which is out watching that, the Ed Geen story, like that’s just, wanna call that a [00:06:00] short list. I will be watching all of those.
[00:06:03] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay. Wow. I think that you need a side podcast, Chris, where you just kind of sit as a, as a critic and, and, and show, I don’t know,
[00:06:12] Chris: You.
[00:06:13] Stephanie Wierwille: armchair critic.
[00:06:14] Chris: That’s a great idea. Nobody has a podcast on TV shows. think anybody does
[00:06:19] Stephanie Wierwille: Are you being sarcastic? Really?
[00:06:22] Chris: Yeah. It’s like everybody and their mother, 2 cent
[00:06:24] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay.
[00:06:24] Chris: probably
[00:06:25] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay.
[00:06:25] Chris: loudest around TV and movies. but yeah, I just, those are all amazing. There’s others too. I, that’s just what we came up with.
But I keep, I keep seeing TikTok previews. Of new things coming out. Like, ooh, like there’s a, there’s a show on Netflix, a documentary called The Perfect Neighbor that looks incredible. Um, there’s a movie coming out, uh, called, oh, I can’t remember, but it’s about the people. It’s about the people that basically are hired by social media companies to. To kind of [00:07:00] monitor posts. And if you know anything about that, that’s a very traumatic job
[00:07:04] Stephanie Wierwille: Yes, yes.
[00:07:05] Chris: you are monitoring the worst of humanity. and so this is a fictional story about a woman who’s trying to like help somebody who’s in there. And it doesn’t look like a cheesy horror story. It looks like more of like a commentary on society.
There’s so much, I can’t even, sorry,
[00:07:24] Stephanie Wierwille: Oh my gosh. Okay. That’s a good one to know about. I’m definitely gonna watch that because I definitely know what that feels like. I mean, I haven’t done it 24 7, like content mod moderators who work for Meta, but definitely had a few years of managing brand pages, and your job is literally to pull down the crazy things if anyone else sees them.
Right. And that’s just the craziest stuff.
[00:07:43] Chris: it is the craziest stuff. You know what it’s called? It’s called
[00:07:46] Stephanie Wierwille: What,
[00:07:47] Chris: That’s the
[00:07:48] Stephanie Wierwille: oh.
[00:07:49] Chris: American Sweatshop, which I think is just like dead on. For
[00:07:52] Stephanie Wierwille: don’t know how many times I was like driving to like, I don’t know, a dinner on a Saturday night and had [00:08:00] to pull over on the side of the road because something bad popped up on the page and yeah, it’s just nuts. It’s just nuts. But anyway,
[00:08:07] Chris: the
[00:08:07] Stephanie Wierwille: I digress.
[00:08:09] Chris: hopefully won’t give you PTSD, but the
[00:08:11] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay.
[00:08:11] Chris: is pretty powerful. Looks great. Anyway. There’s so much
[00:08:15] Stephanie Wierwille: There’s so much. There’s so much. So maybe let’s roll into, speaking of meta, um, so Meta had some new news this week. Yeah. Ugh. Um, uh, so Meta showcased their new AI glasses, their new, um, artificial intelligence based, augmented reality based glasses from RayBan and Oakley for. No less than $800, uh, price point for the RayBan once.
Um, but Zuck released them on a keynote this week and he talked about all the things that are new features, like heads up displays. So let’s say you wanna, you’re standing in front of a building and you’re like, Hey, meta, tell me about this architecture style, things like that. Or you’re recording the world around you to share to meta later, or you’re making a phone call.
Um, unfortunately his [00:09:00] demo. Was the thing that made headlines because he had about a minute and a half of a failure of a demo where he was trying to make a phone call and so, mm, sorry, Zuck. Um, but anyway, you’re laughing. Chris, tell us, tell us your thoughts.
