Course: Customer Relationship Management

Project Title:
CRM Design and Implementation at
Apollo Hospitals

Submitted to:
Dr. Ateeque Shaikh & Dr. Kulwinder Kaur
Assistant Professors
IIM Jammu

Submitted by-
Group 7, Section A
Adwitiy Shukla MBA20062
Ashish Sawant MBA20047
Kritika Tyagi MBA20081
Mahesh Jampala MBA20017
Neha Roy MBA20032
Sakshi Verma MBA20101
Zulfaquar A. Haider MBA20117

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 Acknowledgment
We feel obliged to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude to Dr.
Ateeque Shaikh and Dr. Kulwinder Kaur, who helped us in understanding the concepts in
Customer Relationship Management, which helped us in this project. We also extend our
sincere gratitude to Indian Institute of Management Jammu for giving us this opportunity to
aid our learning process. This is a heartfelt expression of indebtedness and gratitude to all
who helped us in completing this project.

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 Abstract
This project revolves around understanding the CRM Program in the healthcare
sector. For this purpose, we have selected Apollo Hospital to understand its existing CRM
strategy, design elements, and implementation through extensive secondary research.
Through this project, we tried to understand their business models, consumer journeys, and
touchpoints for the customers and make necessary suggestions and recommendations
wherever we identified the scope of improvement.

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Table of Contents
1. Healthcare Industry........................................................................................................................5
2. Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd.....................................................................................................5
3. Need for CRM in Apollo Hospitals.................................................................................................6
4. Apollo's CRM Strategy...................................................................................................................7
5. Data Digitization at Apollo..............................................................................................................7
6. Consumer Journey..........................................................................................................................8
7. Customer Touch Points and Contact Centre.................................................................................9
7.1. Pre-Sales CRM Activities.........................................................................................................9
7.2. Sales-Related CRM Activities................................................................................................10
7.3. Post-Sales CRM Activities......................................................................................................10
8. Loyalty & Referral Programs at Apollo......................................................................................11
8.1 Loyalty Program......................................................................................................................11
8.2. Referral Programs..................................................................................................................12
9. Analytics for CRM.........................................................................................................................13
10. Performance Metrics...................................................................................................................16
11. Technology and Organizational Challenges for Implementation of CRM..............................17

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1. Healthcare Industry
Indian Healthcare industry is on the path of 39% CAGR (Compound Average Growth
Rate) as the market size is set to grow from US $ 193.83 Billion in FY 2020 to US $ 372
Billion in FY 2022. This growth is supported by infrastructure enhancement as well as a few
government initiatives for the sector.  

 
 
The growth pillars for the sector are –  
1. String Demand 
2. Attractive Opportunities 
3. Rising Manpower 
4. Policy and Government Support 

2. Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd.

Apollo Hospitals is headquartered in Chennai, India, and hence is an Indian
Multinational Hospital chain. It was founded in 1983 by Pratap C. Reddy and was the first
corporate healthcare provider in India. The hospital chain has been honored via the trust of
more than 150 million individuals who hailed from 140 countries. At the heart of Apollo's
patient-centric culture lies the notion of Tender Loving Care (TLS), which is often described
as the magic that inspires hope among the patients.  
Apollo Group of hospitals provide the following services –  
1. Telemedicine facilities among countries  
2. Health Insurance Services 
3. Global Projects Consultancy 
4. Medical Colleges 

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5. Medvarsity for E-Learning, Colleges of Nursing and Hospital Management 
6. Research Foundation 
7. ASK Apollo – online consultation portal and  
8. Apollo Home Health – to provide the care continuum 

The size of operations at Apollo can be adjudged by the at a glance value in the

proceeding table –  

Table 1. Details of Apollo Hospitals at a Glance

3. Need for CRM in Apollo Hospitals

The benefits that Apollo Hospitals can derive by the implementation of CRM are as
follows –  
1. Help in learning more about patient behavioral patterns, needs, and demands to maintain
better relationships.
2. Permits immediate evaluation of the health of each customer relationship, therefore,
enabling the identification of the origin of frequent problems related to customers and their
experience with the hospital's facilities and enables the offering of a quicker solution to them
based on their priority.
3. Facilitates the regulation of administrative tasks to focus on the needs of the patients.
4. Expediates the improvement in patient satisfaction index and provides them with proactive
management in their health-related issues.
5. Orchestrates care with improved efficiency by allowing all stakeholders to access patient
information whenever in need.
6. Reduces the time that hospital staff would spend assisting the patients, thereby improving
the efficiency of operations.

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 7. Warrants quicker and extra effective response to patient requests.
8. Allows for easy monitoring of the hospital's outreach pipeline to complete new agreements
quicker since it has a better picture of the development of each transaction in the pipeline.
9. Furthermore, it enables remote monitoring of the dangers of potential outreach accounts
and reduces manual work, which generally leads to duplication and delayed access to
information. 

