Barriers To Great Service

From the Far Eastern Shore of Maryland

I was with a dentist client of mine a couple weeks ago. He was having trouble with complaints about his waiting room and reception team. When his patients were getting back to the treatment room, they were less than enthused and seemed to be downright grumpy.

So, I sat in the waiting area and observed the front office team at work. Oofda!

A giant barrier between you and your clients

To paint you the picture, their reception desk had to be at least five feet tall. It was like a fortress around the employees. The only thing that was missing were the parapets and castle tower.

When a patient walked in the front door, all they could see was the tops of the heads of the workers. They all looked like those little old ladies in Florida, too short to see over the steering wheel putzing down the highway at 3 mph.

The first patient to walk in was only as tall as the reception desk. She could not see the receptionist. And the receptionist could not see the patient.

Like prisoners in a cell

You would think that the employee would have stood up to have the conversation with the patient. But noooo…. They talked through the barrier of the desk, like two prisoners trying to talk between a concrete wall in their cells, each having to repeat what they had just said so the other could understand.

I could not believe my eyes!

Since the Doctor did not have any patients at the moment, I immediately went back to him to tell him about the encounter.

“But we have scripts” he almost shouted at me. “My team knows what to do because I gave them scripts telling them exactly what to do and what to say”.

“When was the last time you inspected those scripts?”, I quizzed him.

The blank look on his face was all I needed to know. Never.

He had just handed them out at a team meeting, and that was that.

No follow-up.

No role playing.

No nuthin’.

As Ronald Reagan famously said to the Soviets “Trust, but verify”.

When was the last time you watched your team in action? Last time you listened in on a call? Mystery shopped your business? Checked in on your call center?

Just because they have scripts, SOP’s or OJT’s doesn’t mean your employees are doing what they should be.

You need to inspect what you expect.

Now would be a good time to go do that.