Home Article The referral source spoke. Did you listen?

The referral source spoke. Did you listen?

By Mike Moran

Updated Wed September 23, 2009

HME News and Emerge Sales completed a Webinar this morning—"The Referral Source Speaks"— for 76 HME companies. Another 60 or so companies have registered to attend the same Webinar this Friday. If one or more of your competitors registered for this sold-out Webinar (we're planning more dates) , and you did not, that's not good.

Here's why.

For this Webinar, providers told us they wanted more insight into the minds of key referral sources (hospital discharge planners, sleep lab directors and pulmonologists); they gave us questions to ask the referral sources; and then we went to work. Using a quality team of market researchers (this could be a first for the HME industry), Emerge called 1,000 referrals sources and spoke directly to 150; 107 provided information that we could use. This is information from the source, not a third party consultant.

Here are some of the questions we asked:

- What are the three most important criteria you evaluate to select an HME provider?

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- How often do you like to meet with an HME sales rep?

- What would motivate you to switch to a different provider?

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Coonskin film Providers who attended this Webinar know the answers to these questions and 15 others just as revealing. If you did not attend, you, most likely, don't.

I'm not trying to rub it in, or to be self serving, but like I said, that is not good. You don't want to make business decisions based on gut feelings, anecdotal information or third-party opinions. You need facts and real market intelligence, which is what this Webinar provides.

Those that attended the Webinar, can now begin to tweak their sales and marketing plans (or create new ones) and address directly issues referral sources consider important. These providers now have a leg up on providers who don't know the answers. This is important because I think we can confidently say that referral sources will favor HME providers who understand their expectations for patient care and service.

We're planning to run this Webinar again next month. It costs $99 per company/branch to attend. The Webinar's first run sold out. So plenty of providers believe this is critical information. That's proof enough for me that this is information you don't want to be without, especially if your competition has it.

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