Innovative Customer Service: How Hospitals are Bucking Tradition
In a hospital environment, who are the customers? How do we measure satisfaction? In Japan, hospitals have been focusing their efforts on promoting improved customer satisfaction, but we need to define who the customers are in order for people to understand efforts in innovation. While various hospitals promote different initiatives, one hospital stands out as an example. The following is an excerpt from a hospital director on the importance of quality customer service.
“I’ve always told my employees, “You can classify customers into five groups.” Patients (hospitalized, outpatient, and ambulatory), family, visitors, associated representatives, and local residents form the five major customer groups. In a hospital, we tend to focus on creating goodwill with patients and family members, but we forget that the other three groups exist in equal measure. Someday, these other three groups may become patients, and fostering goodwill now generates positive customer service in the future. More important, creating a positive relationship with local residents plays a vital role in our success as a hospital.”
A Lesson in Humility
“Despite my insistence on promoting customer satisfaction across all levels, there was a time when I failed to act on my own advice. As it turned out, I was the one who understood my own lessons least of all. Recently, I received an outpouring of phone calls from the local Parent Teacher’s Association. My phone rang off the hook for hours with reports and complaints from the elementary school next door. I had just that day prohibited smoking on our hospital campus, and my designated smoking area happened to coincide with the route that the elementary school shared with our facility. In essence, this meant that children and their parents would have to walk through a hazardous area simply to go to school. Parents and teachers complained, saying, ‘If there’s a smoking area on the school route, the roads will become narrower and it’s dangerous for the kids!’
“They were absolutely right. In enacting what I thought was a healthier policy for the hospital and its patients, I failed to consider the impact my decisions would have on our community right next door. I had been saying for years that a hospital’s customer base consists of five groups, but I had not put into practice what I had been telling my employees. My viewpoint and my actions hadn’t changed at all.
“Before becoming hospital director, I had been a neurosurgeon at this very hospital for 25 years. Every day, I thought only of the patients on my table and how to save their lives. I lived for one set of customers and put blinders on for the rest. Old habits die hard. Despite my role as hospital director for the past three years, in charge of the entire facility and all of its customer groups, I still hold onto my habit as a surgeon. I put patients first. I was shocked to realize that as many times as I kept repeating, ‘Think about the satisfaction of the five customer types,’ I never heard my own message.”
Breaking the Routine
Words, lessons, and actions may contradict each other. In the case of this hospital director, his actions spoke louder than his words, and they contradicted his own belief. Contradictions appear naturally and without forethought, and they lead to a real chance for innovation. Beyond a new business model, product, or service, innovation can be achieved by doing something that no one in your industry has ever done before or branching into new, unexplored territories. So what did the hospital director do to be innovative in his community and his hospital?
“Because of my humiliation over the smoking incident, I wondered if there was something I might do for our local residents. I then noticed that the concrete lid of the gutter surrounding the hospital was filled with trash that had accumulated. From then on, I began cleaning it myself twice a month with the help of my head of clinic, chief nurse, and administrative staff. It’s a small step that makes a big difference, and it sets the tone for the rest of the hospital staff. I want to set a better example for my colleagues by doing something positive for the local community.”
The hospital director’s actions, while seemingly insignificant, are innovative at their center. He could hire a janitor or a night service to clean the outside gutter, but his desire to lead by example further emphasizes his commitment to “taking care of the locals.” If we are to answer the question, “Who are the customers, and what is satisfaction?,” then we need to encourage innovation in hospital management. The time has come for hospitals to not only focus on their patients, specialties, and treatment but on their commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction as a whole.
Learn More:
