Is Your Business Ready for the Business?

Part Two of a Three Part Series

In our last post (Listening Is the New Strategy), we explored how hospitals can transform consumer listening into detailed roadmaps for improving patient access. Listening—talking with and seeking to understand the truth at ground level—helps marketers understand the experiences, language, and important intricacies that define how consumers experience your system. Listening not only will illuminate the positive aspects of consumer understanding that strengthen your marketing strategies—listening also will reveal the friction that quietly keeps new patients from entering your doors.

So, once you begin to listen, the next logical question becomes: is your business actually ready for the business?

Where Growth Breaks Down

Hospitals spend millions on digital ads, campaigns, outreach, and reputation management. Yet, once patients are ready to reach out, many are lost right at the first step.

A bad phone call, confusing scheduling, or contradictory communication can cause frustration. These experiences can cost you conversions and weaken trust. 

So, how do you know if your system is ready? Does your access experience match up with your advertising?

Here’s a 7-question quiz to find out.

7-Question Readiness Quiz: Is Your Business Ready for the Business?

1. Is scheduling with your competitors easier than with you?

In markets where patients see little difference in clinical care, convenience becomes the differentiator. If patients can get an appointment faster or easier elsewhere, they often will. Access equals advantage.

2. Are your patient-facing staff friendly, knowledgeable, and confident?

Tone, clarity, and empathy in the first 30 seconds influence the caller’s brand perception. Every word, pause, and inflection makes a difference.

3. Are patients connected to the right person on their first call?

One in three calls are lost due to routing friction. If patients can’t easily navigate your phone tree, they hang up. Every missed call is a missed opportunity.

4. Can patients easily see availability?

The way staff communicate availability in response to a simple question defines trust. Patients want to know when they can be seen.  Confusing or vague answers are often the difference between a scheduled appointment and a missed opportunity.

5. Would your staff be a patient  at your clinic?

If your own employees mystery-shopped your access process, would they be impressed—or frustrated? Internal team members often see where the gaps are before patients ever complain.

6. Is the information given during calls accurate and consistent?

Are patients told the same thing across locations? Inconsistency leads to confusion and weakens brand confidence, diminishing  reliability.

7. Is your phone tree effective? Does it create obstacles?

The number one reason for patients abandoning calls is poor phone navigation. An experience that should feel seamless becomes confusing with every extra step, unclear prompt, or transfer.

Learning from Your Answers

If any of these challenges felt familiar, it’s worth taking a closer look.

Hospitals that succeed at patient access do so by building strong experiences through intentional listening, consistent evaluation, and making strategic changes that create improvements.

At LIFT Healthcare, we help hospitals assess these areas of focus through Consumer Experience Research. Our qualitative approach listens at the point of entry, assesses tone, accuracy, and empathy, and delivers insights that directly improve access and growth.

Because when patients call, they aren’t just asking for an appointment. They’re asking for trust.

Ready to Know the Truth?

We’re offering a complimentary Consumer Experience Micro Study to the first 35 hospitals ready to find out how their system performs in real-time.

You’ll receive a short, structured report that includes:

• Three to five real-world call evaluations

• Comparative insights from your competitors

• Actionable recommendations to improve tone, access, and trust

Discover whether your business is ready for the business.

David McDonald, Co-founder & CEO

As CEO of LIFT and a trained anthropologist, David brings a deep passion for human understanding to every facet of leadership. Blending empathy with innovation and data, he drives empathic, people-centered solutions that elevate the healthcare marketing profession and successful client outcomes.