Close your eyes, just for a moment, and imagine this . . . complimentary valet parking . . . a smiling face at the reception desk . . . clean, comfortable guest rooms . . . personalized menus . . . and an always courteous, attentive staff at your service around the clock. Sure, it sounds like the kind of treatment you’d receive at a five-star hotel. But the truth is, you could be checking in for a procedure at a local hospital.

As competition intensifies, hospitals and medical centers are realizing that they need to do more than provide outstanding medical treatment to attract patients. And with the Baby Boomers entering their 60s, health care organizations must build strong relationships with a growing customer base that will require increasing amounts of medical care—and comforting—over the next 30 or more years. Organizations that fail to meet these challenges will suffer from declining patient volume and shrinking revenues.

How does a health care facility transform itself from low frills to high touch—and improve its patient census and financial health? How does it create or enhance a culture of customer service excellence? Well, it all starts with a simple equation:

 Customer Experience    =  Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty
Customer Expectations 

What’s Your Experience?

Customers have certain expectations about the type of service and treatment they’ll receive, whether they’re dining at a fine restaurant or entering a local hospital. If the actual experience goes as expected—or better—it adds up to a positive result. But if the experience falls short of the expectation, well that’s a different story. Our goal here is to ensure the customer is satisfied and more.

Speaking of expectations, almost no one goes to a hospital looking for a good time. Even the simplest test can create high anxiety. Which is why health care facilities need to roll out the red carpet treatment even before patients walk through the doors. While patients do pick up clues and form opinions from a facility’s general appearance, upkeep and other physical factors, they are far more likely to base their strongest and most-lasting impressions on interactions with staff. Let’s take a look at how everyone from greeters to the CEO can help deliver an experience that equals or exceeds patient expectations.

Your Best Face Forward

At DDI, we do meticulous research. But you don’t have to crunch the numbers to come up with this conclusion: hospital patients, much like customers in other industries, seldom encounter anyone from management during a visit. We’re not saying that leadership is in hiding. Their responsibilities just don’t take them to the clinics, waiting rooms, ER or other places where patients are. Instead, an organization’s foremost impression makers are its frontline staff—everyone from nurses and X-ray technicians to food service workers and housekeeping staff. Along with their normal duties, these folks perform another vital role as the organization’s customer service ambassadors. And they should be properly prepared and equipped for the task.

We’ve identified four critical success factors for driving service excellence. If you pay attention to these, you’ll ensure your frontline employees become first-class service providers.

• Motivation: Hospital work is never easy, whatever the job. Your staff must possess something beyond technical skills and certifications to help create a culture of top-notch customer service—the desire to work in one of the most stressful and rewarding environments imaginable. Compared to co-workers who say “it’s just a job,” motivated employees are more likely to want to deliver a superior service experience to your patients.

• Service Skills: You’re either born with talent, or not. But customer service skills can be learned—by anyone. Maintenance, dietary, housekeeping and other non-medical staff account for the majority of hospital hires. Instilling or improving service skills for all staff who interact with patients and their families is essential.

• Teamwork: People don’t always get along at work. Sometimes, they aren’t sure how their jobs mesh with those of their colleagues. As a result, serious customer service gaps can occur. During an average hospital visit, a patient might encounter 40 to 50 different employees, each of whom must be working together to ensure that the patient doesn’t feel neglected or taken for granted. Why is teamwork important? Because studies show that “How well the staff worked together” is the number-one driver behind a patient’s likelihood to recommend a hospital.

• Accountability: Whether it’s an admissions representative or a phlebotomist, each hospital employee must understand that his or her customer service responsibility extends far beyond a specific job description. If a parking attendant notices that the restrooms need a cleaning, he needs to inform the director of housekeeping. Likewise, a nurse who notices that some colleagues are taking shortcuts must discuss that issue with the colleague or a supervisor. Accountability starts with every staff member—but it doesn’t end there.

Even though frontline staff is instrumental in providing excellent customer service, leadership at all levels must create and nurture an environment in which it can survive.

Take Me to Your Leaders

Though they may not be in the daily customer service limelight, a hospital’s leaders certainly play large roles behind the scenes—and sometimes at center stage. Starting from the top, let’s examine how three levels of leadership fit into the picture:

• Strategic leaders: These are the major players. The CEO and COO and CFO. Senior leaders who must make a strong commitment to improving patient satisfaction and fostering a culture of excellence. They can make the big decisions and smooth the road to success. Without their backing, it is unlikely that your service culture initiative will be successful.