[00:09:14] Chris: for one, it reminds me of one of the best scenes in TV comedy history on Silicon Valley. I think it’s in season one. If you ever watch Silicon Valley, it’s incredible. And there’s a scene where they’re trying to use this new holo hologram technology to f to have a video conference and it won’t work.
’cause the guy keeps freezing. So then they go to like a video conference and that won’t work. And then they go to like a. Conference call and that won’t work. It’s just hilarious. Um, but also, anytime I see Z Fail makes me, makes my day, I
[00:09:43] Stephanie Wierwille: I think that’s, uh, shotten, Freuder a little bit of that.
[00:09:46] Chris: no, it’s not shot in Freud like it, it’s. I just can’t bear the guy.
He is inhuman. There are like, I actually prefer Elon Musk to Mark Zuckerberg because Elon Musk just owns this nutty, crazy, I think [00:10:00] Elon Musk is not a good human, but at least like you, you see that coming. Sam Altman is probably scarier than Zuck and what he could do with the world, but he at least has a veneer of like, oh, this guy seems saying Mark Zuckerberg is literally a robot. And. He tries to, he tries to human. It’s so bad. just can’t, I can’t with Mark Zuckerberg,
[00:10:24] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay. He, he probably is ai.
[00:10:28] Chris: He probably, I don’t know. He’s just, I don’t know. So I can’t,
[00:10:32] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah.
[00:10:32] Chris: don’t care about the glasses. I’m not gonna look at the glasses. I won’t buy anything from meta. So there you go.
That’s my personal, my personal little thing. Sorry.
[00:10:43] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay. Um, I won’t be buying the glasses either, but that’s because I have Amazon glasses that do the same thing that I bought like three years ago, so I’m not exactly sure like what these new features are all about. I wear them when I run and they, I can listen to music, I can make phone calls, I can ask Alexa things.
It’s the same, but [00:11:00] glasses are gonna continue to happen. Google’s rumored to come out with some, and I think my prediction is glasses may or may not be the thing at the end of the day. But something will, and we will move beyond our screens at some point. So I’m watching for that moment.
[00:11:14] Chris: It’s terrible. Like we can definitively say that screen time, social media, all these things have been horrible to society. Net net. So the, the escaping to in real life will now not even be that because in real life will now be, we really will be living in the matrix. We’ll be living in a. In a, um, what are they called? What do they people call it when they say we’re living in a how like fake world? Like the Matrix. What is that called? I just saw somebody quoted saying, 70% chance we’re all living in a simulation.
[00:11:46] Stephanie Wierwille: Stimulation. There you go.
[00:11:48] Chris: whatever.
[00:11:49] Stephanie Wierwille: I would’ve lost that jeopardy question.
[00:11:51] Chris: I’m
[00:11:52] Stephanie Wierwille: Um.
[00:11:53] Chris: that I don’t have to live in a world where there is no escape.
[00:11:56] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay. All right. Um, so our next headline [00:12:00] here is a really interesting article from Adweek, and it is called Humans are Wired from the, for the Weather, the Power of Mindset, art Marketing. Ooh, that was a hard headline for me for some reason. Um, but anyway, it’s a really interesting article with lots of great research and data about how.
Consumer’s decision making abilities change depending on what the weather is. So it influences people’s moods. Um, some examples here are that on cloudy days, consumers are more likely to recall details. They’re more likely to kind of sit back and do their research, um, and maybe they’re more receptive to that kind of message, whereas on sunny days.
They’re more likely to be open to new experiences, open to exploring, uh, and make more impulse shopping decisions. So we found this really interesting. I think the nerdiness in both of us was like, Ooh, what does this mean for messaging? So what was, what was your reaction?
[00:12:54] Chris: I just love this stuff. I love it. And I believe at a thousand percent. Um, and we’ll, [00:13:00] I’ll give you the floor to talk about noise. Um, which is a book that is like, I can’t get through the, like the first. of it because it’s, it’s so amazing, but I just can’t get, I don’t know why. It’s nothing about the book.