4. Apollo's CRM Strategy

Apollo hospitals follow an Offensive CRM Strategy where they focus on Increased

Market Share and an enlarged market.  
 

Figure 1. CRM Strategy of Apollo

5. Data Digitization at Apollo 

The pillars of digital transformation at Apollo started with its three 'Bs' concept, which is –  
 Biology – relates to knowing the human genome and the development and spread of diseases 
 Bytes – relates to the massive data amounts that need to be stored and analyzed on the cloud 
 Bandwidth – relates to the growth in global connectivity patterns that
facilitates the extension of the healthcare services to even the remote areas  

Therefore, on similar lines, the Data Integration techniques/technologies used by Apollo

are Cloud, Big Data Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence. Apollo uses the Azure cloud-based
Prism system and its customer relationship management system, Ask Apollo, which allows
users to schedule appointments and have online consultations with doctors. 

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 The various Sources of Data from which Apollo gets its data are –  
 Source of Appointment-
-Website 
-Calls 
-Application 
-Partner Sites 
 Healthcare Centre/ hospital wise data 
 Patient History Data from cloud 
 Complaint and Feedback System 

6. Consumer Journey
 

Figure 2. Consumer Journey Map

The consumer journey at Apollo that is pivotal for the better understanding and
implementation of CRM have been mapped through this consumer journey map, which has
been segregated into various stages-
 Awareness: This stage involves creating awareness about the services offered by Apollo
through an effective public relations strategy revolving around word-of-mouth activities,
online ads, email marketing, social media content, etc. This stage is crucial to introduce the
offerings of Apollo to prospective customers.
 Consideration: Once the awareness is created, the prospective customers then move to the
next level of consideration, where they try to explore more about the service and offerings

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 that they have been introduced to before they make purchase decisions. This involves
evaluating online reviews, reading related blogs and articles, browsing through the website
and application to check out the offerings, etc.
 Acquisition: The consideration stage is followed by the acquisition stage, where the
prospective leads convert into customers after making a positive purchase decision and opt
for the services of Apollo. This involves recording the customers' transaction details and
maintaining the same in the Patient Management System and Hospital Information System.
 Service: The service stage involves an efficient Medical Billing System and Complaint &
Feedback System, enabling customers to post their queries and resolve them.
 Loyalty: The last stage revolves around generating loyalty among the customers, which will
help bring back the customers repeatedly. This enables Apollo to foster better patient
relationships. This is done through promotions, reviews, and word-of-mouth activities by
current customers, which will further create awareness among new potential customers, thus
feeding them into the consumer journey map.

7. Customer Touch Points and Contact Centre

 Phone: This allows customers to place their appointment requests to Apollo through
phone calls, which are tracked by the CRM and accumulate every detail into a single
platform.
 Emails: This involves integrating emails from individual centres, followed by tracking
the number of incoming requests daily.
 Website: With the help of easy website integrations, Apollo creates a collaborated
window of all the incoming requests from multiple channels and tabs on the website.
 Partner Sites: The partner sites involve sites like Practo, JustDial, etc. from where the
healthcare leads and seamlessly integrated, thus reducing the chances of missing out on
any lead that was not directly coming within the radar of Apollo, thus pulling all the
necessary information about the leads at one place.
 Mobile App: This contact center enables easy navigation to pull all the requests placed
through the mobile application in the CRM system.

7.1. Pre-Sales CRM Activities

 Automate and Segment Patients : This involves the automatic distribution of all
incoming appointments and segments them into categories based on the specialty of the

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 doctor, location of clinics, and other patient preferences and requirements. With the help
of the information generated through these activities, the communications with the
patients are designed through email marketing, phone calls, and more.
 Automated Appointment Booking: This involves activities that automate appointment
booking and easy scheduling. Then they are synced with that of the doctors, thus enabling
easy scheduling and timely management of cancellations.
 Automated Patient-Doctor Mapping: This automatically maps the patients with the
doctors based on the requested specialty, location, medical history, etc. As the patient
posts his inquiry, the same gets mapped to the best-suited doctor, thus decreasing the time
consumed to assign the doctor and ensuring faster response to the patient.

7.2. Sales-Related CRM Activities

 Building a 360 Customer Profile : These activities include all the information of the
patients pulled from different channels, like behavioral data (involving conversation
tracker, activity tracker, etc.), medical history, and appointment history, thus giving a
360-degree view to the customer profile.
 Integrated CRM with all the caregiving tools of Apollo : With the help of the
integration of information through CRM, Apollo can get a single view of all the data
pertaining to the patients and enable bidirectional details from one system to another.

