process improvement | Customer Service Solutions, Inc. - Page 6

Home  /  Don’t Zip to the Wrong Customer Service Solution  /  process improvement

How the Customer Perceives a Truth as a Lie - 5/27/25


You’re the customer, you’re asking about an unused item that you’re returning, and you hear the employee say: “The refund process takes 7-10 days.”  You’re thinking: “Great!  I can get the refund check as early as a week from today!”  The reality is that the company means that they’ll Read more

Tell Customers What’s Next - 5/20/25


In most businesses that have been around for a while, how a process was originally designed is not how it currently operates.  Sometimes this change is referred to as “practical drift,” where the actual process moves further and further away from the documented steps over time.  Maybe the changes Read more

Questions to Guide You to Empathy - 5/13/25


“If I was him, I would do ABC…” If you’ve ever heard somebody say this - whether it’s a friend or acquaintance, whether it’s some TV reporter or podcaster - you may get as frustrated or as annoyed as I do. I get annoyed because we are not that other person. Read more

Negate the Nervousness - 5/6/25


The customer needed a loan, so he walked into the bank, but he was a little nervous.  He knew that launching his business would be easier if he had some working capital, but that’s about all he knew.  He was anxious because he didn’t know what to expect in Read more

Don’t Rush to Resolve Quickly - 4/29/25


The customer is angry, so you use the CSS LEAD technique as designed.  You, listen, empathize, accept responsibility, and deliver on a remedy.  But it doesn’t work.  The customer is still upset, and maybe even a little more frustrated than when you started…why?! If the use of this technique fails, Read more

Energy v. Apathy - 4/22/25


I asked a couple friends who are much more scientifically-oriented the question: What is energy?  I didn’t mean E=MC2.  I meant physiologically, what is energy? They described a lot of things that sounded really good, yet far too advanced for my non-medical mind. Part of the reason why energy is of Read more

Prep Enough to Personalize - 4/15/25


Everybody loves Howie.  He is an account rep for the local air conditioning and heating company.  When I say Everybody loves Howie, I’m definitely talking about the customers.  His co-workers love him too, but customers are especially fond of him.  They seem to really enjoy their conversations with him, Read more

Get Your Customers to Brag, Not Bolt - 4/8/25


Here are two customer retention concepts that we discuss with some sports clients: BIRG and CORF.  BIRG is Basking In Reflected Glory.  CORF is Cutting Off Reflected Failure. You want BIRG.  You want the customers feeling so good about your organization that they want to be a part of your Read more

Narrow Your Focus to Seek Excellence - 4/1/25


You’ve probably heard companies use phrases such as: “We want to go from being good to great.”  Maybe they’ve said: “We strive for perfection, and although we’ll never reach perfection, maybe we can achieve excellence along the way.” These organizations find some kind of a catch phrase or slogan, but Read more

Avoid the Unfriendly Ghost - 3/25/25


Last week we talked about the qualities of “PERKI Customer Service,” essentially what attitudes and actions are characteristics of those who provide great customer service.  This week, let’s take the opposite approach.  What are some of the mistakes that people make?  Maybe these are mistakes of omission or commission; Read more

•••••

Don’t Zip to the Wrong Customer Service Solution

Posted on August 20, 2013 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

Instead of renting or buying a car, why not share it? That’s the premise of Zipcar – an organization using a “Blue Ocean” strategy to build a business.

And like every business, the customer’s experience is not all about the product; the employee attitudes and process impact overall perceptions and loyalty (and $$). So an Adweek article like Zipcar’s Customer Service Gets Horrible Reviews is the last thing a growing business needs.

However, what’s most interesting about the article is what some business experts suggest that Zipcar should do to improve the experience. In response to complaints about “dirty cars, rude reps, unreturned emails, last-minute changes,” advice is given such as “how about a lighthearted phone app where customers report the quality of the car they are picking up or returning.” So customers would report the cars are dirty? We already know there are dirty cars…

How about this advice – “Customers could be alerted that Zipcar is rating them internally and that bad ratings could result in fines or having their Zipcar membership revoked.” So we penalize the customers for bad ratings? So we want to artificially increase ratings?