The book is incredible, but it’s all about how we’re so focused on targeting people based on who they are. What we’re missing is the context within which they make decisions and what motivates them and their behavior. So the one example I always think of from the book is, um, research shows that doctors are far more likely to prescribe medications at the end of a day. And that’s because they’re tired and they’re, you know, this isn’t a conscious thing. They’re just less likely to have the energy to explore alternatives. So they go to the easiest thing. To me, that’s just like, when you think about all of that and this focused on the weather of all things, it’s mind blowing about what that means for marketing and branding.
Uh, and I just [00:14:00] think it’s the coolest thing ever. I wish I could
[00:14:02] Stephanie Wierwille: It is.
[00:14:03] Chris: all day, every day just exploring this on how to take advantage of it.
[00:14:08] Stephanie Wierwille: Me too. Me too. I really do. Um, but speaking of that book noise, I, I did go back to it and try to figure out like, where did it talk about this exact thing? And it was in the chapter about occasion noise. So occasion noise is things like, you know. What it sounds like, like the weather that might change our mood, that might change how we make decisions that might actually increase the number of errors we make in something like, you know, a pilot or a doctor, for example.
So some examples that were given in noise, which tied to this article, is that judges are more likely to give harsh sentences on hot days. That was an interesting one. And then my favorite was a study called Clouds Make Nerds look Good. So college admissions officers actually tend to focus more on academic factors in the admissions application on cloudy days versus extracurriculars on sunny days.
And the reason [00:15:00] why I had to like do some digging, but I’ve written and looked at the study and the theory is like a cloudy day. Makes you, you know, it’s the same reason you wanna like sit back with a good book and like just, just sit back, right. And look at imagine things and research things and plan things.
Whereas on a sunny day, you’re exploring. Um, so anyway, I don’t know. Some of this is still theory, but it’s super fascinating. I.
[00:15:23] Chris: It’s a thousand percent true. We all know this is true in our heart, and we just, I think as marketers just like pretend like, oh, like that’s too big of a thing to get your arms around, so we’re just not gonna pay attention to it. but if I’m low blood sugar, good luck selling me anything. Anything at all. Right? So it doesn’t matter how well you know who I am as a human, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve hit me with the exact right message, at the exact right time for the exact right product. If I am in a, if I am not in a good place, it doesn’t matter. It does not matter. Now how you account for all that, that’s the trick. Um, [00:16:00] but well, we could spend all, we could have a whole podcast on this.
[00:16:03] Stephanie Wierwille: Oh man, I would love to, ah, let’s do it.
[00:16:06] Chris: Okay.
[00:16:08] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, so I guess my last, go ahead.
[00:16:11] Chris: I gonna say add that to the list. We’ll do the TV podcast and then we’ll do the Noise podcast.
[00:16:17] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay. It’s a deal. It’s a deal. Um, the last thing I’ll say on this topic is I just think there’s so many factors to your point about like even something like, you know, what’s the mood of the consumer getting the message? Are they low blood sugar at that moment? Did they just have a fight? What’s the weather?
And yet. We’re still giving them, you know, the highest level of personalization is based on behavior, data, interest, data, data, demographic data. It’s not on mindset. And so I think you said it yesterday, Chris, but like until we get to true ai, we won’t be able to actually take all this into account, but very exciting.
[00:16:51] Chris: It’s all static stuff, which is important, but static is really just a foundation and it’s the context of everything else that’s happening [00:17:00] but we are going on and on. We need to
[00:17:02] Stephanie Wierwille: Yes. Yes. Okay. Let’s get to our main, main topic here, which is around the future of the CMO. So just as a reminder, we produced a report on the future of the CMOA few months ago. Um, and we’ve covered that several times now. Um, and we’ve covered various opportunities, including one like. Being the voice of the market, um, leaning into ai.
