Serbian Journal of Management (Mar 2011)
MANAGING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS IN PRIVATE HEALTH CARE FACILITIES - A STUDY WITH REFERENCE TO GREATER NOIDA CITY OF UTTAR PRADESH
Abstract
Customer relationship management (CRM) which has overriding significance for any business isno less significant for hospital services. Hospitals are most important elements in any health caredelivery system. A hospital plays a major role in maintaining and restoring the health of the people.Care of the sick and injured, preventive health care, health research, and training of medical andparamedical staff are general broad functions of a hospital. It involves to the outpatient and inpatienthospital services and on many occasions emergency medical services. An important resource in ahospital is a human resource. This should be particularly emphasized. This should be particularlyemphasized in the content of a hospital since relationship of medical staff plays important role intreating patients - the hospital customers. In health care, CRM practices are essentially patient -focused strategies that involve effective management of hospital interface and interaction withpatients. Effective CRM practices in a hospital may mean providing services related information toa patient very quickly. Responding to the patent appointment and an admission requests promptly,dealing with patient queries and complaints expeditiously, exercising all kinds of flexibilities inserving patients to the patients. This research paper made an attempt to analyze the factorsinfluencing the customers to select the hospital and to suggest better ways and means to retain thecustomers. For the study, the researcher has collected data from 200 respondents of 10 privatehospitals located in Greater Noida city. For this purpose stratified random sampling method was usedto select the samples. The present study highlights the extent of utilization of the hospital services bythe selected sample respondents. It also shed light on the common problems faced by therespondents. The major features of the service sectors especially on hospital performance is projectedin order to utilize the services as per the expectation of the patients (customer).The collected data were analyzed through percentage, average, range, standard deviation and weighted average. Chi-square test was also employed to find the associationship of overallsatisfaction with different demographic variables. Likert’s scaling technique is used to identify thecustomer preference and satisfaction on hospital services. Henry Garrets ranking method is also usedto judge the ranking especially on the hospital services.
