Managing Your Staff: Be Specific, Not General
Here's a great training technique for practice owners who are interested in getting their staff to deliver better "customer service".
In his new book SWITCH: HOW TO CHANGE WHEN CHANGE IS HARD, author Dan Heath advises business owners to be specific when giving instructions.
He starts by telling the story of a successful entrepreneur who owned a small home remodeling business that specialized in building children's play areas. The company was known for high quality work. But, the owner got a lot of complaints from unhappy homeowners when the work crews came and went at a irregular times.
In most cases, schedule changes were due to perfectly legitimate reasons such as picking up supplies or arranging other subcontractors to meet them on the job. Unfortunately, the lack of consistent hours gave clients the impression that the workers were goofing off and undependable.
Like you, the owner of the company cared deeply how his clients felt about his service. He held meetings with the workers and told them they needed to do a better job of providing 'good customer service'.
What does 'work hard or 'be nice' really mean?
Are you guilty of the same thing in your office? Do you give your employees well meaning, but general, instructions like 'work hard' or 'be nice to patients'? If you do have job descriptions, are they open ended and difficult to measure?
Back to the contractor. He wanted a tangible action that would allow his workers to better communicate their comings and goings to homeowners. So, he tried something simple.
He instructed his crew chief to knock on the client's door each day when they arrived to inform the homeowner they were there, why they might have been delayed and what they planned to work on that day. Customer complaints dropped immediately.
How to use this technique in your practice
There is a lesson here for your practice. Be specific, not general when giving instructions.
Don't tell your staff to 'be nice' or 'work hard'. Instead, spend some time figuring out what actually constitutes 'good customer service' and then give specific instructions your staff can both understand and actually do. And, strive to judge them on activities you can readily measure.
Such as; tell the receptionist who mans the front desk they must make eye contact and greet every patient within 60 seconds entering the office. Another example; answer every phone call within three rings.
Both of these instructions translate into action steps that are easy for the staff to perform and easy for you to measure.
Best Regards,
Jerry Hayes, OD
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Disclaimer: The information and opinions contained on this site are for discussion purposes only and are NOT intended to serve as legal, accounting or investment advice. ©2010 Jerry Hayes, OD. Not to be reproduced without written permission of the author.
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