Many hospitals invest in flashy, big name customer service training programs that come on strong, seem to get everyone excited and then just as quickly fizzle out. Soon after, everything tends to fall back to business as usual at your facility as the momentum dies out. Sound familiar?
The problem is customer service is an ongoing process that requires commitment and monitoring. Just because you talk about customer service doesn’t mean your leaders have the skills to maintain the process.
While my approach to customer service training is different, with an emphasis on the hospital team discovering what works best for them, rather than a memorization techniques, the point of this article is that leadership development is just as important as the customer service program itself. It’s easy to get buy-in on the topic of “being nice,” but managing the process requires leaders to develop new skillsets to hold their team accountable for the desired outcomes.
As many facilities work to promote internal growth, having leadership development programs fosters in-house promotion and builds on the knowledge your employees have gained throughout their tenure.
Leadership development helps the leaders within your hospital gain new communication skills, problem-solving capabilities, motivational abilities, and personal appeal.
As the healthcare industry continues to rapidly change, having leaders who excel with these skills can make all the difference in how your employees respond.
Your department managers will need the proper skills to know how to manage a customer service program and to look for leading indicators that might affect patient satisfaction and HCAHPS survey scores.
If you haven’t assessed the skills of your leadership team members, then now is the time to see what you can do to not only ensure that your hospital provides the best in patient care, but the new skills for your leadership team that will support the initiative.
