EP234: Customer Experience Drives Trust, and the Two Together Drive Outcomes, With Claire Sporton of Confirmit

Today I speak with Claire Sporton. Claire is SVP of customer experience innovation over at Confirmit. Since we did this interview, the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer came out. And it showed that trust in US hospitals has nose-dived 8 points. Pharma and biotech held steady since last year, or slight increases, but the bar is pretty low. Same with insurance.

In this conversation, Claire and I discuss why this matters—why it matters to hospitals, to Pharma, to insurance carriers, and anyone else who is desirous of customers who come in once … and then they also return. And how do you get customers to come back? It’s by having an amazing customer experience that meets customer expectations, exceeds customer expectations, and at the same time creates a measure of trust. And trust breeds loyal customers.

Here’s one maxim from Seth Godin that I particularly like. He said, “We all know someone who is transactional, and it makes us feel icky. What we strive for is to feel relational and to feel that we have a relationship with someone. We all know when we’re being manipulated.”

The point is this: If we don’t have trust, we won’t have the right relationships within the health care industry involved in getting the right outcomes for patients. Entities won’t be able to work together (for example, Pharma and health systems, or insurance carriers and health systems, or health systems and patients … or any combination of the aforementioned).

I saw a stat the other day that said if there’s an increase of customer retention of 5%, then business returns go up 25%. That wasn’t a health care reference, per se, so there was no contemplation of patient outcomes and how much they may improve as a result of trusted health care relationships and the interoperability that results from them and care coordination … all of the above.

I think even at the transactional level there’s room for improvement. And I see this as an opportunity to differentiate. “Who will be the next—or the—JetBlue of the health care industry?” is my question. JetBlue did very well in relation to its competitors in the airline industry, and they did so by creating amazing customer experiences, which trust was derived from.

For more information on the customer experience and the trust fronts, the following Relentless Health Value episodes might be of interest: INBW23, EP228, EP232, EP148, and EP188. 

Claire Sporton is senior vice president of customer experience (CX) innovation at Confirmit. Claire has a passion for building truly customer-centric cultures that inspire change and deliver measurable business improvement. In her role, she focuses on driving forward the discipline of CX management and ensuring that Confirmit provides the technology and expertise that organizations need to empower and inspire everyone across the organization to do the right thing. Claire was a winner of the 2018 CX Impact Award, a prestigious award issued on CX Day by the Customer Experience Professionals Association.

With a background in psychology and systemic management, Claire has over 20 years’ experience as a consultant and CX practitioner, leading companies to empower everyone to be accountable for improvement, motivate individuals to work differently, and predict and monitor real business impact.