And so today we’re gonna cover how, uh, healthcare CMOs are actually being increasingly tapped to lead or improve patient experience efforts, moving more into patient experience, moving more into consumer experience. Uh, and so, you know, that’s kind of the trend that we’re seeing, but this opportunity in the paper really digs into all of the questions around how do you do that?
How far do you go? Um, and a little bit of the, of the history of it. Um, so Chris, this is really your brainchild, so I might turn it to you if you wanna walk through some of the, some of the history and how we got here.
[00:17:56] Chris: Yeah, it’s definitely up my brainchild. Um, let’s do not gimme [00:18:00] credit for experience and marketing, um, but I’m gonna read a quote to you. All right, so this is a great, this is why I think. This is important. No one in healthcare organization is likely to be better educated or more experienced in understanding consumer audiences and the marketing leader, essentially building a positive patient experience as a branding issue, and branding as the territory of the marketer. Understanding consumer psychology, research methodologies, strategic planning, and the power of design and creativity are all essential developing Atlassian experience. Is there anyone more qualified in your organization in these areas of expertise? Okay, super relevant. That quote is from a paper called Leading the Charge, how Marketers can Help Shape the Patient Experience.
2005. So 20 years ago, uh, was, I love telling this story because it’s a paper that I wrote we put out and it’s, it’s really one of the only pieces of major thought leadership where I got significant pushback from the industry saying, you’re nuts. you can’t do this. [00:19:00] Um, so we kind of like ducked our heads and put it on a shelf and didn’t really talk about it much. Uh, here we are and there’s other, like, all along the way, this is just keeps coming up over and over and over again and in our CMO study. It came up again, like this is an opportunity. There are many CMOs that are doing this. Um, there’s a lot that’s changed in the 20 years since that paper was written, but like we say in the study, uh, one thing that has not changed is that the experience by and large across our industry still sucks. sucks. Relatively speaking, it still sucks. There’s statistics to prove that. So, huge opportunity here for CMOs. Um. of questions on whether they can own the whole thing. How do you actually do that if you’re also in charge of marketing and communications or whatever else? Um, but it is a massive opportunity.
Still. Still,
[00:19:50] Stephanie Wierwille: Still? Yes it is. Yes. And and it’s still being debated, right? Because when this was discussed at the Joe Public Retreat earlier this year, there was some debate in the room about it [00:20:00] and you know, a little bit of like, yes, that makes absolute sense. Or, yes, my role does include some of that, but then a lot of like.
Ooh, like, I don’t know, like how far do I go? Should I really be in charge of, you know, patient communications with clinical applications? Like, is that too far? So, um, I would say it’s still being debated.
[00:20:16] Chris: You’re being
[00:20:17] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay. Okay. I.
[00:20:18] Chris: up this question, was a woman that was kind of sitting in the front and she nearly leapt out of her chair and she basically was like, no, hell no. Absolutely not. That is a terrible idea. was not from a health system, she was from a different kind of provider. Um, point of view was like, no, that is not our preview. We should not go there. So the, it’s heavily debated, but I would say most of the people in the room. the opportunity for, if not owning it outright. I think that’s a huge debate for sure, a leader in shaping it.
[00:20:55] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, absolutely. And where I kind of come in on this is, [00:21:00] you know, if any, if anybody listening too comes from outside of healthcare, it’s sort of like a. Little bit of like a record scratch moment because it’s like, we’re, you’re, you’re still talking about this because outside of healthcare, it’s very, it’s relatively standard, and I wouldn’t say it’s true in every organization and there’s still some, like how far do you go question marks.
But in many organizations, you know, outside of healthcare marketing has some degree of the four Ps. Often, maybe not pricing. I think that is somewhat. Does tend to blur the line between operations or maybe a product team or something of that effect. But absolutely retail store design experiences, thinking about, you know, window clings, all of that stuff.
But then also even helping shape the product, um, and going pretty far into it. So it is a little wild that in healthcare we’re still debating it, but I think that’s just because of the clinical blurring of the lines.
