A recent experience as a customer triggered my memory to last summer when my wife had a little biking accident and we ended up in the ER in Eagle River, WI. We got to the hospital, there was one other person in the ER and it still took over an hour to find out she sprained her wrist.
Is that the level of service and impression you want to make on your customers? The hospital is a controlled environment. They claim to be into cost reductions and maybe they are, but they’re not into making the customer (patient) experience fast and enjoyable.
I can suggest three easy things to change this:
- When someone comes in with a spouse or family member let the spouse give all the information while the patient is seen simultaneously.
- Explain when there will be a delay, especially when the whole place is pretty empty.
- Create a sense of urgency to get non-life threatening cases pushed through ASAP.
The last point references the fact that this is really a people issue. Whether it’s management or staff I don’t know, but there’s obviously a culture of “we work at our pace, not for your expediency.”
