"The last thing this industry needs is curiosity. "But when you spend time with the elderly, you should not only chat with them, but also pay attention to their mood changes. Qingdao's "post-90s" escort Lei Lei said.
With the growth of the aging population, the escort industry is quietly emerging. Qingdao launched a public welfare escort service in October, has the non-governmental escort service been impacted? Is the escort just running errands for others? The reporter conducted an investigation and interview.
Ride-hailing drivers change careers to accompany patients
Lei Lei still clearly remembers the scene when he received the first order. The client is an aunt. I made an appointment to meet at the hospital at half past eight, and at half past seven in the morning, Lei Lei rushed to the hospital non-stop. After the two sides met, because the aunt's waist and legs felt uncomfortable, Lei Lei carefully supported her throughout the whole process, and after a day of examination, the aunt's body was fine, but Lei Lei was tired and had back pain.
That night, the aunt's son sent Lei Lei the final payment and praised Lei Lei's service. The success of the first order gave him stronger confidence in joining the escort industry.
"I used to do the ride-hailing industry, this industry is too rolly, and then I brushed short videos, and saw that Beijing and other first-tier cities began to have the industry of escorts, so I went to Beijing to learn and Xi. Lei Lei said that he benefited a lot from the trip to Beijing, after returning from "studying", he integrated the online car-hailing team around him, led his colleagues to officially start the road of entrepreneurial transformation, and now he has more than 20 professional escorts who can take charge of themselves.
Lei Lei is doing training for escorts
Among Lei Lei's more than 500 customers, the elderly are the main service objects. "60% of our customers are around 60 years old. Lei Lei said that among the remaining 40% of customers, half are pregnant women, "In the escort industry, if a pregnant woman finds you and is satisfied with the service, there is basically a two-year 'stickiness', because from the birth of the child to before the age of two, sick or to the hospital for vaccination, she will think of you first." ”
Pre-diagnosis and registration, finding a department, paying, taking medicine...... Seeking medical treatment is a troublesome matter, not only for the elderly, but also for some young and middle-aged people.
In Lei Lei's view, young and middle-aged people who need to be accompanied have a common characteristic, that is, they feel lonely. "I once accompanied a client who had a severe cold, and spent two or three hundred yuan at a time, just to find someone to run errands for her, talk to her, and someone could pour water if she wanted to drink water. ”
The biggest challenge is customer acquisition
According to a statistic, by the end of 2021, there were 267 million people aged 60 and above, accounting for 18.9% of the total population, and more than 200 million people aged 65 and above, accounting for 14.2% of the total population. It is estimated that by 2035, the elderly population aged 60 and above will increase to about 420 million, accounting for more than 30%.
This has given rise to a huge market demand for the escort industry. According to Meituan data, as of the end of June this year, more than 1,000 professional merchants providing escort services have emerged on the platform, with the number of merchants increasing eightfold compared with 2021 and the number of orders increasing nearly 12 times in the same period.
The huge market demand does not mean that the customer is surplus. Lei Lei said that the biggest difficulty facing the escort industry is how to obtain customers. "When the escort industry was just emerging, it relied on the algorithm and promotion of the short video platform, and the escort doctor continued to have customers every day. However, at present, due to factors such as the review and current restriction of short video platforms, some videos cannot be sent, and it is not as easy to expand customers as before. ”
Lei Lei said that pure offline customer acquisition methods such as sending leaflets and other methods are not very effective, "because the object of accompanying the patient is a sick person, people are generally more taboo, if you ask them whether they need to accompany the doctor, it may cause disgust." In this case, the maintenance and referral of old customers is particularly important. ”
Lei Lei said that escort is a low-frequency and high-repurchase industry, and they want to find ways to let more people understand this industry, "In addition to the promotion of major websites, we have also moved from online to offline, through participating in community pension public welfare activities, as well as cooperation with community hospitals and insurance companies, in addition, we have also developed a small program, so that people can directly contact the escort when necessary." ”
For escorts, waiting is the norm
Public welfare escort is not a "wolf"
The escort industry is facing the problem of how to acquire customers, so will the free escort service launched by public institutions have a further impact?
In October this year, the Qingdao Municipal Health Commission announced the first batch of appointment escort service numbers for public medical institutions, and 52 public medical institutions can provide free escort services for the elderly over 65 years old, pregnant women, and disabled people who seek medical treatment alone.