[00:21:59] Chris: Yeah, I mean [00:22:00] it’s, it’s understandable. We used to work with the CMO who came for Proctor and Gamble, and he would say, look, four Ps I was responsible for all of them. That does not mean that he designed the store experience, but he was accountable for it doesn’t mean that worked with the finance team to develop pricing, but he was the final decision maker all of those Ps, right.
That was the power of the marketer. But it’s one thing to design store experience for a product, which oftentimes is limited. Even if you want to create a popup store just for that product or set of products, um, that’s very different than the experience that is, especially when we’re talking about healthcare. to 90% shaped by clinical people. who are experts in what they do. You don’t have that in a, in a retail store. Right. You have clerks, you have people that set up the merchandise. You don’t have people sitting there, [00:23:00] you know, whatever. If we’re selling popsicles, they’re not Popsicle experts that are making popsicles in the store and have to do the recipe.
Exactly right. And part of the experience that is, like I, I think I just compared like. Heart surgery to popsicles, but you get my point. Um, it’s, it is much more complicated, right? So understandable. Still we’re talking about it 20 years later because it still sucks. So that’s why it’s still an opportunity no matter how difficult it is. I.
[00:23:30] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah. Yeah. So one example maybe that, uh, that we see some CMOs overseeing and others don’t, but um, is customer service. You know, it has different words in healthcare, but basically sometimes the call center reports into. The CMO at a health system. Sometimes it doesn’t, but I think that’s an interesting take where there’s, there is a blurred line on the answering questions from patients.
You have to think about. HIPAA restrictions, you have to think about clinical issues. You have to [00:24:00] make sure that you’re absolutely providing clinical sound answers. Billing becomes very challenging because a lot of those questions are billing questions and finance questions, and we all know that is a black box that you know often just.
That’s not possible to provide answers upfront. That’s totally different in a retail environment where in a retail environment it’s often the intern to be clear, who’s like answering consumer questions. Or maybe there’s a very, very large, um, and by that I mean like on social, right? But then you’re tying into the call center, you’re tying into, and often it’s very standard answers, so you don’t have to worry about all these.
Issues. So that’s one example. I think one more example, and then I’ll get your take, Chris, is the digital front door. I think that has increasingly become under the CMOs, but it’s still only to a certain degree. ’cause sometimes it’s the chief digital officer, chief innovation officer, or, or, um, it, um, but the digital front door is another example of in outside of healthcare that’s just obvious, the website.
But in healthcare, it’s, it’s actually a spectrum.[00:25:00]
[00:25:00] Chris: Well, everything you just described, I think points to the main problem with how people are tackling. Every health system that we talk to and that we know of is tackling the experience, which is, you use the word blurred lines. If I channeled our, our pal, Andy Chang, who wants to vomit his mouth and everybody, somebody says digital front door. Like, imagine you’re hiring an architect you’re like, you know what? I just want an architect to design my front door. Like the, there is no way to design a great digital front door experience. Without also being involved in the design of the clinical experience because there’s not a, it’s not like a clean cut boy once I just send the digital front door.
Like if, if the digital front door includes online scheduling is just one example, but you can’t design a great online scheduling experience if you’re not also overseeing or working with somebody. working with the schedulers, who’s then working with the [00:26:00] clinicians, who’s then like, all of that, it’s, it’s all integrated. trying to chop it up, which is how health systems, they may have 3, 4, 5 different leaders, like somebody’s responsible for inpatient care, digital front door, the consumer experience, the clinical, like you’re, we’re never going to get there. This is where I, my, where my worldview as a purist, I think serves as like. Positive. We’re never gonna get there. We’re never gonna get there if it’s always gonna be divided, which is why I would say somebody, one person needs to own the whole damn thing doesn’t mean they do it all. And that’s where people get stuck. Uh, but they need to be accountable for all of it. And I would argue the CMO is as. Um, like we read in that quote 20 years later, still the best position for all those reasons and more to be accountable. Of course, they can’t do it. Of course the CMOs not gonna tell the clinical leaders in a surgical center how to do their stuff, [00:27:00] but somebody needs to be accountable and overseeing the whole thing.
