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Use AI to Improve Your Performance - 7/23/24


Many companies are integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into some aspect of their business.  This could greatly change how they operate, how they communicate with customers. This AI wave reminds me of a story from 20+ years ago when a stock brokerage firm launched a new website that greatly enhanced the Read more

The New Burger Experience - 7/16/24


Floyd loves a good hamburger. Any chance he gets to try a new spin on an old standby, he takes it. Recently, a burger joint opened near his house, and Floyd was very excited! It was owned by and named for a world-renowned chef, so it had to be Read more

Boost Customer Happiness - 7/9/24


There’s a cooking show that a friend of mine watches, and the premise is all about reverse engineering food.  They may take a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, analyze it, and determine the ingredients just by tasting it.  Then they figure out a recipe.  The cook will try to make Read more

Brainstorm to Better Yourself - 7/2/24


I’ve led enough sessions with clients on continuous improvement topics to have solid experience on how to lead ideation exercises, brainstorming to develop new ideas.  Oftentimes these sessions start with the right question; the first answers may not be the ultimate solution, but they can serve as a jumping Read more

The Power of the Pause - 6/25/24


When I’m facilitating a meeting, and it feels like it’s going off-track or the discussion is going a little longer than it should, I may say something like “let me pause the conversation so that…” or “let’s pause just for a minute and consider…” I don’t like the word STOP. Read more

Handle Interruptions Heroically - 6/18/24


In the middle of a project, Jimbo, the customer service team member, had to stop what he was doing because he received an e-mail from a customer complaining about their experience at a recent event. Later that day, Jimbo was asked by his boss to put everything on hold for Read more

From Employees to Teammates: The Shift - 6/11/24


Be a great teammate. Be a good team player. We’re all part of the team. We’re no longer employees, we’re team members! The phrase “Team” is used in describing co-workers so much more than it was used years ago.  Then, we would be talking about employees, talking about staff, talking Read more

Nurture New Relationships - 6/4/24


Freddie was a new business owner in town.  He was launching a franchise, had acquired some funding from a local bank, and was in search of staff who cared about customer service. All the while, he was in the process of renovating a storefront for his business, so he was Read more

There’s Positivity in Patience - 5/28/24


The employee at the financial services firm was working with a new client on a relatively simple loan.  The documentation was about as clear as it could get to the employee, but the customer had lots of questions.  The employee calmly, clearly, and specifically answered each question.  The meeting Read more

The Goal – A Great Experience - 5/21/24


The following is a narrative of a great experience (people, process, service, facility) at a minor league sporting event – key points that could apply to any business are in bold… Mark and I pulled into the parking lot, excited about the game.  The Slapshots had been on a roll 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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