Simply provide cure or a delightful experience

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E-Pao! Career - Simply provide cure or a delightful experience

Simply Provide A Cure To An Ailing Patitent
Orbr> A Delightful Experience To Our Long Suffering Brother In Pain ?

By: Sanzib Roy *

CUSTOMER DELIGHT - it seems to be the latest buzz word these days in the corporate world.

What is DELIGHT?
Did we even achieve CUSTOMER SATISFACTION now tat we are talking of customer delight?
If yes, what next?
CUSTOMER ECSTACY?
Are we ready for it?

QUITE A VOLLEY OF QUESTIONS, eh!

It's been quite a while since we've been bitten by the 'CUSTOMER DELIGHT' bug. But what actually is it? And most importantly why now? Why is it that we have so many years to come up with this concept.

Doesn't treating your patient go hand-in-hand with providing a delightful experience to them at the same time? Why is it that the medical profession being so old and well - established in this country, we talk of delighting our customers now? So does it mean that we finally accept that we were taking them (the customer - the long suffering patients in this case) for granted till date?

Nevertheless, as most geniuses often say it's never too late to start a good deed and at least we have realized that it's high time we pulled up our socks. Whatever I am going to discuss on this topic is apart from the services rendered by the doctors i.e. by the other staffs of the hospital.

To be honest, it is actually a matter of shame wherein working in one of the most sensitive service related sector it has taken us so long to realize the importance of customer delight! But it's not a totally alien concept.

Many hospitals in our country have realized and felt the importance of providing not only a satisfactory but a delightful and memorable experience to their customers.

We usually assume, what a patient needs from a hospital is reasonable, quality medical care but market research has shown that hospitalized patients want a variety of amenities not associated with their need for reasonable good quality medical care. They want smiling, empathetic nurses and staff, a quick response to their calls etc.

A very good example in this regard is a leading hospital of Guwahati which goes out of its way in meeting the need of its customer. In fact, they have formed a dedicated team called the 'Customer Delight Team' which is responsible for providing a delightful experience to the patients and their attendants during their stay in the hospital.

They are responsible for meeting each and every individual indoor patient and their attendant and at least 85% of their outdoor patients and talk to them, find out their difficulties, solve their problem instantly. This is just one of the varied activities they undertake to make their customers feel 'at home'.

Every month in a very dedicated manner they have a specific date set for 'Customer Delight Day' and celebrate it as a day totally dedicated to the patients and their attendants. They invite celebrities to interact with the patients.

And what is most touching is the way they involve all of their staff in the whole process. During each 'Delight Day' they award the staff with the best deed of offering delight to the customer. This keeps the staff motivated and also serves in creating a bond between the customer and the employees that goes beyond the usual doctor and nurse.

It is very important to realize for people working in a hospital that it's not only the responsibility of the doctors or the nurses to satisfy the patients but the employees of the organization on the whole (I am specifically speaking of the back -end support staff here) should have a helping attitude towards the patients and their attendants.

For instance, when their staff sees a patient or his/ her attendant walking aimlessly along the corridors looking for a certain room or a department, a simple question like 'May I Help You?' brings a huge difference to the mind-set of the customer regarding the employees of the organization.

It is not only the job of the attendants and the customer services people to look after these needs. In fact each and every one of us should learn how to respond to the needs of our customers with a helping attitude! A few thoughts, which, if we all agree to and take it to heart and practice them daily can definitely bring a whole lot of change to our organizations.

To be a successful customer-oriented hospital, one must give very high priority to the expectations of the patients and attendants and the feed back they provide. For this a proper analysis and assessing of all the 'Points of Contacts' in a hospital is very essential.

A Point of Contact (POC) is the place or a particular department that a customer is most likely to frequent while visiting the hospital.

A few good examples of POC's are the main entrance, security, reception/ enquiry desk, the information brochure, floor maps, lifts man, cleaners, technicians who conduct various investigations, nurses etc. The success of creating a user-friendly and helpful ambience and attitude at these Points of Contacts play a vital role in providing patient delight or aiming towards patient ecstasy.

A few areas were we can work out in creating delightful and memorable experiences to our customers are -

Providing assistants to guide each and every outdoor patient from the main entrance to the necessary areas (e.g. registration counter, OPD clinics, investigative areas etc).
Offer a cup of tea while the patient is waiting for his turn at the clinic.
Provide reading material in the outdoor clinics. Puzzles, cross-words, sudoko, quiz books are more welcome than week-old newspapers and worn out magazines!
Exclusive recreational space for kids is a welcome relief for parents.
Couple of computers with internet connection can be provided for the use of patients or their attendants while they await their turn.
Providing ATM service at the hospital campus can provide great relief to the attendants so that they don't have to worry about frequenting the nearest cash-machine nor stress about carrying huge amts of cash with them. Everybody likes being rich but sadly it's not safe.
Maintaining OPD timings of doctors makes every customer happy as he can proceed with the day as planned but if the investigation reports are not delivered on time it just all adds up to his frustration.
An indoor patient will be highly delighted if he is presented with a grooming kit containing a tooth brush, tooth paste, soap, lotion, talc, comb, shampoo and the like. I am sure everyone has the right to look good and smell nice even if sick!
Daily news papers, complementary fruit baskets, room heaters in winter etc. are some of the other essentials that can be provided to the patients and their attendants to make their stay a comfortable one in the hospital.
Help carry the patients' belongings to their rooms after they are admitted and vice versa during discharge. I know the patient has fully recovered and fit to lead a normal life once discharged but surely you wouldn't expect him to be contesting in the next Mr. World contest by making him practice carrying his own luggage, eh!
Another pleasant surprise for the customers could be at the parking facility itself! When the customer comes back to take his car after his visit to the hospital, he finds the vehicle spotlessly clean and wiped!
Assisting the visitor (patient/attendant/visitor) with an umbrella from the main entrance to the porch during the monsoons. Its much cheaper than providing them with a set of clean clothes after they have juggled their way to your lobby from the main entrance or the parking lot - all wet and splashed with mud.
Mailing a 'Get-Well-Soon' card or a letter of appreciation for choosing the hospital during their hour of need makes your customer feel cared for even after he/she leaves the hospital.
A follow-up call regarding the recovery or enquiry about any further problems make a lot of difference to the patient and make him feel how valuable he/she is to you.

These are however only a few minor suggestions that could help lead an organization towards bringing in 'customer delight'. Little changes in this way, and also in our attitude towards the customers/ patients can bring in a lot of change regarding the image of an organization and providing CUSTOMER DELIGHT.

And it isn't that all the suggestions will work uniformly across all hospitals throughout the country. It may vary demographically and even within the same region looking at the market segment. Certain aspect which may seem to delight a certain category of customers may be a 'given' for the other segment.

So we will have to be very careful while demarking our market segment and categorizing their needs accordingly while assessing analyzing our tasks and what we need to do to delight a particular group of customers!

"The best thing about providing Customer Delight is it doesn't cost much and is the most effective tool for internal marketing of the organization and retaining your customer!"

Sanzib Roy, Dy. G.M (Admn.) - Shija Hospitals & Research Institute, contributes regularly to e-pao.net . The writer can be contacted at sanzibroy(at)yahoo(dot)com . This article was webcasted on December 28th, 2007.

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