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This report will outline the most relevant behavioral characteristics of medical tourism consumers who begin their

search online and examine the ways they find, compare and evaluate product information. In this project we need to

put ourselves in the shoes of a patient from USA who is searching for a hospital in India for his knee replacement

surgery. She does not have any relative in India and hence the World Wide Web is his best bet. The reason for India

being the choice is that she has heard a lot about “Incredible India” and wants to spend a vacation here with her

husband post her recovery as she is aware that India has a huge variety of tourist destinations. And most importantly

the entire surgery (The all inclusive cost would include all expenses relating to Specialist Consultations, Investigations,

Medicines, Gases and Consumables, Intensive Care and Nursing services during the 7 days stay in the hospital) is going

to cost her almost 1/7th of the amount she would have spent in his country. Add to it the vacation, and they would still

spend around 1/4th of the cost in US. Hence, the Problem Recognition has already been done. The objective of the

project is to “think like a foreigner”; proceed with the information search as they would do, evaluate the alternatives

and take a decision. The purpose of this report is to translate these findings into a set of implementation activities on

strategic and technological level. Execution of these recommendations will result in better conversion of visitors into

customers and encourage customer loyalty and referrals.

Majority of adults from the states tend to be active information seekers. A high level of technological confidence withinthis group tends to be an encouraging factor when it comes to product information research online.

There are two main research topics:

• Information Retrieval and Search Patterns

• Perception of Product Information Online

These two areas are mutually dependent and particularly important in a market where consumers have the power to

choose the right product from a number of competing suppliers. Well-structured product information that cannot be

found easily online is as much of a problem as is having easily accessible information that does not meet theconsumer’s expectations. 

“Now, let me begin by christening my character as Angelina Brown. She stays at Columbus, Ohio. Her annual gross

income is $66,200 and annual household income is $166,200. She wants a Total Knee Replacement Surgery done which

she heard costs around $6,000 in India as compared to $40,000 there. She is 50 years old and an avid traveler.” 

Information Retrieval and Search Patterns

The first search stage started with a major search engine (Google, Live, and Yahoo) in its non-local version. Before

clicking on a first satisfactory search result, Angelina mainly looked for the highest percentage match in the search

result titles (blue text) where word proximity in the phrase played an important factor, following the search resultdescription body (black text). Web address (green text) was largely ignored. In this case Angelina chose to search

through google.com

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As soon as she typed “best knee..” the above came automatically and she clicked on the first one which said “best knee

replacement hospitals in India.” Thereafter, she opened the top 6 links in different tabs.

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Then once all the 6 links are checked out the following are selected:

1.  www.apollohospitals.com 

2.  www.indianmedguru.com/knee-replacement-surgery-india.html  

http://samved-ortho.com/  was closed without reading much as it looked too cluttered.

In the first tab of Google now a new search was done typing “best knee replacement surgeons in India” (which had

come as the second automatic drop-down option when she had initially started the search. There were 5 links

which were common with the first search and she opened 2 fresh links:

3.  http://www.kneereplacementindia.com/about-knee-joint-replacement.htm  

4.  http://www.apollohospdelhi.com/knee-guide.pdf  

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(These links were in the top 7). These were also opened as new tabs. So then in total she had 4 tabs opened.

Link no. 3 & 4 were closed.

She clicked on “Medical Tourism to India” button in link no. 2. Details were typed after clicking the “Contact Us” link.

Apollo hospitals also has a well maintained site and she clicked on Contact Us and sent in the query.

Before proceeding further she wanted some information as to whether she can have someone arrange everything for

her. She wanted some travel planner who could help her from airport to airport. Help her with advice regarding the

hospital as well as the holiday. So, she opened a new tab and searched for “top medical tourism in India”. The top 9

links were opened and started checking from no.9 to no.5 followed by no.1 to no.4.

1.  http://www.medicaltourisminindia.net/  - Clicked on Orthopaedic Surgery Package India. The site was too

cluttered with too many advertisements and the tab was closed. 

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2.  http://www.medical-tourism-india.com/  - Clicked on Orthopaedic Surgery. Then clicked on the “contact us” link

below the write up on Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi. Filled in the details and closed the tab.  

3.  http://www.recoverdiscover.com/  - The following line on the site was of interest – “3 Affiliate Hospitals are JCI

Acredited - The U.S Gold Standard for Tertiary care”. She clicked on the Knee Replacement Surgery link and

then on “contact us” and found the following contact details which was a big relief!

United States of America (U.S.A.)

Pat PattonRecover Discover Healthcare2112 Baltusrol Dr.Austin, TX 78747-1202Business Phone: (512) 472-1095Mobile: (512) 560-7284Email: contactus@recoverdiscover.com 

Fortis Workhardt Hospital Bangalore was chosen as the option and a call was made to the above business phone.

