Marketing service guarantees for health care

The author introduces the concept of service guarantees for application in health care and differentiates between explicit, implicit, and conditional vs. unconditional types of guarantees. An example of an unconditional guarantee of satisfaction is provided by the hospitality industry. Firms conveying an implicit guarantee are those with outstanding reputations for products such as luxury automobiles, or ultimate customer service, like Nordstrom. Federal Express and Domino's Pizza offer explicit guarantees of on-time delivery. Taking this concept into efforts to improve health care delivery involves a number of caveats. Customers invited to use exceptional service cards may use these to record either satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The cards need to provide enough specific information about issues so that "immediate action could be taken to improve processes." Front-line employees should be empowered to respond to complaints in a meaningful way to resolve the problem before the client leaves the premises.