Billy Arcement - SearchingforSuccess.com

Billy Arcement, MEd.
Professional Speaker

How To Achieve Exceptional Customer Service

By Billy Arcement, M.Ed.

When individuals need home care or hospice services, there is always a traumatic event preceding the need for such services. Such needs cannot be met with a callus attitude. Workers performing services interact with their customers in their homes, the place where everyone wants to be treated royally. Couple these facts with the increasing competition in both home care and hospice and you have a calling for exceptional customer service.

Home care and hospice services are no different then other businesses. Success demands commitment from the top. Someone once said that the three barriers to good customer service are top management, middle management and first-line management. Dr. Edward Deming, the world-renowned quality guru, maintained that management causes 80% of the problems in an organization. I believe Dr. Deming was wrong. It’s more like 95%!! Find a company with a successful track record and I will show you a company with an outstanding leadership team. Find an organization that is failing and I will show you an organization lacking management skills.

Organizing the Team

What about your home care or hospice business? Do you have management barriers? If so, can you recognize and remove them? One method to overcome this barrier is to institute a strong training process. Unfortunately, most organizations in an effort to control cost will cut training first. That is a tragic mistake with many potentially long-term consequences. When it comes to training, the rule to follow is simple. Do not put any worker in front of your customers until they clearly understand their roles and responsibilities and are proficient with their jobs and their understanding of your customer base. Shortchanging employees on this front also shortchanges your clients. Doing this can be a costly business decision.

Another important point to remember as you assemble your team is to focus on activities that can impact your customer service in a positive way. You make a positive impact when you meet or exceed the expectations of your customers. Make an effort to identify the expectations of your customers. How do you gather this information? Ask! Too often we overlook the source we are serving as the source of information to help us do a better job. Seek honest feedback from service users. You should also be willing to implement changes suggested to improve your services. Listening pays handsome dividends.

To determine how well you are doing, set goals and measurements. Every improvement begins from data analysis. Always strive to know exactly what is going on with your business. Know what you do well and understand what needs to improve. Capitalize on your strengths and eliminate your weaknesses.

Following each of my speaking engagements I seek feedback from my audiences. Using their comments (data), I adjust the presentation and strive to make it stronger the next time I speak on that topic. Ask your customers how they liked your services. Listen with an unbiased ear. Then, implement the necessary changes to improve your service better for your next customer.

Lastly, always remember that you are in the people business. Therefore, it behooves you to hire employees who like people. Possessing the best management skills still makes me a loser if I do not appreciate and value people. The emotion tied to your business services mandates care and consideration for the people you serve. A large part of healing from a medical ailment is influenced by the confidence and belief in the health care provider. Genuinely liking every customer goes a long way in the healing process.

Defining Your Customers

Your business activities cause you to interact with two types of customers. I identify them as your internal and external customers. Traditionally, we only think of our external customers—those individuals to whom we sell our products or services. But, it is your internal customers—those individuals who provide services and products to your external customers, that may be your most important customers. Any abuse you give to your internal customers will translate to abuse to your external customers. Any shortchanging on training for your internal customers will translate to poorer service for your external customers.

How can you maximize performance from your internal customers (employees)? One method is to survey employees to determine what services they need to perform their jobs at maximum efficiency. A second method is to develop a service list. Only include items that can be measured (we’re gathering that data again). Update the list quarterly and display results for all to see. This process establishes a form of self-competition. This is always a situation that helps to bring out the best in people. Get people competing against their own performance and they will improve.

To maintain that self-improvement process, be sure to evaluate the performance proficiencies you expect. That is important because you will always get the behavior you reward. If employee behavior is not what you want, look at what you are rewarding. Change the reward system and you automatically change performance. Be aware that changing employee behavior means you will have to change the way you do things. This is probably the most misunderstood management practice there is. I challenge you to look at your organization from this perspective to help you identify areas needing improvement. If you can clearly identify what you are rewarding, it is very easy to introduce positive change.

Customer Interactions

My two sons are physical therapist. One spends a portion of his time providing home care services in the community in which we live. When he began his practice, it was quite common for someone to stop my wife or me and compliment our son’s skills. A number of people have also called our home to tell us how helpful and considerate he was to them. Each individual took the time to share their version of good customer service because they were pleased with the service provided.

On one occasion, I was visiting a friend who was recovering from a stroke. While there, my son came to work with this individual. As he walked my friend in the driveway, both were engaging in a friendly teasing dialog. My friend relished the attention and had a good laugh while he worked to improve the damage caused by the stroke. My son establishes rapport and exhibits genuine concern for his patients. Many patients cry when he has to terminate his services. There must be something of value in what he does. There must be a genuine need for good customer service for home care and hospice patients.

