Marketing Laboratory Services
Lab-Customer Relationships
- All labs are competing for the same market
- “Customer”, “client”, and “market share”
describe users of lab services – that is, patients,
physicians, nurses and third-party payers such
as insurance companies and gov.t agencies
o PhilHealth
- Hospital is released to explore selective pricing
and develop multitiered charges for different
categories of customer or service, including
discounts for payment in cash, price breaks on
courier and price menus based on diff.
categories of patients
- Before: lab managers were concerned
primarily with operations
- Today: need to generate business in addition
to maintaining the current clientele
The Marketing Philosophy
- Why an organization exists, its plan for the
future and how it attracts and service its users
are all part of the marketing philosophy of every
organization
- Like all businesses, lab must also change how
it views, attracts and deals with its customers
- Must be one of exploration, openness, risk
taking-of being able to identify and pursue
market opportunities
Marketing
- A specific function of management may be
defined as the strategic process of attracting
and maintaining a customer base
- Without success in this area, survival of org
may be placed in jeopardy
Public relations
- a communications tool, designed to influence
public attitude toward the organization
- Has to do with the organization’s public image
The Market Environment for Medical Laboratory
Services
- Vibrant, interactive ecosystem; conditions are
constantly changing
- Manager must be alert to its evolving character
and develop strategies that turn these events to
the laboratory’s advantage
Macrofactors (events outside the organization)
- Total patient population, purchasing habits, and
competition determine opportunities and
limitations of the potential customer base
- Market environment is beyond control of either
manager or organization. However, these
macrofactors set the possibilities and limitations
common to all providers of laboratory services
The Laboratory Customer
- Who the customer is and what customer wants
is crucial aspect of any market plan
- Marketing target: The Customer
o There is no question that the person
towards whom the lab directs its
professional concerns is the patient
o However, lab must also identify
customer – the entity (patient,
physician, patient’s relatives, employer,
insurance company, gov.t agency) that
sends the patients to the lab
o For marketing purposes, the
purchasing decision makers can be
divided into 2 groups:
(1) Captive users – committed to a
specific laboratory
(2) Discretionary buyers – those who can
choose among several laboratories
Captive Market
- Distinct advantage of hospital-based
laboratories in the past
- Today, it is rapidly changing as more patients
receive their care at outpatient surgery centres
and walk-in medical clinics and even show up
at hospital with their own laboratory results
Discretionary Buyers
- Entity that decides where a service is
performed
- Maybe a large managed-care alliance capable
of delivering a captive base of thousands of
patients or an individual walk-in self-pay
patient
- May be a patient, physician, a third-party payer
or even another institution
Customer Expectations
- Customers to target are determined to a large
extent by the laboratory’s ability to satisfy
certain customer expectations
- According to Treacy and Wiersama (1995)
3 Marketing Segments:
(1) Best total product – sophisticated and
specializes laboratory procedures or highly
attentive service (e.g., elaborate personal
attention and facilities)
a. St. Luke’s, Makati Medical
Centre
(2) Best total solution – providing a complete
package (test menu, phlebotomy,
turnaround time) of services designed for a
specific type of customer (single or group
practice)
a. High-Precision Diagnostics,
New World Diagnostics
(3) Best total costs – may involve
concentrating on volume and price
 4 Rules that govern and describe market laboratory portion of managed care and prepaid
leader’s actions and market strategies: capitative program
(1) Provide the best offering in the marketplace by Place
excelling in a specific dimension of value
- Affects service distribution and entails three
(2) Maintain threshold standards on other
decisions:
dimension values o Physical access which covers channels
(3) Dominate your market by improving value of care (physician’s office, emergency
year after year room, clinic, etc.), location and facilities
(4) Build a well-tuned operating model dedicated to design
delivering unmatched value o Time access including travel and
waiting time
The 4 P’s of Marketing o Information and promotional access,
involving obtaining referrals and getting
- According to Kotler and Clarke (1987)
the consumer to the provider
o Product Promotion
o Price
o Place - Large commercial laboratories have always
o Promotion had to use all these techniques to reach their
- Constitute the organization’s strategic and hospital and physician market
tactical means of retaining customers - Other laboratories must follow this model in
developing promotional strategies for their
Product marketing plan
- Advertising: any type of non-personal
- What is the laboratory’s product? presentations such as displays and ads in
- The answer: “performing tests and giving newspapers and journals as well as brochures
results” and flyers
- A better answer for this question might be - Sales promotions: short-term discounts,
“the sophistication, expertise and product incentive and so on
- Personal selling: selling through personal
technological ability to perform a large service representatives
number of tests or carry our complex - Publicity: non-commercial informational
procedures” presentations issued through news media and
- Only a definition of product that allows the other public forums such as social clubs and
laboratory to see its market potential from educational institutions (print, radio and TV
news releases, public information sessions)
a broad service perspective gives it
capability of responding to a new
competitive market characterized by
managed care and other health care
alliances
- If the product of the clinical laboratory is
providing support and information to the
medical community through analytic
resources and talents, the laboratory is
able to research, identify and respond to a
dimension of value demanded by this
changing market environment
- This what distinguishes one form another.
In marker it is called product
differentiation.
- Differentiation comes from service-related
items such as turnaround time, price,
convenience, test mix, payment options and
reputations of quality
Price

- Become a major competitive factor and those

laboratories that have been able to control
expenses and offer attractive process to
discretionary buyers now enjoy a distinct
advantage in this crucial service component
- The ability to compete based on price is
especially important in bidding for the