Although good customer service and guest relations skills come naturally to some, most hospital team members need training to create a great patient experience. This is not true for only newbies, but seasoned professionals as well.
When it comes to patient satisfaction, everyone in your hospital has a stake in the game. If your patients are not happy, it affects your reputation and bottom line.
Building a customer-driven organization will require strong leadership and long-term support. It also will require many members of the leadership team to develop new and different skill sets – perhaps significantly different than for what their education and training prepared them.
As the old phrase goes, “out of sight, out of mind.” This is especially true for those in the service industry—including hospitals. If customer service and patient satisfaction is not an everyday conversation, then it will eventually slack.
Training is a process.
You see, customer service is more than just “smiles-in-the-hall” or a motivational pep talk once a quarter. It is a process and a system that will require commitment and even trial and error.
As with any process, it needs to be sustained by a program that will keep your team actively engaged and accountable for the progress made. Your customer service program needs to be motivational while developing your team into one with stronger skills.
Hospital-wide buy-in is important.
Getting your team members committed to improving the patient experience is critical. It takes one rogue staff member to break the foundation that you’re building.
This is typically truer for those who have been with your hospital for a lengthy period of time—10 or 20 years. Old habits are hard to break, so working with these tenured employees is important to making your customer service program a success.
Interactive is key.
Many organizations subscribe to DVDs and webinar-type programs that are, frankly, boring! Just ask your team members how they truly feel and you will soon discover that these impersonal approaches are less than effective.
In-person training is a lot more affordable than you might think. For example, with SRJ, your facility can experience a live, interactive seminar on a monthly basis for a year at a fraction of what the “big box” trainers will provide. Key phrase here is “live, interactive seminar”.
Successful hospitals have an on-going customer service and leadership development training program to keep these topics top-of-mind amongst team members. Keeping everyone continuously talking and accountable will create change that you need.
Curious about our approach to customer service and leadership development training? Give us a call at 214-528-5775 to learn all about our Circle of Success™. Your facility might even qualify for a free, no-risk training program to experience first-hand how we can help your patient satisfaction scores.
Give us a call. You’ll be glad you did!
