Are You Telling Customers You Don’t Care if They Die?
If you have kids, you know the nauseating feeling of one of your kids going down for the count and having to rush to the emergency room. I had that wonderful experience very recently. What I learned from that visit to the ER is businesses can make very strong statements about how little they care about their customers simply through the processes they use to run the organization.
I’m betting you have a few standard business processes that leave your customers and prospects feeling like you don’t care if they die. First let’s understand the ER story then evaluate how it might apply to your organization. Yes, I’m back on the kick of talking about how stupid policies can destroy customer relationships.
My daughter was curled up in a ball on our couch. She was grabbing her stomach and howling in pain. After a quick set of questions, I made the decision to take her to the ER. I’ve done some consulting work in health care so I understand and appreciate that the ER is also a business.
Once we arrived, she laid down on a couch howling in pain while I was subjected to a barrage of questions to get her registered. Net time: 5 minutes. We then headed to triage. That’s when it started getting stupid and infuriating.
The nurse in triage asked a few questions and pecked at her laptop. Then the laptop wasn’t working. She rebooted. Howling continued. Nurse pecking. Laptop not working. Call to Tech Support. Howling. Tech support lady arrives. Goes to swap out laptop for a new one. Howling. Reboot. 10 minutes. “Oh gee, I’ll just take notes on my notepad instead!” (Nurse = not a genius). New laptop. 5 more minutes of pecking. Wheeled off to a treatment room.
Next nurse. Temperature. BP. Pecking. Laptop version of 20 questions. Pecking. Howling. “Oh I forgot, what was your temp? Did I already take it?” Pecking. Howling.
Now here’s the part where I almost snapped. Registration lady wheels in her laptop. 20 questions for dad. Insurance company? Address? Cell phone? Howling. Employer? Mom’s occupation? Can I see your insurance card? Oh, I need you to take it out of your wallet so I can scan it. Oh, I can’t read it, can you read these numbers? Howling. I also need your driver’s license. You know we’re out of network so you’ll have a $100 copay, right? Howling. How will you be paying? Credit card? Okay. Howling. Can I have your credit card now? *swipes* Here’s your receipt. Howling. The doctor will be in in a little while.
HOLY ^%&&$&%^$@^%*&*! YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME! This was an exercise in process run amok. Sure all these things have to happen. I understand having to pay and that you need all my contact info, etc. but let’s talk priorities people! You have a kid howling in pain and you’re more concerned with getting a scan of my insurance card and swiping my Visa before you call the doctor? That process flow just screams “We don’t care about your (the customer’s) problem. We just want to fill out our forms and get our required information and money.”
I know many of you are reading this and shaking your heads. You’ve probably had similar experiences in hospitals along the way. Here’s the rub – I’ll bet customers, prospects, and candidates have had similar experiences with YOUR business too. No? Answer these questions honestly then:
– When candidates apply for a job, do we ask for reams of information before we ask a single question about what they’re interested in?
– When a prospect wants to become a customer, is the first thing we shove in their face a 47 page contract or nondisclosure agreement? Do we ask them to fill out a massive credit application or to provide nauseating amounts of background information on their company?
– When a new hire joins our firm, do we spend their first full day having them fill out forms and reading bureaucratic policies?
I’ll bet you’re shaking your head again. As much as I hate being cliche, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Is the first impression your firm makes a bureaucratic, risk averse, don’t care about the other person just care about our paperwork and getting our money impression? What are you doing to demonstrate you understand the customer’s perspective and needs?
Sure process has a place. But that place should be AFTER you’ve established some rapport and relationship with the other party. AFTER you’ve tried to understand their needs and concerns. AFTER they’ve become sold on working with you. Then yes, let the paper shuffle begin. But for crying out loud, DON’T send the message that a scan of an insurance card is more important than the pain they’re in.
I’m sure you have analogs in your business. Go reevaluate the processes you use when you’re dealing with clients, prospects, new hires, and anyone else your business works with. You might be surprised by the message you’re conveying just by having your process steps out of order…
What do you think? How have you seen process take primacy over relationship? What techniques do you use to prevent this from happening?
And yes, my daughter is okay. Thank you for asking. I’m glad you care because Registration Lady clearly didn’t.
I actually manage the inpatient and surgical admitting team for one of our local hospitals. It is extremely easy to get caught up in the demographic and insurance information, but establishing a relationship with the patient can completely change the patient's perspective and outlook on their visit, especially with children. Last week a woman walked into the office to pre-register for surgery with her daughter. The child was extremely happy and continued to talk to the receptionist as she tried to explain the medical history form to the patient. The mother then turned to her child and said "her boss doesn't pay her to play with children." I told her that actually we do. If we can make the patient's, or their families, experience a little happier it makes our job easier. By playing with her daughter, the patient was able to complete her paperwork quickly, and if it relieves a little stress in her day, then we have done our job. In healthcare we ask a lot of personal questions, and to top it off we ask for large sums of money. I personally like to establish a little rapport before I turn over my life history.
Great post Mike. I wish the CEO of that hospital would meet the CEO of the hospital referenced in this story: http://tinyurl.com/yeuzmlq
I understand Karavickery's points because a very good friend is an ER doctor. However, as I read the story I kept thinking, no matter what the answers to the questions they were going to treat your daughter so why not get on with it. After all, you were not going anywhere as long as she was at the hospital. How would treating her without answers been different than her coming in because of a single car accident with no family? They'd do what they had to do so why not have the same approach with your daughter to relieve the pain? Oh well, at least you have a potential client now!
I have two comments:
1. I find myself thinking that hospitals should start using Net Promoter Score surveys to better gage their performance in the customer's eyes. Our organization has been using it for two years, and we have improved 15 points just from having employees know that customers may be surveyed.
2. In Jim Womacks's book "Lean Solutions" he demonstrates a process map for service that looks at each process step in terms of how it effects the customer. I thought this was very innovative. In manufacturing the product only effects the customer at the very end of the process. However, in service, the customer is oftentimes part of the process and the end result is not the only thing that is important. This is a key difference between manufacturing and service, and it definitely needs more focus.
I’ve been ranting about this for months now. Mostly because I work in the public sector, where we all took jobs to “make the world a better place” or “help people.” And then I see the roadblocks, the barriers, the dehumanizing procedures. Thanks for writing this. Glad to know it is a function of modern life, but I believe we can all do better.