• Operational leaders: They are the leaders of leaders. Call them directors or managers, this group is directly responsible for creating a culture of excellence throughout the hospital—and preparing their direct reports to drive customer service across departments and service units.

• People leaders: These leaders are on the front lines as supervisors of nurses, food service workers, transportation staff, and hundreds of other employees who interact with patients throughout the day. They must model excellent customer skills for their employees—and coach and reinforce them with the people they lead.

Whatever the level, leaders who strongly commit to creating a culture of excellence can inspire their staffs to develop, refine, and practice superior customer service skills. Learn how leaders at one medical center did just that.

Five-Star Hospitality

Dennis Klima had a vision. After a stay at a luxury hotel below the Mason-Dixon Line, the CEO of Bayhealth Medical Center in Dover, Delaware, decided to make the hospital a provider of choice for patients in the surrounding area. Formed in 1997 by the merger of two community hospitals, Bayhealth was losing customers to larger, more established medical centers. As Bayhealth added medical services to match it competitors, Klima and other top leaders decided to trump the organization’s rivals by outpacing them in customer service.

“Our thrust was to create an awareness internally about customer service, while we were creating public awareness of our goal to be the premier provider of customer service in the region,” says Rich Butto, Bayhealth’s assistant vice president of customer service. “We wanted to increase patient satisfaction by at least 5 percent in the initiative’s first year and implement six or seven new customer service amenities.”

Two key moves in Bayhealth’s five-year plan, which started in 2001, involved establishing a customer service department and hiring Butto as its leader. Then, he and others searched for a partner company to help Bayhealth reach it goals. Along the way, they evaluated three organizations before making a decision.

“We chose DDI because they provided the structure we needed to get started. They helped us build the skill sets we needed to make significant early progress and sustain it.”

When Bayhealth rolled out the customer service campaign, patient satisfaction stood at 70 percent. Today, that is an amazing 92 percent. Along with listening to and acting upon patient suggestions, Bayhealth gives patients something they don’t get at other health care facilities.

“In most health care settings, patients have no control,” says Butto. “They have very little say about anything concerning them during their stay in a hospital. At Bayhealth, we put more control in the patients’ hands. If they want to have a family member stay with them overnight, we do everything possible to accommodate that wish. When dietary concerns allow, we will prepare special meals that are not on our daily menus. If you want a cheeseburger and your doctor says it’s okay, we will make it. In some cases, family members can stay with a patient during a procedure, even in the emergency department. When patients feel they have more control, they’re more likely to be satisfied with their hospital experience.”

With a structured customer service approach, improved skill sets and buy-in from the staff and senior management, Bayhealth now delivers five-star service with southern hospitality. In fact, according to Butto, the organization surpassed its five-year plan goals far ahead of schedule.

“People in the region realize that Bayhealth provides excellent medical facilities and care,” he says. “Now they’re starting to understand that we provide the best customer service, too.”

Create Your Culture Now

There’s no point in waiting to establish a culture of excellent customer service in your organization. Strong patient satisfaction leads to ongoing loyalty. And loyal customers will relate to your organization and your staff in positive way, return to your hospital when they need additional health care services, and refer others to the facility.

Rest assured that the journey to excellence isn’t always easy. In many cases, the first benefits start to appear 6-12 months after the initiative starts. The wait is worthwhile, however, because the change in attitudes and behaviors is long lasting—as is the satisfaction your patients will experience and the loyalty with which they will reward you.

To learn more about creating a culture of excellence in your health care organization, join Jim Davis and Rich Butto for an exclusive DDI Webinar, “Creating a Culture of Service Excellence: The Keys to Success,” on March 22, 2006, from 1-2:15 p.m. Eastern. For more information or to register, click here or call 1-800-933-4463. 

About the Author
Jim Davis, Vice President, Workforce and Service Development, DDI, is a high-impact speaker and nationally recognized thought leader on helping organizations meet their customer satisfaction and loyalty goals. Jim helps organizations to create customer-centric cultures, and provides ongoing consulting support to clients related to their strategies of acquiring and retaining employees and customers. Jim.Davis@ddiworld.com