Rediscover India also offered to help with the holiday package and hence was chosen as the facilitator.

4.  http://www.medicaltourismindia.com/  - This link was not checked. 

5.  http://www.medaccessindia.com/  - Clicked on Orthopedics, then on Total Knee Replacement. 4 destination

choices were there for the city. Hence another google search was done keying in “best city in india for knee

replacement surgery”. The following two links were opened as the other links were already checked. 

a.  http://www.kneeindia.com/hospital/  

b.  http://www.healthaidindia.com/orthopedic-treatment/knee-replacement/knee-replacement-delhi.html  

Delhi or Chennai were chosen as the preferred destination and the above links were closed.

“Delhi” was opened in one tab and “Chennai” in another. But it kept showing the same page without any

additional information and so both the new tabs were closed.

6.  http://india.gov.in/overseas/visit_india/medical_india.php  - no useful information available. Very haphazard.

7.  http://www.medicaltourisminindia.org/  - did not find the site good enough. 

8.  http://www.indian-medical-tourism.com/  - clicked on “Total Knee Replacement” and filled up the form. 

9.  http://www.saharamedicaltourism.com/  - clicked on “Services” and then on “Get a Free Quote”. Filled the

details and closed the tab. 

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Perception of Product Information Online

How does a consumer (in this case Angelina) see and understand product information online?

When buying products and services online, consumers are facing two fundamental differences: removal of physical

presence and (as a compensation) abundance and versatility of product information. In other words, a physical product

has been replaced by product information. A few reviews would also be helpful.

One of the main characteristic which could be seen was the lack of patience. A majority of interviewed individuals

stated that they are willing to wait only up to five seconds for a page to load. Angelina opted for Fortis Hospitals as she

did not have to wait for an e-mail response and could interact with someone over the phone and find out the details

Consumers will appreciate businesses, which value for customer’s time by employing technology, tools, information

and customer service.

There is a contradiction in the way consumers think while viewing information online. They are not willing to read

extensive amounts of data. They prefer to ‘scan’ through volumes of information very briefly while looking for key

benefits. For this, they require moderate amounts of summarized information. At the other hand, consumers arealso not likely to buy anything online unless complete product information is available. Having to inquire about a

certain product due to lack of information available on the website delays the transaction, however most people are

willing to wait extra time for a human response to an online inquiry.

A website can traditionally be seen as a place of purchase, however, for consumers it is also a store, a brochure and a

sales person, and is expected to serve quickly and perform well. Survey results show that the quality of presentation

and information breakdown can affect consumer attitude towards the product and buying confidence. For example,

basic quality standards are necessary in order to create consumer trust (speed and structural integrity). Second most

prominent factor seems to be simplicity of the checkout process. People generally prefer not to fill out long registration

forms.

Consumers favor almost all timesaving tools such as:

• Pop-up descriptions

• Photo galleries

• Product summaries before full product information

• Product comparison

An interesting observation is that most interviewed consumers considered automated product suggestions eitherirrelevant or unnecessary, therefore most would not follow such leads An example of this would be Amazon’s

“Customers who bought this item also bought the following…” and eBay’s “Related products” section. Instead,

consumers choose to do their own independent research, compare their own findings and read other people’s

reviews and recommendations.

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Summary of Findings

Implications with promotion:

1. Consumers use search engines for anything and everything and Google is the king

2. Result pages are scanned for context corresponding to a supplied search term

3. Pace of search decreases in proportion to the depth of the research

4. Intrusive advertising campaigns can create negative image

Place of purchase and product information:

1. Amount of information online directly affects consumer search behavior

2. Online consumer’s value integrated timesaving features

3. Information breakdown is required to prevent information overload

4. Consumers value human reviews more than automated recommendations

Recommendations

Search Engine Promotion

Based on the analysis of consumer search behavior, it is evident that the typical consumer is likely to ‘scan’ rather than

read search result pages. In order to maximize on potential traffic it is necessary to enhance search result page

positioning and increase visibility of search terms in result page titles. This can be achieved by SEO (Search Engine

Optimization) and semantically relevant surrounding content in order to satisfy the LDA signals.

Ads

Article link ads outperform banners or pop-up ads.

Product Information

Main consideration when it comes to product information is segmentation and lack of physical presence. As discussed

in the behavior analysis, consumers prefer to read and compare short summaries before choosing to read the full

description. Quality and amount of product information will compensate for the lack of physical presence, while

implementation of timesaving mechanisms and human-based recommendations would encourage product research

and purchase.