7.3. Post-Sales CRM Activities

 Automated Patient Feedback Collection System: This enables collecting the patients'
feedback, usually shared through email or text messages after their appointment is
complete or the service has been rendered to the patient. This involves assessing the
service and facilities by the patients that help Apollo identify any challenges or issues
faced by the customers and help take corrective measures while dealing with dissatisfied
patients.
 Predict what your patient needs: This involves predicting the needs of the patients
based on their medical conditions and history and offer services as per their expectations,
thus enabling patients to take precautionary measures to prevent future medical
challenges.
 Maintaining Personalised Attention in Patient Communication : It involves engaging
the patients with personalized communications at every step, through personalized emails,

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phone calls, texts to humanize the conversations and build healthy and profitable patient
relationships.

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8. Loyalty & Referral Programs at Apollo
8.1 Loyalty Program
1) One Apollo
One Apollo is an integrated healthcare program that offers a comprehensive
experience for all medical and healthcare needs. When someone enrolls in the cardless
membership program, they gain access to all the services and products of Apollo Hospitals
Group. Members of the program can also use one Apollo Health Credit to purchase
healthcare products and services from the organization. 

Enrolment process to this program:

At Apollo Pharmacy: Provide customer name and mobile number to enroll in the One Apollo
program at the nearest pharmacy.
At Apollo Health centers: On their first transaction of Rs. 500 or above, the customers will be
automatically enrolled in the program. They just have to provide their mobile numbers.
Mobile App: Customers can also download the Ask Apollo mobile app to automatically
enroll in the Silver tier membership after the required process.

It consists of different tiers that provide enhanced sets of facilities as we move up-
Silver Membership Tier:
Silver member is provided to all members who enroll in the program. One can achieve
membership to this tier after having completed the following-
 A minimum transaction of Rs 500 at Apollo healthcare centers.
 Registration is done through Apollo Pharmacy or Ask Apollo app or on its website.
 Enrolment is also done with Apollo-SBI Credit Card
 Earn Health Credit.
 1% of the transaction value is converted into Health credits.
 Earn Health credits on every transaction at Apollo.
 One can redeem their health credits on transactions done at Apollo Health Centers at a
value of 1 Health credit equivalent to ₹ 1.

Gold Membership Tier:

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Gold member is the mid-level membership in the One Apollo program. One can get a
membership to this tier after having-
 Spent at least Rs. 75,000 in a year.
 Bought an annual gym membership from Apollo Life.
 Earn Health Credit.
 1.5% of the transacted value is then converted into Health credits.
 Earn Health credits on every transaction at Apollo.
 One can redeem their health credits on transactions done at Apollo Health Centers at a
value of 1 Health credit equivalent to ₹ 1.

Platinum Membership Tier:

It is the premium level or topmost tier membership of the One Apollo program. One can
achieve membership of this tier after having —
 Spent a minimum of Rs. 2,00,000 in a year.
 Maintain Gold membership for 2 consecutive years.
 IP-suite room at Apollo can be availed.
 Earn Health Credit.
 2% of the transacted value is converted into Health credits.
 Earn Health credits on every transaction at Apollo.
 One can redeem their health credits on transactions done at Apollo Health Centers at a
value of 1 Health credit equivalent to ₹ 1.
 
2) Apollo Circle
This program has been designed to provide the best-suited healthcare facilities to the
members based on their programs. The facilities are as follows-
 Emergency doctors on call
 Discounts on medicines
 Discounts and cashback on diagnostics
 
8.2. Referral Programs
1) Apollo 24/7

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 It is a very successful referral program by the organization. So, if you are a new user,
then it's the right time to grab the Apollo 24/7 Referral Code by simply installing the app. By
using the referral code, health credits can be earned, and the customers can redeem those
health credits from the medical stores and in the app. One needs to upload the doctor's
prescription with the latest date; this way, one can keep their family members safe. But
before this, one needs to sign up in the app.
 
Previously, Apollo's 24/7 app had a referral program in which it rewarded 50 Health
Credits for each successful referral; however, this offer has been suspended, and one will not
be able to use the Apollo 24/7 App Referral Code Program if they suggest someone to a
friend. Although they will receive a reward for creating an account, they must keep the app
on their phone for at least 3 to 4 days to receive it. 
 
2) Champion of Hope
This referral program has been curated for people who have availed of the healthcare
services from Apollo and want to refer their family and friends to the hospital. Here, during
their stay at the hospital, patients can avail themselves extra benefits such as:
 10% discount on OP investigation.
 One complimentary online consultation.
 20% discount on the health check.

9. Analytics for CRM

In the Apollo hospital, the CRM analytics are revenue attribution reports, source-wise
appointments, team efficiency reports, center-wise performance, department-wise
performance, patient status reports, and patient satisfaction reports.

