Use of Patients Testimonial to Promote Clinical Care Services

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The effort to educate the patients or promote any service by the doctor is inherently ineffective, as the doctor has an underlying business interest behind it. Majority of the target audience does not know about the health conditions and their treatment. Plus they need to trust messenger before they believe the message.

Use of patients testimonials to promote medical services is an effective technique. The question is, how to do it?

The Patient’s testimonial

The video shows a short 1.02 minutes interview of a squint patient who has received squint treatment at an eye hospital. The lady interviewing the patients asked simple questions about his identity, his medical condition, the procedure, and his comments on the treatment received.  The interview was casually taken with a mobile phone, unrehearsed. The patient seems to be comfortable in speaking whatever he felt appropriate at that moment. At least he was not reading a pre-written script.

The concept of patient’s testimonials for promotion

It is an effective method of promotion as the target population can relate to the patient in the video. It accurately conveys the message that the squint is a treatable condition by surgery. It is able to send the news that the promoter of the service is the perfect choice for squint treatment. Everyone would be willing to accept it as the patient has already had the procedure at that facility before he is recommending it.

“You trust the message when you trust the messenger.”

So the trust seems to be the main factor for the effectiveness of this promotion.

Few tips to help you do it better.

# 1 Unscripted video

People are smart; they can find out a fake one easily. So keep the video unscripted. Do not try to train a patient, to speak what you want. In the video below, you can easily make out that the mother and the child are having an enjoyable experience. They can convey it effectively without speaking a word.

Scripted interview

A patient given a pre-written script to promote your facility and services does more damage than good. If the viewers can smell the conflict of interest in what the messenger, is saying. Obviously, they are not going to trust the message.

In this video, the patient was just asked, why he visited a particular hospital. The patient elaborated far more technical details than what is expected from an ordinary patient.

Question asked from the patient should be framed in a way that helps the patient, define why exactly he/ she opted for the services that he/she did. The viewer is concerned with the pain point of the patient. Clearly define the pain points.

2# Clearly define the pain points

Help the patient articulate the pain point accurately and describe why precisely the patient opted for it. You can do that by framing the question correctly.

Ask questions which encourages the patient to define the exact pain point fro which he/she sought.

The incorrect question is …

What problem or medical condition do you have?

This is up to the patient to decide what exactly he/she wants to say.

 The correct question is …

” Why exactly did you opted for this service? “

This will help the patient articulate why he/she had that service.

Do not over do it

Trying to create, pain points when none exist is often difficult even with the help of trained actors. It does not work that.

3# Show the benefit.

If you are buying a knife, the only thing you would see is whether it can cut or not. The testimonial should clearly define the excellent outcome at the end. If the user can not see the excellent result, testimonial fails to do its job. See the video till the end to see what a good outcome looks.

4# Focus on the audio quality.

In a testimonial, its good to have good visuals, but it is an absolute must to have decent quality audio. Unintelligible voice, bad audio recording, and background noise are the biggest turn-offs.