Here are a few more tips to help you make a good impression and improve your customer interactions:

1. Acknowledge the customer when you see her. Call him by name.

2. When answering the phone, have everyone smile before they pick up the receiver. It’s impossible to be unhappy with a smile on your face. It’s impossible to be rude when you display a good feeling smile. When the call is complete, let the caller hang up first. These are small gestures that pay big dividends.

3. Be prompt with appointments. No one likes to be kept waiting, especially an ailing patient. If something happens to delay your arrival, call to let your customer know. It is just good manners.

4. Anticipate questions and provide the best answers you can. Do not treat your patients like mushrooms by keeping them in the dark! The state of one’s health is an important fact to know. Keep your clients informed and you will be appreciated.

5. Make everyone you meet happy they use your services. Make them feel good that they are your customer. Jan Carlzon made an important statement on customer interactions. She said, “If you are not serving the customer, you’d better be serving someone who is.”

Handling Customer Complaints

Several years ago, I helped establish a customer service process for a chemical company. The first thing we did was change the word “Complaint” to “Opportunity.” The term is still used today by this company and every interaction with a customer is truly viewed as a second chance to serve. How do you view complaints? Are they seen as a pain in the neck? Do you view them as a costly enterprise? Are they something you wish would go away?

If you take the position that every compliant is an opportunity to strengthen customer loyalty, you will consider every compliant more seriously. Learn to emphasize, sympathize, and apologize for poor service. Focus on the problem and its solution. Close complaints rapidly. No one likes to fester over a problem.

Document! Document! Document! That is the approach you must take as you work to resolve a customer opportunity. Yes, I am talking about data again! If you document properly, it is easy to identify patterns of behavior or flaws in the processes that inhibit good customer service. Classify complaints by type so trends can more easily be identified.

Make it easy for a customer to complain. Provide an 800 number; provide a no hassle guarantee; solve their problems with flair. By focusing on care and concern, you will always resolve the complaint in a pleasant fashion. Diffuse anger so that you can identify and negotiate solutions that retain customers and build loyalty. The reputation for good service spreads just as easily as a reputation for bad service. Which do you want?

Sins of a Failing Organization

Providing poor customer service is a sin. Apathy, coldness, robotism, and giving patients the run around are certainly signs, and sins, of poor service. By exhibiting the I don’t care, I don’t know or I don’t like you attitudes, both you and your customer lose. I realize that a business must turn a profit. But, making money cannot be your primary purpose for existing. You must be driven to provide a high quality service first. Money will follow. Your customers can tell the difference. No one likes to be ripped off, even if someone else is paying the bills. Avoid the sin of putting money over good service and profits will come.

The quality movement in today’s business environment has embraced the idea of continuous improvement as the key to long-term success. Your businesses are no different. Service to customers must be a continuous improvement process. One can never be content with the status quo. Information is constantly changing, techniques are constantly being upgraded, and wider ranges of solutions to your customer problems are being developed. Everyone in the organization should be an avid learner. Every manager should insist on continuous improvement for themselves and the employees they manage. Avoid “sin” by establishing harmony between the expectations and reality of your customer service. Your customers deserve no less.

Customer Connections

A business is an organization that has customers. No customers, no business! To maintain a strong customer base, an organization must exceed the expectations of their customers. To maintain a strong customer base, an organization must treat its employees well. Good customer service must be the job of every employee.

Seek knowledge of the needs of your customers. Meet those requirements on time, every time and without error. Make customer satisfaction your number one goal. Stress your unique strengths and make differentiation work in your favor. Surprise, delight and do the unexpected for your customers.

In the health care profession, one deals with life-threatening events. Patients want information about their condition. Insist on keeping your customers informed with test results, side effects of medication, symptoms of their ailments, and the status of their recovery. Deal with them in an honest and caring way and they will appreciate you for it. Finally, remove the word “no” from the vocabulary of your organization. Instead, substitute, “Let me see what I can do.”

Closing Thoughts

Alan Hoops said, “True customer satisfaction is the complete harmony between expectations and reality.” As you go through your day-to-day activities serving customers, never lose sight of the expectations of your customers. When what you do meets what is expected, a win-win combination occurs. That is the best customer service position a business can strive to achieve.

Billy Arcement is a highly respected and recognized expert on personal and organizational success techniques. His messages are timely, inspirational, humorous, and filled with refreshing warmth and sincerity audiences have come to appreciate. Always the teacher, Billy has dedicated his life to helping others reach their potential. He knows how to instill a sense of action and purpose.

He is the author of Searching for Success as well as numerous nationally published articles. To get his free electronic newsletter, News from the Swamp, call 888-376-7374, email your request to barcement@eatel.net or visit our web site at www.searchingforsuccess.com.

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