 Revenue attribution report:

By using this, hospital management can understand the revenue breakups from different
centers, departments, etc.

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 Figure 3. Revenue Attribution Report

 Source wise appointments:

From this, hospital management can identify from which root patients are booking
appointments.

Figure 4. Source wise appointments

 Team efficiency reports:

With the help of CRM implementation, management can identify the segments that are highly
efficient and the segments that are struggling to perform efficiently.

Figure 5. Team efficiency reports

 Centre wise performance:

This will help the management to understand the different centres' performance.

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Figure 6. Centre wise performance

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 Department wise performance:
It highlights about the department wise performance.

Figure 7. Department wise performance

 Patient Status Report:

It tells about the patient's journey from the prospect to the patient confirmed.

Figure 8. Patient Status Report

 Patient Satisfaction Report:

It tells about the patient feedbacks.

Figure 9. Patient Satisfaction Report

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 10. Performance Metrics
We have categorized performance metrics into phases based on the customer journey.

Pre-sales
 Lead conversion ratio measures the leads that have been converted into sales. It helps in
determining the effectiveness of CRM strategies in place.
 Lead sources must be tracked to review which ones generate the most leads so that marketing
efforts can be redirected towards high-value lead generating sources. Lead generation
strategy must be diversified if strong dependency on one source is noticed.
 Lead velocity measures the growth of quality leads from period to period. It gives a real-time
approximate of sales revenue.
 A qualified lead means the prospect is in the market for products and services like ours and
our competitors. So fast follow-up is essential. Getting our response in first can give us an
edge over the competition. 

Sales
 Sales pipelines and lengths need to be checked to find bottlenecks.
 Open pipeline indicates the volume and value of potential sales, including qualified leads,
which means the prospect has shown some interest. It shows where revenue is likely to come
from, so an action plan can get 100% of the target.
 Patient wait time needs to be minimized, and bed/room turnover must be kept in check to
optimize resources.

Post-sales
 Readmission rates and canceled/missed appointments must be assessed to send push
notifications, reminders, and the formation of action plans.
 Upsell rate for application users who upgrade for premium services or features such as
advanced health tracker, fitness meter, etc.
 Customer service response time, first contact resolution rate, follow-up rate for better and
improved after-sale services.

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 ROI cannot be calculated in terms of absolute measure but efficiency only due to many
products and services. So, CRM strategies can be helpful for:
 Increase in Revenue Per Lead
 Time Saved
 Operational efficiency

11. Technology and Organizational Challenges for

Implementation of CRM
Apollo Hospital is one of the organizations that have achieved significant results from
the implementation of CRM. Its Apollo Health City, Hyderabad division had also received
the Best CRM Programme at the 6th Customer Loyalty Awards in 2019. However, there are
certain challenges that it still is subjected to, as follows-

Goal setting
Providers must explicitly identify the objectives they want to achieve through the
system, including precise milestones and quantitative indicators, before determining whether
or not to invest in a healthcare CRM. In the worst-case scenario, caretakers may be stuck with
a completely ineffective and exorbitantly expensive technology.
The reason for this is that if providers cannot identify and name specific targets, they
will be compelled to invest in features, which CRM is all about. On the other hand, vendors
are skilled in selling features that address a broad range of requirements. As a result,
caretakers can waste a lot of money on equipment they will never use.

Integration
CRM will benefit a healthcare company if it connects effectively with the rest of the
infrastructure, which, by the way, isn't precisely an effortless task. Healthcare CRM isn't the
primary data source, and it requires integration with multiple apps to be helpful.
Many healthcare vendors have strong data access requirements and do not enable
complete or partial integration, especially when it comes to EHR systems. As a result,
caregivers must present an IT infrastructure map to their vendor from the start to enable
seamless integration.

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Staff training
Most health professionals are too preoccupied to be enthused about learning and
incorporating yet another system into their daily routine. As a result, clinical stakeholders
will need to address the problem and speed up staff adoption of the new approach. This
means that clinical procedures must be changed to include CRM as a standard tool rather than
an optional "see if you're interested" application.

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 References
Healthcare Industry in India (2021). https://www.ibef.org/industry/healthcare-india.aspx
(Last accessed on 16 September 2021)

Vaishya, R., Vaish, A. (2016). Customer relationship management (CRM) towards service
orientation in hospitals: A review.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
311350744_Customer_relationship_management_CRM_towards_service_orientation
_in_hospitals_A_review (Last accessed on 16 September 2021)

Apollo Hospital Website. https://www.apollohospitals.com/ (Last accessed on 16 September

2021)

Apollo 24/7 Website. https://www.apollo247.com/ (Last accessed on 16 September 2021)

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