BUSI 428 Week 6 Case Study 5 Example

Loyalty Is Earned at the Bedside: A Relationship Marketing Response for a Hospital Losing Return Patients

The Case

Last year our community hospital launched its largest advertising campaign in a decade, and new patient visits to its clinics rose 12%. Yet the share of patients who returned within a year for another service fell, and the "would recommend" score on our patient survey dropped several points. Leaders want to know why the campaign did not produce lasting growth and what to do next. Some board members favor an even larger campaign next year, while the chief nursing officer argues that the problem lies inside the building.

Relationship Marketing

Cellucci et al. (2014) distinguish between marketing that attracts a patient once and marketing that builds a lasting relationship, and they note that each patient's experience becomes a message to family and neighbors. Advertising can bring someone through the door, but the visit itself decides whether that person returns or recommends us. Keeping an existing patient also tends to cost far less than winning a new one, which makes retention a financial question as much as a service question.

Research identifies what drives that decision. Hoseinabadi et al. (2026) surveyed 508 hospitalized patients at five hospitals and found that the compassion patients perceived in their nursing care was strongly associated with satisfaction, and that satisfaction in turn was associated with loyalty, along with a direct link between compassion and loyalty. Chen et al. (2026), studying emergency patients, found that service quality drove loyalty but that first-time and returning patients expressed it differently, with first-time patients more likely to spread positive word of mouth and returning patients more likely to come back themselves.

What Went Wrong

Our campaign brought many first-time patients, and our surveys suggest that their experience did not match the promise of the ads. Comments mentioned long waits, confusing billing and staff who seemed rushed. In marketing terms, we spent heavily to attract patients and then gave many of them a reason to tell others to go elsewhere. An advertisement promises an experience; only the care team can deliver it.

Recommendation

I recommend moving a fifth of next year's advertising budget into three retention efforts: service recovery training so that front-line staff can resolve complaints on the spot, a follow-up call within two days of every clinic visit and discharge and a recognition program that thanks staff named in patient compliments. Paul urged believers to love one another and to outdo one another in showing honor (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Romans 12:10). Patients who feel honored become the hospital's most credible advocates.

Measures

The hospital should track the share of patients returning within a year, the "would recommend" score and the number of complaints resolved at first contact. Comparing those measures for patients who came through the campaign with those who did not would show whether the new experience is keeping its promise.

References

Cellucci, L. W., Wiggins, C., & Farnsworth, T. J. (2014). Healthcare marketing: A case study approach. Health Administration Press.

Chen, C., Tsai, Y., & Chen, W. (2026). Patient loyalty in the emergency department: An extended SERVPERF approach comparing first-visit and return patients. International Emergency Nursing, 86, 101832. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ienj.2026.101832

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Hoseinabadi, Z., Sadeghi, A., Tapak, L., & Purfarzad, Z. (2026). The mediating role of patient satisfaction with nursing care quality in the association between provision of compassionate care and patient loyalty: A cross-sectional study. Nursing Open, 13(7), e70709. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.70709