The Mayo Clinic, lululemon, Peloton And Google: Retail Needs To Study Healthcare’s Transformation Playbook

Retail and healthcare, two very different industries, right? Wrong. Believe it or not, consumer expectations from both categories are not that far apart. 

Prior to the Coronavirus, both industries had unlimited technology innovations at their fingertips. There were endless platforms and tools that would bring them closer to their consumers. Yet both showed little momentum toward innovation as consumer expectation for digital innovation was still marginal. 

Fast-forward one pandemic and six months later, and you see stark differences between the two industries. I’ve previously written about the retail and healthcare industries’ convergence; let’s take a look at how healthcare moved forward at a much faster rate of innovation. Instead of holding firm to in-person brick and mortar models that would likely have bankrupted the industry, healthcare at long last embraced a new digital and virtual model, building stronger relationships with patients through a virtual, data-centric approach.

Retail, by comparison, has been groping about in the dark for literally months, looking to others for leadership rather than taking the reins and building the next era in retail. It’s disappointing. Digital retail in particular looks almost exactly the same as it did pre-COVID. Caught flat-footed, retailers and brands are continuing to react rather than plan ahead and innovate. Online websites like Amazon
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and Walmart
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, which saw enormous surges during the pandemic based on sheer consumer necessity, have done little if anything to engage and keep those new customers. Stores similarly look and feel the same, albeit with fewer people inside and possibly more touch-free options.

This article is the first in a series that will look at COVID-powered innovations across industries and markets in a quest to shed some light on what retail must do better. Industries like healthcare, automotive and hospitality are driving shifts in behavior and expectations by consumers for what can and should be possible in this new world.

In this first piece, I will focus on the healthcare industry and its transformation from a long-standing brick and mortar model to one with a large dependence on virtual care, deepening focus on patient-centricity and engagement.

President and CEO of the Mayo Clinic, Gianrico Farrugia, was recently quoted in Fortune, and his observation really captures the struggle for leaders of most traditional organizations right now:

 “Most organizations are like stretched rubber bands, snapping back immediately back to normal once the tension is gone. It’s a leader’s job to stop that from happening—to reinforce the new state and purposely make it harder to go back.”

One thing is for certain:  if retail can’t take this on, we will continue watching the endless parade of retailers and brands marching into the fog and off of a cliff into bankruptcy.

 Virtual Engagement Became Customer-Centric

The most obvious way COVID has changed healthcare is by embracing telehealth technology. Like many technology innovations, telehealth has been around for a while but only saw increased usage because of physical distancing requirements during the pandemic. But it’s clear that consumers in many ways prefer it and expect to continue using it well after the pandemic is over. A recent McKinsey report cites that 76 percent of consumers are now interested in using telehealth going forward, as compared to the use of telehealth in 2019, which was at 11 percent.

According to a recent story I came across discussing digital transformation in healthcare, since using telehealth technology more frequently and depending on it for appointments during the pandemic, each patient has developed a willingness and interest to use telehealth. In this case it brought convenience, efficiency and relationship building by enabling a more personal touch in traditionally professional interactions.

Retailers should be looking for new, personalized ways to engage with customers, whether it be through 1:1 appointments similar to what Best Buy
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and other retailers are doing to take products directly to shoppers, or through virtual conversation. Understanding a customer’s perspective in a personalized way is critical. Smart video platforms already exist that enable hosts to screen share and observe customers as they go through the purchasing journey on a website. According to this article, “a structured conversation enables the host to ask why a customer did or didn’t click in a particular place, and determine what barriers exist that prevent customers from completing tasks.” Further, real-world insights gleaned from conversations with customers allows retailers and brands to tailor the shopping experience to meet the needs of how customers actually shop. Customer feedback can drive personalization and can be adapted to each customer’s preferences including the design of assortments and new product offerings.

Non-Traditional Collaboration and Partnerships

At the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Farrugia described a key approach to COVID:  to be reliant on collaboration and partnership with innovators, “doubling down” on investment in R&D and empowering leaders to innovate through nontraditional collaboration with tech partners who have a complementary skill set. 

COVID gave Mayo Clinic the opportunity to test the model in an urgent setting, according to Mayo Clinic Chief Information Officer Cris Ross. The same piece noted that the pandemic “has been a catalyst for removing barriers and encouraging collaboration – even among competitors,” and states that a number of software giants have been driven to work together for the benefit of society.

Mayo Clinic is also collaborating with nference, an augmented intelligence company, and pioneer of the patient-centric, virtual hospital model, Medically Home, to power an advanced home care model which launched 14 months earlier than planned and allows some patients to receive hospital-level care at home in the middle of a pandemic.

Retailers should similarly be investing in R&D and looking to forge new relationships that will push innovation through non-traditional partnerships outside the retail industry to further evolve.

Wearables Extend Engagement into Everyday Life

Extending care into everyday life is also an innovation being embraced because of COVID. To this end, wearables are becoming more prevalent as a means to monitor patients in real-time, and even detect early signs of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. According to a piece in Medcitynews.com, this technology is growing in popularity among healthcare organizations and consumers, and will be for the foreseeable future, particularly if society continues to fight against COVID transmission or even new pandemics. Lifeband is one example of a wearable device that reduces the risk of hospital patients transferring the COVID-19 virus to medical staff. The device constantly monitors patients’ oxygen levels and pulse rates and alerts medical staff when they need to intervene. Lifeband enables doctors to oversee the health of their patients without needing to come into close physical contact with them.

lululemon is an early innovator on this strategy, as they extend their brand into their consumers’ homes. Recently the company announced the purchase of at-home workout startup Mirror. Barron’s reported that analysts have already praised the acquisition, with Needham’s Rick Patel noting, “While Mirror is relatively small today, it should increase Lululemon’s mind share while also being incremental to Lululemon’s long-term growth targets…Lululemon is thinking outside the box and moving to where the puck is going.” Along these lines, take a look at what Peloton is doing as it relates to consumers and expanding its ecosystem.

Just like in healthcare, retailers and brands need to look for opportunities to extend into everyday life in ways that engage in real-time and lead consumers rather than always playing catch up. 

The U.S. National Library of Medicine and National Institute of Health posted these suggestions on finding ways to innovate through technology, which are highly relevant to retail:

●     Define problems thoroughly; when possible, gather information from frontline healthcare workers and patients

●     Be open to all new ideas, especially the simple and inexpensive ones; keep it simple

●     Collaborate with others from a wide range of disciplines; cooperation is paramount for public health promotion

●     Acknowledge failure as success, not defeat; innovation involves testing and learning

To solve for the lack of innovation, retailers and brands need to look at the problems and challenges people are facing, understand unique experiences, and determine the tools necessary to understand what the customer experience should look like. Then, create a point of view, and plan for the future.

This means developing a mechanism around customer experience and engagement and a means to have an ongoing dialogue with customers to understand how they are responding to the environment so they can develop a plan to navigate and figure out what to do next. 

A disconnected customer is a lost customer!