Improving Customer Service with Accommodations and Recognition

Sometimes in life it is the little things that provide for a positive reputation with patients and our communities. There is little money required for each of us to place ourselves in the patient's role and ask ourselves how we would like to be treated. Some areas where little to no cost customer service improvements can be made are in scheduling, face-to-face- encounters, and with setting and managing expectations. Employees should be encouraged to end each conversation with an expression of gratitude, whether ending a telephone call or showing a patient to the exit-the tone with which a patient encounter ends is as important as how it begins.