The Importance of Teaching the "How"

In two completely independent situations, I was recently confronted by leaders of healthcare organizations who were very down on customer service, stating that they had implemented every best practice that is out there (rounding, discharge calls, scripting, etc.) and nothing had moved their scores. They both swore that they had nearly 100 percent compliance on the actions and they had documentation to prove it.

Taking these statements as fact, the conversations were steered toward the quality of the actions. What training or measurements were in place to ensure that all staff were doing these best practices in a way that best communicated to the patient that they cared? Ultimately, the finding was that very little focus was put on how to do the best practices, and instead many of these initiatives had been rolled out with very little training.

In customer service, just doing something doesn't necessarily mean that you get, or even deserve, an excellent rating from your customers. And for many individuals, they need training, practice and validation to make new patient interactions become comfortable and sincere. A few months ago, I was at a local grocery store and while checking out, the young woman tried to engage me in conversation, as many register employees will do. "Did you find everything okay?" she asked. "Yes," I replied. "Are you watching the Husker game this afternoon?" "Of course," I answered. "Any big plans for tomorrow?" she asked. At this point, the conversation was quite uncomfortable for me, but not because of the questions themselves. She was struggling to make conversation and ultimately didn't seem to care about the answers I was giving. I could see that she wasn't sure what else to ask me, and the belt full of groceries was making her nervous about the looming silence. She ultimately sensed my discomfort, and at that moment, she probably did the best thing she could have to recover the situation. She blurted out, "My boss told me today that I need to talk with the customers or I'll be fired, and I'm just not very good at it!"

Now, to be clear, I am not advocating that employees share their trial and tribulations with customers, because frankly, they don't want to hear them. But in this instance, her sharing her personal struggles with me, broke the ice, and ultimately led to a positive interaction. Further, she was learning and seemed to have an interest in doing better, and I give her credit for that.

When it comes to customer service, how well an action is done is equally important to the action itself. If you feel that a best practice (especially those that have been proven successful over and over again) didn't work to improve patient perceptions in your department, I urge you to try again. This time, develop strategies for training staff on the patient interaction, identify top performers that others can observe, and find ways to evaluate the quality and not just the quantity. Further, remember that it may take some time for your staff to get comfortable with the new interactions, so don't give up too quickly.