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Be Supportive, Not Defensive - 10/7/25


[An employee on the phone with a customer…] Who told you that you didn’t have to submit that form? … Bob?  Oh brother!  You see Bob is our “special” co-worker.  He seems to always tell customers the wrong thing to do, and we’re having to clean up after him.  Read more

Some Customers LOVE Predictability - 9/30/25


I was facilitating focus groups of businesses that utilize local government services.  The phrase that popped up multiple times was “Time Is Money!”  What these municipal customers were conveying was that their time was valuable, and delays were wasting their time.  But the conversations were not just about how Read more

Find Your Special Sauce - 9/23/25


When I watch a football game and I see a great quarterback (somebody who may be considered a “Star”), he might be an excellent runner, have a big arm, be able to diagnose the defense and get his team into the right play.  But he’s likely not great at Read more

Gain Control of the Conversation - 9/16/25


The customer’s angry or upset or they have a complaint.  They’re very chatty or very wordy or they just want to talk to somebody.  You’re on a time crunch, and the customer obviously is not. There are times when you need to gain control of the conversation.  It’s important for Read more

Complement with a Compliment - 9/9/25


We perform many tasks for our customers every day, and when we’re done with a step in the process, oftentimes we will tell the customer what’s been done.  But if we want to create more of a WOW experience, if we want to make the customer feel a little Read more

When Patience Begets Patience - 9/2/25


Jennifer, the server, walked toward the couple in the restaurant.  The customers had been seated for a minute or two, and they noticed the server was walking briskly toward their table.  Jennifer recognized the couple she was about to serve, because they had been in the previous week. Since the Read more

Address the Expectations that Were Set - 8/26/25


Before the caller ever got to Marco – the customer service representative, the customer had been working with the company for months.  They had read the marketing brochures, had a conversation with a sales rep, reviewed the new customer information on the website, and read all the information e-mailed Read more

When Technology Fails the Customer - 8/19/25


Technology is a wonderful thing…until it isn’t.  The website is down, the mobile app won’t work, the system keeps kicking them out of their account, or they received a spoofing phone call supposedly from your department. If you’ve ever been manning the phones or managing the department inbox, you know Read more

The Misunderstood Physician - 8/12/25


I was speaking with one of my personal physicians years ago, and when we were talking about my work – particularly customer satisfaction research - he started talking about online physician ratings.  He lamented that a few low ratings were dinging his overall score.  Then he shared that the Read more

Uncover Silent Concerns - 8/5/25


One of the customer service statistics we have quoted many times over the years is:  For every complaint you do hear, there could be 26 other customer issues that you don’t hear. And when we bring up that statistic, we bring it up because we want to make sure companies Read more

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Hospital Patient Satisfaction – Driven by People or Facilities?

Posted on September 5, 2012 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

For a hospital, is it about customer service or a hotel look and feel?

In the world of healthcare, hospitals have come a long way, with many looking like a mini-version of the Ritz-Carlton or the Taj Mahal, for that matter.

The look of the facility has become paramount to the great patient experience. Marble floors in the lobbies; hardwood floors in the patient rooms; flat screen TVs in the waiting rooms.

But a recent study by J.D. Power and Associates noted that “For upscale hotels, the facility accounts for nearly one-half (48 percent) of guests’ overall satisfaction, while in an inpatient setting the hospital facility represents just 19 percent of patients’ overall satisfaction.” So while the look and feel of the hospitals are tending more toward the luxury hotel experience, the reality is that patients want to feel like you are caring for them. And what drives that patient satisfaction feeling more than anything else? The employee.

For any given hospital, “Doctors and nurses account for 34 percent of the overall experience ratings for inpatients, and their influence is even higher (43 percent) among patients in emergency settings. Among outpatients, doctors and other healthcare professionals represent 50 percent of their overall experience.” So when you think about patient satisfaction, you have to think about the customer service skills of the employee. You have to think about the attitudes of those prospective employees you’re considering.

