How to Use Customer Service in the Medical Field
Making sure that patrons are satisfied with your work is important in every professional field, including the medical field. Successful hospitals, clinics and private practices make an effort to please their patients by improving procedures, decreasing wait times and providing superior customer service. Each patient needs to feel like the medical staff cares about his or her well being. After all, medical facilities are businesses like any other.
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Instructions
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Develop a standard for the level of customer service your medical staff offers. Train your staff to be friendly and helpful and to always take time to answer the questions of patients and their family members. For example, you might require nurses to spend at least 15 minutes talking with each patient before she sees the doctor, making sure they understand the patient's medical history and current issue.
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Survey the patients. After a patient is seen in your medical facility, ask him to participate in a short survey. You can give him the survey right after his appointment, send it in the mail or email it. The survey should contain questions about the customer service he received, how much time the staff spent with him, what he wasn't satisfied with and what he was satisfied with. This will help you evaluate your employees and continue to develop your customer service standards.
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Make an effort to have a friendly, welcoming environment for patients. Your staff should greet patients as they enter, smile when they call them back, explain processes as they occur and ask patients if they have questions. Even a simple process like walking back to the examination room can be overwhelming for some patients. The staff member who takes a patient back should walk at the patient's pace, lead him into the room and talk with him for a few minutes to make him feel comfortable and at ease.
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Treat the patients medically and emotionally. A huge part of customer service that can be easily ignored by medical personnel is the emotional aspect. Patients are often tense, anxious, embarrassed, confused and even scared. Your medical staff should treat the patient in a kind, warm manner. They should be understanding of the patient's needs and make a conscious effort to make the patient comfortable.
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References
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