Key points

• It has become harder to provide as much value as before just by relaying information between international patients and Korean hospitals.
• Decoupling means breaking the links between customer activities that used to go together.
• What I can do here is organize the answers the customer received on the same basis and help them ask the hospitals about terms they have not yet confirmed.
• Whether customers would pay for comparison support itself, and what kind of help hospitals would pay for, still needs to be confirmed. The work can only continue if the help customers get, and the reason to bear its cost, are both clear.

More customers now look up Korean hospitals and procedures in advance. By the time a customer turns to a broker, they may have already done part of the hospital-selection work elsewhere. It has become harder to provide as much value as before just by relaying information between international patients and Korean hospitals.

The Customer Value Chain, as Thales S. Teixeira describes it, is the flow of activities customers go through to choose, buy, and use a product or service. It takes what customers look for, what they check, and what they have to do as the unit of analysis.

Decoupling means breaking the links between customer activities that used to go together. This includes letting customers do some of the activities they used to do together through one company separately, through another service. A new business can then take on a specific activity without having every role the existing company has.

Customer activities can be viewed by the value they create or consume. Research by Teixeira and Peter Jamieson sorts them into three types.

• Value-creating activities: activities through which customers get the benefits they want. Examples include trying a product firsthand or watching content they want to see.
• Value-capturing activities: activities through which a company receives something in return from customers. This can include not only customers paying for a product but also watching ads.
• Value-eroding activities: activities that burden customers without turning into revenue for the company. Think of things that use up customers’ time and effort, such as unnecessary travel or waiting.

Showrooming, which separates looking at a product in person from buying it, is one example. Customers try out and compare electronics at a store like Best Buy, then order from an online seller such as Amazon. Customers can now try and buy in different places, and a store may now provide the experience without earning the revenue from the purchase.

In a 2019 interview, Teixeira also explained how Best Buy responded. The approach was to charge manufacturers for the value of displaying their products. It aimed to turn the value the store provided into revenue, even when the sale happened elsewhere.

When customers use several companies, it can cost them more money, time, and effort. The benefit of doing some activities separately must be weighed against that hassle. This theory also suggests that some customers prefer to handle everything in one place.

Separating hospital comparison support from booking

In attracting international patients, we can look at activities such as searching for hospitals, checking treatment terms, booking, and visiting. Of these, I want to start by applying this lens to comparing the information customers receive from hospitals.

Say a customer has received information from three hospitals. If one gives only the treatment fee and another also includes the cost of tests or language support, it is hard to compare on price alone. The customer has to ask again whether the items are the same and what is included.

What I can do here is organize the answers the customer received on the same basis and help them ask the hospitals about terms they have not yet confirmed. What gets compared is the terms the hospitals provided. Whether a treatment is appropriate and which treatment method to use both require the medical team’s judgment.

If this comparison support is offered on the condition that the customer also hands over the hospital booking, the two activities are tied together in one service. Could the service be designed so that customers use the comparison support separately and book through whichever channel they choose? The decoupling I have in mind is splitting that link.

If a customer who received comparison support books through a different channel, they may have to explain the purpose of their visit and their schedule all over again. If they also have to ask again whether the terms confirmed earlier still apply at booking, that is one more step for the customer.

What I organize at my step needs to be usable at the next one. The customer should be able to take with them what was confirmed at which hospital and which terms are still open. The value of comparison support carries through to how easily the customer can choose and book afterward.

A question about revenue remains, too. Organizing hospital answers and confirming terms takes time and money. If comparison support is offered separately but revenue comes only when a booking at a particular hospital goes through, I need to look at what kind of relationship that creates between helping the customer and getting paid.

Whether customers would pay for comparison support itself, and what kind of help hospitals would pay for, still needs to be confirmed. The work can only continue if the help customers get, and the reason to bear its cost, are both clear.

I am starting by looking at what international patients ask again when they come with the answers they got from hospitals. If I can help resolve those questions and reduce what international patients have to do before booking, maybe that is where I can find the work I should take on, and where it can grow into a business.