Is it just us or have you noticed how as consumers we have to be more diligent than ever if we want to keep from getting fleeced? Is it intentional dishonesty when the sale price doesn’t ring up at the grocery store or that you have to contact the cable company every six months to get the “special rate”? Is it simply incompetence when your bank reward dollars end up in another account or an online company says they can’t process a refund for 60 days? (more…)
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Struggling to Keep Pennies in Our Own Pocket
Monday, October 24th, 2011Customers don’t want to hear about company rules
Friday, August 19th, 2011Customers don’t like rules – so one “turn on” is to avoid ever mentioning your business’s rules – in fact, avoid having any rules where customers are concerned.
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Acknowledging Customers Immediately is a Critical First Step in Establishing a Relationship
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011Our healthcare mystery shopping has shown that there is nothing more important in a customer/employee encounter than the first few seconds when the customer chooses to engage an employee. And acknowledging customers is perhaps the most important customer service behavior because it serves as the starting point for every encounter. (more…)
Customer Service Building Block II: Hiring
Monday, August 8th, 2011Organizations that believe in service excellence need to be selective in who they hire. The first sign that the organization is willing to carry out commitment is the implementation of a more discriminating hiring practice. This needs to coincide with a fundamental change in the kind of people hired. For instance, do prospects like interacting with other people? Have they had success providing service in the past? Are they team players and do they understand what motivates consumers?
The Reason Hiring Efforts Succeed: People who like customers are hired – The right people are now in place – Customer satisfaction increases because customers are responding to more customer-friendly behavior – Customer service becomes a competitive advantage.
The Reason They Fail: The criteria for hiring people shifts away from customer service and gravitates to more operational considerations – People who “don’t like people” are attracted to the organization because less is required of them.
“Fake it ’til you make it” only goes so far in customer service
Friday, August 5th, 2011I believe strongly that employees can be encouraged and/or trained to “fake it ’til you make it,” but in the end, patients respond most to a sincere expression of love either for the patient or their job. Shortly after we started conducting Deep Dives, I started asking nurses if they had a personal philosophy of care. By that I mean something that explains why they do what they do and how it affects their approach to patients. What I found is that experienced nurses could usually articulate what their mission was, whereas, younger nurses were still looking at it as a job. (more…)
Support for ‘Love Your Patients!’
Thursday, August 4th, 2011I am in the process of reading Love Your Patients! written by Scott Louis Diering, M.D. Doctor Diering is an Emergency medicine doctor and founder of Love Your Patients, Inc. It’s the kind of book I like to savor because his thoughts parallel what we have championed here at Perception Strategies for the past 13 and 1/2 years. One such parallel is our concern for a one-size-fits-all approach to customer service. Dr. Diering has a similar opinion when it comes to touching patients. He writes, “Only at our work do we touch our customers as part of the job. How we touch our patients makes all the difference.” He goes on to say, “Every time we touch someone, it should be a special touch, just for the patient. One touch does not fit all.”
Even though the idea of loving your patients shouldn’t be revolutionary, in reality it is. The hundreds of thousands of encounters we have experienced through healthcare mystery shopping shows us that a small minority of very successful employees work at a level of service that transcends the details of the experience. Everything they do is perfect because their warmth and sincerity overwhelm you. Shoppers may use other words to describe this phenomenon, but it is love they are feeling.
More on Love Your Patients! later.
Customer Turn On #1 – Make it all about the customer
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011Customers respond favorably to a stranger (employee) seemingly making it his or her goal in life to intently focus on their needs. It is an emotional high to perceive that another human being cares that much about you. It makes people feel special. From Turn Your Customer On: 23 Ways to Motivate Employees and Make Customers Love You (Amazon) by Billingsley & Billingsley, owners of the healthcare mystery shopping company Perception Strategies.
Dive Deep to see lasting results
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011To keep staff performing at their best, removing people, process or environmental barriers must be one of the organization’s highest priorities. Perception Strategies conducts and analyzes Deep Dives as a means of identifying and removing barriers to employee satisfaction. This process has shown dramatic, and, in many cases, immediate changes in patient satisfaction.
“If I have to go to work one more day and face the same issue, I’m going to call in sick. Know one ever does anything about it!”
If happy employees equal happy patients, then the situation above signals that consumers may experience less than stellar behavior from that employee. If enough employees within a department or unit feel that way, the situation becomes a cultural issue affecting everyone’s behavior.
An added twist is that employees tell us time and time again that they have simply learned to live with whatever is grinding them. But are they really? The truth is their dissatisfaction has been pushed into their subconscious and they are unintentionally taking it out on consumers. Deep Dives are the way to break through draining and unnecessary barriers to give employees the emotional freedom to focus on the consumer.
Customer Service Building Block I: Commitment
Monday, August 1st, 2011(The following is part of a brief series we will run over the next few weeks) Without management’s declaration that customer service is vital to the success of the business, nothing of lasting value will ever be achieved. Customer service excellence is a cultural phenomenon. It is based on keeping the customer top-of-mind every minute of the day. In fact, companies that launch customer service “initiatives” are acknowledging that no such culture exists and they are painstakingly trying to light the fire. (more…)
For departments run aground, Perception Strategies’ DEEP DIVES help chart a new course
Monday, August 1st, 2011If happy employees equal happy customers, removing barriers to employee satisfaction must be a service organization’s highest priority. After successfully conducting Employee Perception DEEP DIVES for clients for over two years, Perception Strategies is now offering this unique and comprehensive service to organization’s that seek to transform underperforming departments.
“An Employee Perception Deep Dive has at its core one-on-one interviews with every employee in an underperforming department,” said Perception Strategies’ President Kevin Billingsley. “But on a more macro level, organizations can experience positive, cultural changes as a result of quickly addressing the issues brought to light by the ‘people in the trenches’ and holding management accountable for making changes.”
“We have seen departments make dramatic 20-30% positive swings in customer satisfaction scores almost immediately,” said Billingsley. As a result, organizations are able to leverage the department’s strengths and develop their weaknesses based on individual observations and feedback.
“What impressed me the most,” said Linda Hovest, Nursing Manager at St. Rita’s Medical Center, “is that Perception Strategies follows up with tools that specifically target the issues whether it is management coaching, process improvement, or training. They have a passion for making real change occur.”
The DEEP DIVE program is specifically designed to:
- Identify and remove barriers to employee satisfaction in order to improve consumer satisfaction
- Direct managers through the process by prioritizing findings and presenting specific recommendations
- Emphasizes People, Place and Process improvement through a 30-60-90-day accountability plan
- Provide solution-based best practices to address issues raised by the DEEP DIVES
Why are Deep Dives so effective? “In contrast to other employee feedback instruments,” said Vice President Brooke Billingsley, “employees do not perceive Deep Dives as another universal “withdrawal” program of asking them for input and then not acting on it. It is made clear to all participants that their feedback is anonymous and that the focus is clearly on issues affecting their immediate unit or department. As a result, they have greater trust in the process because it is about them.”
Perception Strategies’ Deep Dives take an objective approach by allowing issues to surface during the course of interviews rather than being briefed by management on why a department was selected. Addressing employee concerns and tackling tough issues also creates win/win scenarios between employees, management and ultimately consumers. Deep Dives allow managers to level the playing field and start making “deposits” with staff.
“It’s easy to initiate just about anything,” said Brooke Billingsley, “but the true test of the Deep Dive program is accountability. We are committed to working with an organization to follow these customer satisfaction issues to a cultural changing end.”