Wheelchair Skills 101

OK, you just sold your favorite customer your favorite chair. It is the coolest thing on wheels. It is lightweight, narrow enough to get through doors, the seating and positioning are perfect, you even got the insurance company to fund it, and they have already paid. Your customer is happy. You are happy. Everything is perfect, right?

What if your customer doesn't know how to use the chair?

New wheelchair users face a large number of barriers with their new lifestyle. Your job is to help eliminate as many of those as possible. The first step is to provide the most appropriate mobility equipment. The second step is to educate them on how to use that equipment safely. Our industry does a good job at pointing out features and reminding people to use their safety (positioning) belt and anti-tippers. But who is in charge of teaching people how to pop a wheelie?

A charity in the UK recently sponsored a wheelchair users course to educate young wheelchair users on how to use their chairs. The course covered everything from balancing on the rear wheels, climbing and descending curbs, and even demonstrated going down and up stairs for the very brave.

Why should you hold your own wheelchair users course?

• This is information and skills that every new wheelchair user needs
• You want to be the company that everybody thinks of when they need wheelchair information
• Get more wheelchairs and wheelchair users in and around your store on a Saturday than you ever thought possible.

What do you need to get your event started?

• Find your experts.
  
• Invite PT's, OT's and others who work with out-patient wheelchair therapy
• Invite your local wheelchair sports team (basketball, rugby, curling, etc)
• Pick your date, about 3 months in advance (make sure you will have a reasonable chance at good weather, spring/summer)
• Invite your customers, and your competitors customers, and their friends and families
  
• Fliers in the store, website, newsletter, statement mailing
• Contact your local newspapers and TV stations
• Invite the reporters to attend and cover the event
• Make sure your course is laid out in stations so people can find the skills that are most interesting to them.
• Have lots of loaners and sample chairs on hand for people to borrow, check out, and buy.
  
• Be prepared to do it again!

Let us know if you have done something similar. If you decide to plan a course, let us know so we can promote your event on RehabHacker.com!

Thinking Outside The System

Last week I shared an experience in customer service that changed the playing field of my competitors. By changing the customers expectations, a new level of acceptable customer service had been set. There is a Doctor in the New York City area that is doing that with the entire health care system.

Jay Parkinson, MD takes house calls to a whole new level. Dr. Parkinson will visit with you and discuss your symptoms at your house, at work, or via email, video chat, or texting. He can be available to you 24 hrs a day for emergencies, and he even publishes his cell phone number on his website. Rather than wait weeks to get in to see a Dr. or spend hours in an ER, Dr. Parkinson promises to see you within the same or next day of your appointment request.

So how does a Dr. promise complete treatment if he has never seen you? While he discusses your symptoms with you during an online chat, he is also searching his network for a diagnostics center he can refer you to for testing. Need blood work? The good doctor will get you in and out of a lab quick and follow up with them until the results are in your hot little hands. Need to see an obscure specialist? Dr. Parkinson will get you in to the specialist that can see you the quickest and is closest to your home, or he will leverage his network to get you into the best specialist available.

Don't have insurance? Dr. Parkinson will work to save you money by ordering only tests that are necessary and even publishes his house call appointment pricing on his website.

This type of service will change the health care market. Suddenly, the patient and Doctor are back in control of personal health decisions. The Doctor is looking out for the best interest of the patient instead of the best interest of a top-heavy bureaucratic system. This type of service provides entrepreneurs with an MD a way to practice medicine as well as flex their muscles in the free market of ideas.

Medicare is changing the rules on the DME and rehab industry to the point that some companies just won't survive. Dr. Parkinson decided he didn't want to rely on the established system for his income. When you play outside the system, you can make your own rules. How much more can your business take from Medicare and survive? When are you going to change the rules your business works in?

Change The Rules and Change The Expectations

I made a delivery at a local rehab hospital today that taught me a pretty interesting lesson in customer service and what can happen when expectations are changed.

When I walked in to the hospital there were three delivery vans parked in front of the hospital. All three vans were from the same local provider. I suppose there could have been a good reason why the provider sent three different vehicles to one location, I don't know what the delivery technicians were doing inside the hospital. But I do know that the delivery vans were taking up almost all of the drop-off/pick-up space in front of the main entrance to the hospital.

When I made a simple rental wheelchair delivery to a client before discharge, I was able to meet the therapist and confirm that the equipment met the clients needs. I asked if the client could transfer into the chair so I could adjust the leg length. The therapist was surprised. She said that she was planning on making the adjustments when she got done with another patient. I got out my tools and proceeded to make the simple adjustment. When I got done getting paperwork signed and pictures taken, I asked if there was anything else needed. The therapist asked if she could have the walker that was to be delivered to the home so she could set the height and install the platform attachment. I brought the walker up from my van and proceeded to set the walker up exactly like the walker the client had been using in the hospital.

These are little things that I do and have done ever since I started working in this industry. The therapist said that the local provider, who had three vans parked in front of the hospital, would usually pile equipment in a corner of the PT gym, get signatures and walk away. I had given her the ability to focus more time and attention on doing what she does best, by doing what I do best.

By taking a few minutes to make some simple adjustments I created an impression as well as set a new precedent for service in that hospital. Each time a competitor falls below that new level, they will be compared to the service that my company provides.

Therapists had gotten used to dealing with one provider under a certain set of rules. Without knowing, I changed those rules and changed expectations for the future. What unwritten rules can you change to alter the status quo?

Who Do You Know?

Seth Godin is a New York Times Bestseller marketing guru. He works specifically within the computer tech industry, but many of his concepts are transferable to rehab as well. Here's one of his tid-bits that caught my attention recently:

One of the mantras of networking (and the many social networking sites that people are flocking to) is that it matters who you know. The goal of having a thousand or more friends online is that you're well known. Connected. A click away. I wonder if there's a more useful measure: who trusts you?

The very same is true in the rehab industry. Knowing all the Doctors, therapists, and referral sources and having them know you is very important. But of all the people you know in the industry, how many of them trust you? If a Doctor can not trust you to take over the care of a patient, you will not get that business. If a therapist can not trust you to assume the responsibility of providing the proper equipment, you will not get that business. If you can not guarantee to the discharge planner that you can get the right equipment to the right location at the right time, you will not get that business.

Remember, it's not necessarily who you know, it's also what they know about you. Are you known for having the best customer service or the best bagels?

Make a list of the top accounts you want more business from. What do they want to trust a provider to provide? How can you gain that trust and that business?

Use Case Studies to Market Yourself Like the Pro's

Permobil has a page of their website devoted to Success Stories. The latest case study is called Emily's Story.

The format of the stories is similar to how a rehab wheelchair evaluation and sale should be performed.

1. Learn about the person using the equipment.
2. Learn about the objectives and goals the person using the equipment has
3. Design a system of equipment that will meet the objectives
4. Pinpoint the actual equipment needed to do the job.

This structure also provides a good template to share your own success stories in your marketing efforts. The case studies are short and scannable but still tell the story very well. The short videos do a good job of illustrating the functionality and mobility the equipment system promotes for the user and I think the music is especially convincing.

Have you published your own success stories for marketing or authorization purposes? Did it work for you like it seems to be working for Permobil?