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BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- WalMart is taking a cobranded approach to the walk-in medical clinics that operate in its stores.
Beginning in April, the facilities will operate under the name The Clinic at Wal-Mart. Signage will also indicate that each clinic is owned and operated by a local hospital.
The move, which will be coupled with a more standard look, is designed to convince more people to try the clinics.
'What's interesting is that the satisfaction rate on these clinics has just been through the roof,' says Alicia Ledlie, senior director of health business development at Wal-Mart. 'And that's not just the clinics at Wal-Mart, but the clinics anywhere.
'In exit interviews more than 90% of the patients have said that they're satisfied or very satisfied with the experience.'
For Ledlie, those satisfaction scores can be seen as fulfilling one part of a typical new product adoption cycle. With any new product or service, the first step is for consumers to be aware of it, and then they need to be willing to try it. Success then depends on the customer liking it and using it again.
'So the back end of that formula is working,' Ledlie notes. 'People like the clinics, and so they're likely to come back. But the front end is where the real challenge is. How do we get people to even know this exists? How do they first become familiar with it and then willing to try it? Part of what we've put into this model is really to address those two pieces.
'How do we get people familiar with it? Well, that's about building the brand. And then how do we get people to trust it enough to be willing to try it? That's about building the right brand. So what we intend to do here is create equity around the name The Clinic at Wal-Mart.'
Adding to the brand equity and trust in each community, notes Ledlie, will be the fact that the clinics themselves will be owned and operated by local hospital systems that people in the area already know and respect.
For example, Wal-Mart has signed a letter of intent to partner with St. Vincent Health System to open four cobranded clinics in Little Rock, Ark.
The Clinic at Wal-Mart, owned and operated by St. Vincent Health System, is set to make its debut by the end of April. WalMart is also working with RediClinic LLC and local hospital systems to open cobranded walk-in clinics in Atlanta and Dallas. Wal-Mart intends to open 400 cobranded clinics by 2010.
The retailer expects the Clinic at Wal-Mart brand to become synonymous with quality health care at affordable prices, delivered by trusted, local health care providers.
The owner/operators of the clinics will set their own prices, but Wal-Mart will ensure that all the clinics feature a limited set of affordably priced treatments for such conditions as sore throats, sinus infections and earaches, as well as cholesterol screening, vaccinations and routine physicals.
Ledlie believes there are some concrete reasons why potential clinic operators would want to partner with Wal-Mart rather than with some other retailer.
'The amount of space we can offer a tenant here is larger than they can get at other kinds of stores,' Ledlie says. 'There's also more foot traffic in a WalMart store than in most other retail locations. And in many communities a Wal-Mart store serves as a very important social hub.
'For a hospital or health partner with a mission of serving the people of the community, it can be a nice fit to be where people already are.'