To create high levels of patient satisfaction at your hospital, you have to become proficient at defining, articulating, growing, and retaining those individuals with the types of customer service attitudes, skills, and knowledge needed to be successful.

A pretty hospital building is a wonderful thing. But a customer-focused employee is the true building block to high patient satisfaction.

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


Compassion and Customer Satisfaction

Posted on August 16, 2012 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

We always say that the 3 Drivers of Customer Satisfaction in ANY business are the Attitudes/skills/knowledge of employees, the service delivery Processes, and the Products themselves. And if you begin digging deeper into the components of Attitude, Process, and Product, you realize that Attitudes and Processes are what make up the Customer Service portion of overall Customer Satisfaction. And when you dig deeper into the Attitude piece itself, you realize that this means different things to customers of different industries.

For example, a recent study showed that the aspect of Attitude that is most important to cancer patients is compassion. More than any aspect of the Processes or Products/Services received experienced by the cancer patients as well, having “a compassionate team of care providers…access to a knowledgeable, competent physician…and…being treated as human beings…are the most important correlates with patient satisfaction.”

Why is this important to know? When you think of the hundreds of interactions that a patient and their family may have with employees and physicians on the phone, face-to-face, and via e-mail over the course of an inpatient stay and soon thereafter, when you think about all the processes the patients experience, and when you think of all the services provided to them, it’s a daunting task to try to improve EVERYTHING to have a positive impact on patient satisfaction.

Instead, if a hospital knows the primary drivers of patient satisfaction, it gives them a focus, a “bang-for-the-buck” improvement strategy, and a way to get everyone to rally around a particular aspect of the patient experience.

So think about this for your business as well. Don’t feel the need to try to improve EVERYTHING. We work with many clients including hospitals to identify – in a precise and quantitative fashion – just this: What are the 1 or 2 or 3 aspects of the customer experience with the most significant impact on their willingness to recommend you to others or to return themselves?

Find the “compassion” correlation that applies to your business and your customers.

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


Federally-Driven Health Insurance and the Future of Customer Care

Posted on July 12, 2012 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

Who would want the Federal Government telling them what to do? Well…for a price…a lot of businesses. Many observers wonder why the insurance industry is behind the Federal Government mandating insurance coverage for all. The quick answer is this – if your product was mandated, how much would you fight Government involvement? If you’re Dunkin’ Donuts, and every individual in the country is required to eat a glazed donut every day, would you object? If you were Schwinn, and every person in America had to buy a new bike every year, would you object?

Yes, with that requirement will come a lot of oversight, but the insurance companies are looking in the short-term more at the increase in demand, not the increase in oversight.

And why are we discussing this? Because the structure of the legislation should result in at least one good thing for citizens – improved customer service from insurance companies. According to an article in Forbes magazine titled Why Customer Service Matters in the New Healthcare Insurance Landscape, insurers will “have to deal with challenges such as competition, price and margin pressure, and consumer education. In this environment, cost-effective, yet, reliable direct-to-consumer customer service before, during and after the initial “sale” will be a critical competence for success.”

The tips provided for the insurers in the article include the following:

1. Hire/retain great staff.

2. Make it easy for the customer to do business with you.

3. Go to the customer to serve them.

I made these tips a little more generic to illustrate the broader point of the article. No matter what kind of business you’re in, great customer service involves three core pieces: Your people, your processes, and your customers. Take all the strategies in the world on customer service, and boil it down to these three. Consider the following questions:

1. What are the characteristics of your best employees? Identify them, build those skills, and look to acquire others that have these best practice qualities.

2. How can you make things quick, self-evident, and simple on the customer do business with you? How can you make it equally as easy for your employees to deliver great service?

3. Determine where your customers make decisions, where they use your services, where they get information about your company and your competitors. What can you do to be more present with your customers?

If your business (or the health insurers themselves) answer these questions and take action, maybe the future of customer care may be a little brighter.

Listen to our latest podcast episode of “Stepping Up Service” on The MESH Network at http://themesh.tv/stepping-up-service/

Check out our Healthcare Customer Service Consulting Services: http://cssamerica.com/csshealth.htm


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