These bits of advice are classic of people jumping from symptom to solution (create an app and punish customers?) without giving consideration for the root cause. Zipcar needs to ask why are cars dirty, why are reps rude, why are e-mails not being returned, and why are changes done last minute? Find the root cause, and the solution becomes much more clear. The solutions will probably deal with employee hiring/training/motivation/accountability, process improvements, better tracking of documents/vehicles (and yes, customers).

When you have an issue, “There’s an app for that” is rarely the best answer.

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


How to Sustain High Patient Satisfaction

Posted on January 16, 2013 in Business Advice, Healthcare Please leave a comment

In the article Hospitals struggle with pay based on patient satisfaction, the article notes how hospitals are undergoing many efforts to improve customer service and the patient experience since a portion of their reimbursement is based on patient satisfaction. There is talk of lattes, valet parking, and noise reduction. Nice tactics and perks, but it’s still a struggle to make a noticeable improvement.

So why the difficulty? As with any business, to succeed in a hospital-wide initiative on a sustained basis, several aspects of the organization need to be consistently addressed:

  • Leadership buys in to the effort, preaches, and walks the talk.
  • The organization dedicates resources to the effort.
  • Management and staff are hired, trained, incented, and held accountable for how well they deliver on the initiative.
  • Processes and organizational structures support the ultimate goal.
  • The organization communicates internally and externally to promote the objectives and successes.
  • The business truly knows how it’s doing – it measures, measures, measures – listening to the voices of the customers and employees.

It’s never easy to get everybody on the same page, going in the same direction. But since that’s necessary to ensure high levels of patient satisfaction, hospitals need a comprehensive, intentional, documented strategy for patient satisfaction success.

Don’t keep pushing tactics and perks to create a customer-focused culture. Address these core components of sustainable success.

Interested in improving your hospital’s patient satisfaction? See more at: http://cssamerica.com/csshealth.htm


A Face Lift…for Your Patient Satisfaction

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

When measuring patient satisfaction, healthcare organizations often make two key errors. First, they focus on measuring how often something happens? For example, How frequently did the nurse check on you? How often did they ask about pain? How many times did they clean the room? While these functions are important, the quality of the interaction and care provided are just as important if not more so. Also, some patients want to be checked on continuously and others want to be told how long the wait will be until the next step and only checked on when there may be a delay. So measuring frequency alone limits what you can learn, and it can point an organization down the wrong road in their improvement efforts.

The second error? Focusing too much on employee attitudes. Yes, these attitudes have a huge impact on patient satisfaction, but the best attitude in the world cannot overcome inordinately long waits, redundant paperwork, lack of responsiveness, poor quality food, lack of cleanliness, and unacceptable patient care. Attitudes are but a piece of the patient satisfaction puzzle.

In the article, Dr. Patti Flint Touts Importance of Surveys to Improve Patient Experience, an Arizona plastic surgeon is highlighted because of her improvement in patient care – which she notes as having been driven by the results of patient satisfaction surveys. But what’s interesting about the surveys is that much of the focus was on measuring patient perceptions of key touch points in the care process. According to the article, “Because every interaction from the first phone call to the last follow-up appointment factors into a patient’s overall satisfaction, each point of patient contact is scrutinized for ways to improve the patient experience. Creating a positive atmosphere for her patients involves the entire staff at Patti Flint MD PC, and survey responses lead to constant innovation in practice procedures.”

When asking patients to evaluate their experience, address employee Attitudes, Processes, and the Quality of the Services provided. But don’t just look for overall evaluations. Get the patient and their family to evaluate key contact points through the entire process.

Understand where communications flowed well and didn’t. Learn how hand-offs of the patient and their information from one step to another worked…and didn’t. Identify what needs improvement in the entire service delivery chain…and doesn’t.

To give your patient satisfaction a face lift, first start by understanding all the steps involved in the patient experience through the customer’s eyes.

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 Patient Satisfaction Evaluation and Improvement Services at http://cssamerica.com/csshealth.htm


« Previous   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ... 21 22   Next »