Healthcare | Customer Service Solutions, Inc. - Page 17

Home  /  Learn from the Operating Room  /  Healthcare

Gaining the Benefits of the Greeter- 6/30/26


Most likely, we’ve all entered some establishment – a retail store, restaurant, or service center - when there is a greeter at the door.  The most famous greeter position is probably the Walmart greeter.  I often thought that my father-in-law would have been a fantastic Walmart greeter, because he Read more

Seamlessness - Why the Customer Thanked You - 6/23/26


This doesn’t happen enough nowadays, but the employee received a long thank you e-mail from the customer.  A financial services account manager had taken care of the client during a period of time that was stressful for the customer. Life was unexpectedly changing quickly, and personal emotions, additional financial responsibilities, Read more

When to Avoid the Escalation - 6/16/26


The customer calls with a complaint, and the easy thing to do is to escalate it to your supervisor. That may also be the right thing to do, but how do you know when to avoid the escalation? Why You Would Escalate The first thing to consider is why you would Read more

Let’s be Clear on Clarity - 6/9/26


When trying to manage expectations, it’s vital to be clear with the customer.  But what specifically does it mean to be “clear?” Clarity is in the eyes and ears of the beholder, so what may be clear to one customer may be unclear to another.  However, there are some basic Read more

Allow Yourself to Solve a Couple Puzzles Every Day - 6/2/26


Frank had never been a dog owner before, and when he first got Bosco at the shelter, Frank didn't really know what he was doing.  He would try to be a good parent - feed the dog, play with it, take it on walks - but he was doing Read more

Improve with a Purpose - 5/26/26


If you’re reading these customer service tips, you likely want to get better.  You want an idea, a technique, a reinforcement, or a question that helps you improve. But why improve? At some point you may waver on the commitment to improve, because it can take effort, introspection, time, and change.  Read more

Reciprocate the Thanks - 5/19/26


Jasmine had a great experience with the company, and the company sent her a link to provide an online evaluation following the visit.  So, she clicked the link, gave a rating, and made a comment about her experience. The company monitored their online reviews, saw the positive response, and replied Read more

Don’t Skip the Recap - 5/12/26


The playoff hockey game goes on for almost 3 hours.  There’s non-stop action, with plenty of penalties and takeaways and hits against the boards…and a few goals, as well. You didn’t get to watch the whole game because you had other plans, but you wanted to know what happened.  So, Read more

Finalize the Solution with the 6 Step Checklist - 5/5/26


In last week’s Tip, we showed why and how to Use the 6 Step Checklist before Resolving the Issue.  We noted the importance of taking 15 seconds to mentally walk through the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How to feel confident that you know what’s needed to fix Read more

Use the 6 Step Checklist before Resolving the Issue - 4/28/26


We talk about trying to resolve the issue right the first time, sharing the technique on how to manage the conversation to get clarity on the real issue, need, or goal, and confirming your understanding before moving forward. But what are you trying to clarify?  What are you trying to Read more

•••••

Learn from the Operating Room

Posted on January 13, 2010 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

Andrea Hernandez at ledger-enquirer.com documented the steps taken by Susan Garrett, a Georgia Hospital Heroes Award winner who helped to improve patient satisfaction at her hospital. Ms. Garrett focused on four areas to improve patient satisfaction:

1. Communication with the families

2. Pre-operative education

3. Improving patient IV starts

4. Communication regarding unexpected delays.

Those four areas can be generalized to any business. If you want to improve customer satisfaction, improve customer communications. Be open, responsive, proactive with customers, addressing their questions, quickly handling issues, and anticipating needs.

Second, pre-operative education can be generalized to any business. Think of it as making your customers educated on what’s going to happen – what they need to do or what you’ll be doing. You’re setting expectations. Anything that can set expectations can improve satisfaction and reduce complaints.

Third, improving IV starts – now how do you generalize that? Think of that in terms of doing things right the first time with the customer. Make it as painless an experience as possible to do business with you.

Finally, communicate about unexpected delays. Don’t wait for the customer to complain. If you anticipate delays, address them proactively and restate a more realistic expectation.

Learn ways to improve your customer satisfaction by applying these hospital tips.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/


Don’t Wait on Fixing Waits

Posted on December 10, 2009 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

Where do you hear the loudest customer complaints in the typical hospital of today? It’s the Emergency Room.

“Why have I waited so long?!” “Why did that person on the stretcher go back to a room before me?! I was here first!” “I’ve been here 2 hours, and nobody’s told me anything!”

These complaints are pervasive, but they also point to the impact of customer service. Remember that customer service involves processes. Customer service is part employee attitudes/skills/knowledge, and the other part is process. How long something takes, how long are the waits, how efficient is a process, how redundant are the processes, how smooth the flow of information and people is or isn’t – those are all characteristics of process.

And whereas businesses spend lots of money every year to have employees trained on how to deal with irate customers, a tactic just as valuable as that is to identify the root causes of why customers are irate and to address those root causes. In healthcare, so many of those complaints are about one thing – process.

So if you want your organization to be better from a customer service-perspective in your customers’ eyes, if you want to reduce the number of conflicts with customers which your employees have to address, then fix your processes. Find out where waits exist, the cause of the waits, the communications during the waits, and perceptions of the length of the wait time, and address them.

Many of our clients redesign departmental layouts, they change processes, they do a better job of scheduling staff to flex up/down with variations by time-of-day or day-of-week with customer volumes or arrival rates. They train staff on how to and how often to interact with customers during wait to provide updates, keep them engaged, convey they care, and – ultimately – to reduce the perception of the wait time. The clients create activities for the customers or distractions which help to reduce the perception of the wait times.

In other words, the hospitals and other organizations best at dealing with waits try to reduce wait times while at the same time reducing the perception of waits.

Wait times are a symptom of an issue with your customer service. Don’t wait on fixing waits.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/


Everyone is a Customer Service Representative

Posted on October 22, 2009 in Business Advice, Healthcare 1 Comment

This wish applies to any business, but let’s focus this wish on the healthcare providers of the world.

If I could wish one thing for any hospital that would improve its patient satisfaction, it would be this. I would wish that every person — food service worker, physician, nurse, administrator, CNA, physical therapist, unit manager, unit secretary, human resources manager, business office clerk, environmental services employee, volunteer — view themselves as a customer service representative.

Every individual noted above has their technical or clinical or financial or other professional responsibility. But, in healthcare, as with other service industries, part of that technical or clinical or financial or other professional responsibility involves communicating with others. It involves face-to-face communications, it involves telephone conferences, it involves e-mails being sent. Part of that responsibility includes communications with co-workers or communications with vendors or patients or family members or physicians or other guests.

That communication conveys something. It conveys that you care about the individual as a person, or you don’t. It conveys that you are focused on the person more than the task, or you’re not. It conveys that you’re responsive and “other focused,” or it conveys that you’re slow to respond and “me focused.”  It conveys that you understand the “care” part of healthcare as opposed to the technical or clinical or financial aspect of the task being the only thing of importance.

Imagine a hospital where every person you walked by, every person you spoke with on the phone, every person you communicated with via an e-mail treated you like you were special. Whether you are a co-worker or the visitor or the patient, you felt special.  You felt like these people wanted to help you, and caring for your health or your other needs were simply the methods that they used to care for you as a person.

Imagine having this culture where all hospital personnel truly understood how they themselves were customer service representatives. If you can imagine this, it is easy to imagine patient satisfaction scores going through the roof.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service?  See more information at:  http://www.cssamerica.com/


« Previous   1 2 ... 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18   Next »