’cause if you divide it up. It’s always gonna be, always gonna be gaps. There’s gonna be overlaps, there’s gonna be redundancies, there’s gonna be drop offs. have a digital front door. Like that’s just, that’s just a, a way for people to like get their arms around something. But you’re, it’s not gonna work. That’s, I’m sure there’ll be people who yell at me for saying that because there are a lot of people who celebrate owning or developing the digital front door. Um, but I’m with Andy on that. Like it’s nuts.
[00:27:33] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, preach. I, I, I think it’s important, I think it’s important to say, because if we keep sitting in this, in this gray area, spectrum, spectrum will never make any progress. And so I, I guess one of the areas that I get really excited about CMOs leading is patient communications. So the reason I get excited about that is because.
Patient communications, to your point about the patient experience is not, it’s not good, it’s not good today. Um, patients, I mean, we’re lucky if you, if you get a [00:28:00] phone call in advance of your appointment or a text reminding you of it, um, you’re never gonna get a, I won’t say never, but very rarely gonna get a follow up asking how you are.
Afterwards, right? Like, those are just like table stakes things. And I think that that’s where marketing knows the customer knows the, you know, what the customer needs really, really well. Um, one example, I just, just yesterday or two days ago actually, there was an interview with the Barclays CMO. So in finance, which is like, in my opinion, one of the closer industries to healthcare in terms of the complexity of it.
Um, but Barclay’s, uh, chief Marketing Officer, Lily Tovi, also oversees consumer experience. It’s in her title. She comes from MGM, she brings host. Hotel, hospitality, customer experience, very similar to what we’ve seen, you know, in some hires in healthcare. Um, but she did an interview and said a quote that sounds like you’re 15 years ago, quote Chris.
She said, CMO roles should be to help the entire organization become more customer centric. And she gave all kinds of tactics of how they’re thinking about that. You know, at Barclays. Not just with the website and the app, but [00:29:00] through the entire experience. And I love this one tactic she mentioned, which I think could be very easy, copy paste for healthcare.
And that is she’s brought the idea of call listening to board meetings. So in every board meeting, in every C-suite meeting, they listen to real customer calls and they use that as examples to say, how can we make this experience better? And I was like, that’s such a simple, obvious thing that A CMO could do if they are the voice of the customer.
[00:29:25] Chris: Yeah, and what that’s gonna uncover is sure, you’re gonna have issues with the people answering the call. You’re gonna have issues with wait time, you’re gonna have all that. But it’s also gonna uncover of the complaints we have is because delivery times are weeks and people just do not like that.
So now we’re in an operational situation, so even though we’re using the consumer experience. That consumer experience is a thousand percent affected by that delivery time. you can’t fix it by having, you know, more friendly operators or shorter wait times. [00:30:00] That’s not the problem. The problem is the experience is affected by the delivery of the product or service, which is the thousand percent healthcare, right? Um, and there’s a lot of discussions to be had about like, Hey, you’re not supposed to be Disney in a hospital, right? You’re not supposed to like. The doctor is the boss. I am fully believe the doctor’s, the boss. I’m not here to say like, doctor should kowtow to consumers. That’s not what we’re talking about. Um, they’re the experts. So we’re not, we’re not saying that, uh, it’s just you can’t stop short of the actual delivery of the thing. Um, that has to be integrated in everything you’re doing, which is why digital front door sounds hilarious. Um. Because you can have a beautiful front door and the inside can be a shit show. So what good does it do for people to walk through a beautiful front door and then walk into a chainsaw? So, there you go.
