October 23, 2018

Listen & Learn: A Marketer’s Point of View

The day prior to MEDITECH’s Physician & CIO Forum was a good day. In Marketing, most of my time is spent behind the scenes, laying the groundwork and creating the tools needed to promote our capabilities to customers. On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of spending the day with our Cloud Customer Council, a select group of CIOs who agreed to share their knowledge and experiences with CloudWave. This was my chance to listen firsthand to their IT challenges and gather direct feedback on our services.

There is a tremendous amount of information published about trends in Health IT. Keeping up with the articles, analyst opinions, survey results, and what our competitors are doing is part of my job. But assimilating all of that information and turning it into meaningful messaging that resonates with the people actually responsible for making technology choices can be challenging. And, in many cases, it can be impossible – unless you stop and listen to what your customers have to say.

So, what did I hear? Hospital IT departments are needing to do more with less. Budgets are tight, but demands are increasing. Mobility, security, access, compliance, availability, flexibility to scale, cost-efficiency – these are not buzzwords; these are concerns that our customers actually have to address on a practical basis. Solutions to satisfy these needs, simplify daily operations, and contain costs are what customers are seeking. Although we’re hearing positive feedback on what we deliver today, we can always be better. The opportunity to implement improvements and create services to close gaps based on customer input is invaluable.

And here’s what I learned: It’s about much more than the message. You can’t just “talk the talk”. It’s about delivering what our customers need when they need it, and in a way that works for them.

I got to see how we’re achieving that Tuesday evening. Several of our customers had asked if some of their “favorite” CloudWave people – engineers and project managers – could join us for dinner. I witnessed how a commitment to delivering great service can develop into a personal relationship. The lines can blend so our customers feel like CloudWave’s staff is an extension of their staff. As systems get increasingly complex, staffing with the right skill sets can be more difficult. Putting the right resources where they are needed, and delivering quality across all areas: people, process, and technology appears to be the recipe for success.

I’m proud to say that I work for a company that strives to do this. As we carry out our mission to serve community hospitals, we’ll continue to listen to what our customers have to say, rather than what the industry is saying. By responding to our customers and delivering solutions to tackle the IT problems they face on a daily basis, we become more than just a provider of services. We become a partner and an integral part of their team. And that’s our ultimate goal.

Christine Mellyn

Director of Marketing