In Lei Lei's view, the emergence of public welfare escorts is not a "wolf", because most of the public welfare escorts provide common services, and they cannot achieve personalized accompanying guidance.
In the interview, the reporter found that the scope and standards of escort services launched by public medical institutions are not consistent, and some public escort institutions can provide full escort services, while most hospitals only do partial guidance. Due to the high pressure of public medical institutions, they are generally faced with the problem of insufficient public welfare escort personnel. In most public service escort clinics, volunteers cannot accompany patients throughout the journey, which is still different from paid escort services.
"We only have one accompanying volunteer in the entire hospital every day, and we are not a special paid service of a third party, but a volunteer arranged by the Youth League Committee. Most of the volunteers are hospital employees, using their spare time to volunteer services, and there are also medical students who carry out social practice, volunteers are not only doing escort work, in addition to other volunteer activities to complete, it is impossible to take out all the time to accompany the doctor," a staff member of a tertiary hospital admitted the difficulties faced in front of them: "Volunteers only provide registration, Bring to the clinic and other assistance services, because the elderly are unpredictable in the process of medical treatment and the time to wait for the results, and the current resources are limited, and they cannot be accompanied throughout the whole process, and can only provide help at key points. ”
"There is no guarantee that all appointments will be successfully scheduled, and the number of volunteers is very small. The staff of Qingdao Central Hospital said. The staff of Qingdao Municipal Hospital (East Branch) said that it is necessary to make an appointment by phone one day in advance, and volunteers will provide assistance at the agreed time. ”
Lei Lei believes that private escorts can "dance" with public welfare escorts and find opportunities in them. "Escorts sometimes volunteer in public hospitals, serving patients and establishing good relationships with hospitals, which can lay the foundation for future customer expansion. He said.
Normalization is the way to go
In Lei Lei's view, although the threshold for the profession of escort is not high, it is not as simple as imagined. "For example, when you sit with the elderly, you should not only chat with them, but also pay attention to their mood changes. Lei Lei said that there is a big taboo in the industry of accompanying doctors, that is, to listen to the privacy of customers, when to say what to say, what not to say, are particular. "Sometimes I can detect subtle psychological changes in my clients, and sometimes I am afraid to wait for the results of the examination, which requires patience and communication with them. ”
Someone once said that the hospital is a place where birth, old age, sickness and death collide fiercely with human warmth, and here, Lei Lei also has insight into the various states of life. Among his clients, some of the elderly live open-mindedly and transparently, and after examination, the unfavorable results are confirmed, because of the problem of medical expenses, after careful weighing, they give up the surgical plan and choose conservative treatment; and some of the elderly will talk to him about their children when they seek medical treatment, when they talk about their children breaking out of the world, the corners of the old people's mouths will rise, and their faces will show pride and pride, but when they see that other elderly people are accompanied by their children to seek medical treatment, and they can only be helped by the accompanying doctor, their eyes unconsciously flash a trace of loss and bitterness.
Wang Kefeng, a member of the Qingdao CPPCC and director of the Qingdao International Youth Maker Base, believes that with the aging of the population, especially the demand for escort services for single-child families, however, the level of personnel in the escort industry is uneven, and many of them are equivalent to the concept of "running errands", providing the most basic services. In Wang Kefeng's view, the next step of the benign development of the escort industry needs the guidance of government departments, and with the increase of practitioners, it will tend to professional development.
In addition, Wang Kefeng also believes that the current pressure on public hospitals to seek medical treatment is particularly large, due to the constraints of objective conditions and the lack of talents, it is not enough to support the development of the escort industry, "whether it is from the market demand or the degree of specialization, the need for the slow accumulation and improvement of the escort industry, it is recommended that the relevant departments guide social welfare organizations to join in, so that more people become volunteers, through government procurement services and other ways, so that retired medical staff and other groups to join the escort industry, not only low service cost, but also high efficiency." Wang Kefeng said that the current saturation of this market is still not enough, and the development of the escort industry is a gradual process, which still needs to be further developed and standardized.
Lei Lei also believes that standardized development is the only way for the escort industry, he suggested that the escort can be divided into primary, intermediate, senior and other three levels: the primary escort provides basic "errand" services, the intermediate escort for the patient to develop treatment plans and suggestions, the senior escort is equivalent to the doctor, need to be qualified, not only to provide patients with medical planning, and even to provide patients with diagnosis and treatment suggestions.
(Popular News Client)