I think before you read anything to do with this blog you should read this link.
It’s one of the most clever insights that I have heard for years and something we should be actioning right now.
If you haven’t been bothered to read it, Seth Godin is describing a new platform where people can pay to change their position on waiting lists and its automated.
It’s an auction.
If you’re 100th in the line, you can swap your place to someone who’s 1000th for enough money to buy the product you want to buy (or half of it) while waiting for a longer time.
You need to read the blog to understand it but we did it years ago at refine specialist dental care in Alfreton roundabout 2010 when we opened the practice.
My partner, Angela Leivers, was studying for an MBA and her MBA looked into how to reduce NHS waiting lists by offering patients independent appointments.
Many of the referring GDP’s around us went crackers and said that we were profiteering but here’s the actual answer.
If you have a waiting list of 1000 people and you openly offer them the chance to buy their way out of the waiting list by using independent slots that the NHS will not pay for, then you reduce the waiting list for both the people who pay for it and the people who don’t.
We had a fixed contract from the NHS to provide oral surgery services and we weren’t allowed to provide any more after we’d reached our months quota.
We rented the facility from the NHS and were allowed to use it for any number of hours over and above the contract and so we used it to provide independent services.
About 30% of people bought their way out the waiting list, making the waiting list enormously shorter for the people who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for it.
What swap the line does is it automates this auction process.
If you’re not thinking about stuff like this then you’re behind the curve and if you’re behind the curve you’re dead (even if it’s slowly).
Blog Post Number - 2888
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