Peter Drucker certainly understood the real meaning of a great customer experience design, didn’t he? The end state quality of what the customer received was what counted. And that is true for Doctor customer experience. Including the experience the customer while he purchased the service. Often that is what was remembered the most.
Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.
–Peter Drucker
When it comes to service you purchase from your physician, most people are more tolerant and more accepting than with most other businesses. But should it be that way, though?
It shouldn’t and here is why I conclude this.
What constitutes a great customer experience?
The quality of a business’s customer experience is ultimately determined by the way customers feel after their last interaction. If the customer is unhappy, the customer experience is bad. If the customer doesn’t have a feeling one way or the other, your business’s customer experience is mediocre. If the customer feels good, your business’s customer experience is satisfactory.
But if the customer feels delighted, your business’s customer experience is a substantial competitive advantage. (See our article on the laws of customer experience) That is the only one that matters to success to most companies. Why shouldn’t it be the same for your physician’s office?
In my most recent past, I had to make a change with my general physician when my physician retired. I was very satisfied with his service and customer experience offered. I have been with my new physician for seven months and four visits to date. Here are ten customer experience comparisons between the two physicians and their office staff.
Personalization
Patients don’t want to be treated like a number. They want to feel valued, understood, and most importantly, listened to. Their belief? That the money they spend with your practice entitles them to such treatment. The differentiation of the experience your doctor delivers will, therefore, be at least in part contingent on your ability to personalize his interactions with patients.
That means knowing their name, their previously expressed health issues, or listening to the particulars of their current situation. Lots of small ways to create customer personalization.
Lots of help and directions
The entire physician’s staff should be encouraged to be ‘assertively friendly.’ They should seek out those who need help before they come looking for help. And most importantly close quickly on open actions. The new doctor’s staff are extremely slow in closing actions (up to 4-5 days) and get things wrong too many times. Not a good situation … in fact is unacceptable in my mind.
Examples of poor customer service in health care
Customers like knowing that the doctor and his staff care. Great service is the top reason customers keep giving their business to doctors and the top reason they recommend them to others. It is critical to ensure that your practice delivers great service care.
The care that results in good results and great experiences that are remembered and talked about. So far based on action item response time and errors, the new doctor, and staff indicates they care much more about the business revenue than their care and service.
Poor listeners
Two-way conversations begin with doctors and staff listening carefully before responding. They should also take care patients understand the ‘whys’ for the doctors’ decisions.
Being stuck on transmit mode in a two-way conversation won’t go anywhere fast. The new physician’s office indicates that they can’t take the time to do much explaining to patients.
Follow through lacking
If a patient is told X will be done, they should feel that it will happen. Hopefully faster and better than promised. If something unexpected happens, a good experience demands the customer be notified and kept informed. The staff is not good at putting closure dates on commitments … which is not a good sign.
Don’t meet expectations
If promises are not kept, expectations by the patient not achieved, negative experiences result. Too negative and your practice will lose the patient forever. The absolute last thing that either the practice or the new patient desire. But that is what is happening.
No interest in patient feedback
Many patients are itching to tell you how to improve. If they are not given an opportunity, it degrades the experience. Likewise, patients always feel good when they see positive improvements. Few practices that I have ever been associated with seek feedback, or notice much when it is given unsolicited.
Doctor customer experience … no personalized engagement
Doctors and staff who rarely smile and engage socially at one on one engagement are at a very serious disadvantage in being able to create a delightful customer experience. In the longer term, a practice needs to build relationships with all patients. Hard to do with no personalized engagement as with the new practice.
Time
Most people today suffer from too little time, and it is an increasingly important factor. Time is the one thing that even the richest patients doesn’t have enough of. So patients’ perceptions about your practice’s customer experience are largely influenced by time. Often the meaning correlates with convenience. This means you have to reduce the time it takes for them to:
Find you
Engage with you
Communicate their problem
For you to resolve that problem.
Both practices were about the same on this criteria.
Doctor customer experience … staff expertise
Patients need to believe that your practice’s staff are good at what they do. They must perceive that your staff is well-informed about products, services, policies, issues, and any other relevant subject matter.
So, to project their best knowledge to your patients, you have to make sure that they are fully empowered with information that’s accurate, complete, and up-to-date. And the ability and time to provide sound advice. In the new practice, it appears to me that they have too many patients leaving them with not enough time to provide good service.
You can’t neglect your patients’ experience if you want them to stay with or recommend your practice.
The bottom line
Remember, customers create the most value for you … when you create the most value for them.
Here’s the thing, social isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s a new way of running a business or a physician’s practice (which is a business isn’t it?). Many businesses certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing and improved customer experience to rapidly grow their business.
Practices that are proactively managing all elements of their patient experiences are most successful in achieving customer loyalty.
