Customer Service in Health Care

What differentiates your facility, agency or company from the ones down the street or across town? What will make your company stand out when people are shopping for nursing homes, assisted living, home health or hospice? It seems like many places offer similar services. Good care, therapy, food, activities, and so on. When I walk into a facility for the first time and talk to the staff, I will ask them “What makes you better?” and they usually say “We offer great care!” or “We have the best therapy department in town”. These do not make you different or better. People expect great care and therapy, food and activities, as well as a nice environment. These are “expected”. Great customer service, hospitality and professionalism are the real things that separate you from your competitors.

What is Great Customer Service?

Delivering mind-blowing, over the top customer service is so simple, I am amazed that more health care professionals don’t deliver it. It’s old fashioned, tender, loving care. It’s providing individual attention to one person at a time. But, it is also more than this – great customer service involves over-delivering and far exceeding what anyone expects. When you go out of your way to serve the needs of someone – residents, patient, or clients, their families, venders, and your own employees – you are providing great customer service. It’s rather simple, isn’t it?

Great customer service is like Vegas – it never sleeps! It takes place around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It should never slow down or come to a stop. There is never a good time to not deliver great customer service. All three shifts should deliver the same care, attention and love. If you provide customer service like this, your facility will stand apart from all others. Great customer service is beneficial for you, the people you care for, and their families. It will also improve your bottom line.

The Golden Rule

There is an unspoken Golden Rule of customer service and hospitality that we sometimes forget about. The Golden Rule is this – never micromanage your employees on how to deliver customer service. Why? Because it must come from their heart. You can show them different ways of speaking and acting, but you cannot train them to care. Instead of micromanaging them, empower them to care from their hearts and deliver their brand of customer service as genuinely as they can. Employees working most closely with residents, patients, or clients should make their own decisions to take care of immediate customer service requests and care. This is truly person-centered care.

Why do Customers Get Upset?

This isn’t rocket science, either. Why do you get upset when you are on the other side and you’re the customer receiving services? Are your requests ignored? Were you treated unfairly or perhaps with an “I don’t care” attitude? This is called indifference and no one likes to feel this way. You and I are customers all the time. Just put yourself in their shoes. Our patients, residents and clients (and not to mention families and vendors) get upset for the following reasons:

• Basic expectations were not met
• Someone was rude
• Someone was indifferent
• No one listened
• No one paid attention
• Staff were overheard complaining
• Staff admitted they were working short
• Staff did not act with professionalism
• Staff did not act with compassion
• Staff were negative

I could go on with the many ways we fail at delivering great customer service, but you get the point. So, how do we deliver this high level of customer service, hospitality and professionalism?

Elements of Superior Customer Service

While I cannot cover all factors of great service, I’d like to focus on some of the easiest, no-brainer methods of delivering great customer service. First and foremost, be genuine and clearly communicate to your care recipients. Make them feel understood, liked or better yet, loved, respected, helped or assisted, and appreciated. They are the reason you’re there, isn’t it? Develop trusting, real relationships with your care recipients. Make them feel as though they can trust you, you will offer them support, that they are not a burden, and that you really, truly care about them. If you already feel this way – you’re way ahead in terms of delivering phenomenal customer service.

Final Words on Customer Service in Health Care

This is a do or die topic. Since everyone out there offers very similar services, it is your staff and their level of service that will make or break you, your bottom line and your reputation. It takes a long time to gain the trust of the community and only seconds to destroy it with service failures. Stand apart from everyone else out there. Don’t just deliver care – be care. Don’t offer customer service – be customer service. Get it?

More About Customer Service

• Customer Service from the Heart
• Working with Challenging Families
• Hospitality in Senior Care