[00:30:54] Stephanie Wierwille: Oh man. Oh, ouch. Yeah. And I think the same is
[00:30:59] Chris: I’m [00:31:00] sorry.
[00:31:00] Stephanie Wierwille: we’ve got popsicles. We’ve got chainsaws. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the last e example I, to me, that I’ll share is, um, do you know, to that point around you can’t have a. Beautiful front door and a terrible inside of the home. Um, often marketers are responsible for things like Google my business reviews or location reviews, or, you know, ratings or, you know, testimonials or things of that nature.
And typically, if you’re doing your online. Listening and, um, online anthropology correctly, then you’re going to find mostly operational challenges shared on the Google My business reviews. Mostly people are talking about everything from the parking socks to I had a bad doctor experience and so on and so forth.
So marketing, I think it’s just, it’s um, you know, we can’t do our jobs if our jobs are to keep the ratings high, but then we can’t actually go sit down and fix the operational issues. It doesn’t make any sense.
[00:31:54] Chris: It’s crazy. We, every once in a while we come across a CMO that is being held accountable for, [00:32:00] uh, willingness to recommend. Right? Like the number one survey result in press gainer, otherwise, and I’m always like, need to get rid of that. That’s not like you could report on it. But there’s no way you should be held accountable for willingness to recommend, which is, which is a, the best indicator of somebody’s satisfaction with an experience according to research.
There’s books written on that, right? It’s why people focus on it. Um, it’s basically your, uh, what’s it called, Stephanie? Willingness to
[00:32:27] Stephanie Wierwille: NPS.
[00:32:29] Chris: Yes, your net patient, your net promoter score. Um, just in a way, a, a marketer should be accountable for that unless they’re put in position to be accountable for the whole experience like we’re talking about. How could you hold the messenger accountable for the message, um, you know, shooting the messenger and in this case with the CMO, uh, if they can’t fix those operational issues or the overall experience, or they’re not accountable for that. How in the world are you holding ’em accountable for net net promoter score? [00:33:00] So anyway, we could go on and on, but uh, we’re here to say like, people really push back on the idea that marketers can own it. And they’re all like, no, I get No, no, no, that’s too far. I’m like, it’s not too far, it’s not too
[00:33:11] Stephanie Wierwille: Now.
[00:33:11] Chris: in other industries, and it shouldn’t be too far here. Um, we have chief consumer officers. Uh, we’ve seen the rise of that over the last five to 10 years. I think that’s an example of where that is starting to take hold. So, um, it’s not impossible. They can’t do it alone. Nobody’s suggesting that. But please pick somebody that you can point to and say, how are we fixing this? It’s not just the front door. How are we fixing the whole house?
[00:33:36] Stephanie Wierwille: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. The chief, the rise of the Chief Consumer Officer, the rise of the Chief experience officer, the rise of. Of strategy and marketing being together. I think all of that is the move in the right direction and hopefully this time, this time maybe, maybe it’ll work this time 15 to 20 years later.
We’ll see.
[00:33:53] Chris: Not holding my breath.
[00:33:54] Stephanie Wierwille: Okay. Yeah, please don’t.
[00:33:56] Chris: Sorry. sorry. That’s a negative statement. I’m [00:34:00] completely optimistic that this generation of leaders can figure out how to do this right. And the healthcare experience is gonna be incredible. It’s gonna be incredible. So I
[00:34:09] Stephanie Wierwille: Let’s go.
[00:34:10] Chris: Yeah, let’s go.
[00:34:12] Stephanie Wierwille: Oh, okay. All right. Well, with that we will wrap. Um, uh, as, as always, we love to say, make sure you give us a review and rating. If you would like to follow up with us, if you have more questions, if you wanna yell at Chris for going so hard in the digital front door, feel free. Um, until next time, don’t be satisfied with the normal.
Don’t be satisfied with just marketing, but push into experience, push into, um, the, you know, owning the overarching consumer experience. And with that, we’ll talk to you next week.
