https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMAdvjuh28o

Carrie Webber:

Welcome to The Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Webber. And thank you for joining us once again for another episode, thanks to our Jameson files community for continuing to follow along with us. However, you listen to podcasts, whether that's iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or if you're following, following along with us on YouTube or on our Facebook page. Thanks so much if you're with us live today on the Jameson Facebook page, happy St. Patrick's day. And thank you for being with us during this busy time of the year. Today. I'm thrilled to have with me, my friend, my teammate, and an amazing student and teacher of the subject we're talking about today, Amy Logan Parrish. So thank you for being with us.

Amy Logan Parrish:

Thanks for having me. It's my lucky day on St. Patrick's day to be here.

Fanatical Passion for Customer Service Excellence

Carrie Webber:

For those of you that may not know Amy, Amy is our chief development officer here at Jameson. She helps us lead our team in striving for excellence in the work that we do. and she also speaks on the subject that we're going to be talking about today, which is customer service. This is a subject that both Amy and I are a little fanatically passionate about—not only for our own business, but in helping dental businesses, dental teams across the country learn how to improve their customer service, to see the value in pursuing excellence in customer service and the impact that it can have on their patients’ experiences with them and the practice’s health and success overall. 

What do your patients really want?

So the subject today is what your patients want. Customer service must for your practice. Now, Amy, I have lots of questions for you. and I think I know what most of your answers will be, but I'm looking forward to being pleasantly surprised in some of those questions. 

But first I thought we could start on what the patients want. There are some studies that we had discovered about patients' perceptions and expectations in the medical realm in general. I think it's safe to say a lot has come to the forefront in terms of customer service and care and has adapted through the past year, but a lot of the reasons why that’s getting such a positive response from patients remains the same over history. Meeting expectations, if not exceeding expectations has an impact on your practice or on your business. 

So let's start with a few of the research organizations that we have found surveys and results from. Deloitte is one that does a lot of research in the medical realm about patients' experiences, and the impact that has on the organizations that the physicians work for. They did a study on the value of the patient experience, and what they found was that hospitals that were receiving high ratings for patient  experience had higher profitability. Overall, they were earning disproportionately more than those organizations with lower ratings, and they also found that a highly-engaged staff boosted those overall experiences, which really supports what we at Jameson teach. Each and every member of your team can make or break your patients' experience. So we're not just making that up. That is founded in what they are discovering and conversations with patients with the consumer of what they want and need from their care. 

Now, in addition, in a separate research study by Deloitte, they were asking questions about what patients were looking for in their experience with physicians. And the results came back that they again were looking for customer service-oriented care. They wanted high touch. They wanted that engagement with their doctors, with their team members. They wanted high quality. And not just in the care itself. In the tools and the technology in the facility, they wanted and were seeking out high quality. And they wanted highly interactive, which also supports the use of technology, the use of photography, the use of elevated communication skills. 

These things are coming back to us from the mouths of patients now in a separate study by Accenture in 2020. They were asking patients about how COVID had impacted the patient's overall experiences in healthcare. And the patient's responses were that their perception of their healthcare experiences during COVID were equal, if not better than their pre-COVID experiences. What they found in their responses was that they were really ringing the bell on receiving better, quicker, more personalized responses and more convenient access to their doctors through new communication channels.

So it sounds like all of the efforts you were doing in 2020 to elevate or to stay in contact with your patients or to be more touchless in your communication with patients in the season of COVID has, as a result, shifted expectations from the patients. They realize they can now receive care or be served more conveniently, and they like that. They approve of it. 

So those are the results that I have found in my studies, which I thought were pretty fascinating. If you're trying to look at places in your practice that you can improve, think about what patients are saying themselves about what exceeds their expectations, what they find to be satisfactory, and also what they want. So what have you found, Amy? I know that you do the same kind of curious research.

Empathetic customer service is most valued.

Amy Logan Parrish:

Well, anything with customer service always triggers us, like, Oh, what are they saying? And I had seen a great article in Forbes at the end of last year where they had done some COVID research. When Forbes researched customer service teams, they learned that customers valued empathetic service above all other customer service attributes during the pandemic. Just like our customers. Our patients value people that are delivering service and understanding that the person on the other end of the phone or the other end of that app is someone with real thoughts, real emotions—people that were going through the same thing. And I thought that was so powerful because many times that's the bottom line of customer service, right? 

It's people. People working with people. Humans relating to each other, finding common ground, and really working to help that person feel special, heard, and understood. And so I thought that was such a powerful study to go in along with all of the other ones that you've already found.

Carrie Webber:

You know, when I think of empathetic service, I think of the word “connection.” When you have had conversations with doctors or with practice leaders, not just this year, but over time when you're on the road, what did they share with you? Maybe their main struggles and helping themselves and helping their team and their practice be consistent and delivering that excellence and striving for connection. Right?

Maintain a sense of urgency to deliver quality customer service.

Amy Logan Parrish:

Well, when you were talking about the Accenture study, it was so interesting because I was like, everybody did so much last year to provide all these amazing services. Everyone was able to pivot so quickly to deliver great things. They were able to do it though, right? Because we were in this intense moment. It's a little bit like when you maybe start a new workout routine or a new diet. And for those first 10 days you are on it, right? You are eating all the protein, all the vegetables, no carbs. There's no pasta to be found. And that's how it was for us during the COVID pivot. We were like, I want to give you all of the great things that I can to make your experience easier.

And then what can happen is, just like me on a healthy workout regimen or a healthy diet, I start to get a little complacent. And so a lot of times what the doctors and team leaders will say is, “It's hard to maintain that consistency because we don't have that sense of urgency. And so it's creating a sense of urgency within the team that everybody has a responsibility to this customer service piece. It is not only the owner, it's not only people that work in the business office, we're all responsible for it. And so, that's the question, how do we create that environment? How do we keep that sense of urgency and that consistency, so that the strengths of the customer service we provide in our practice are maintained day after day?

And how do you know if you’re doing that? How do I know if it's working? And I know we have several monitors that we like to see practices put in place to give you some of those insights. And these are just a few. But obviously, you want to make sure that you're listening to your customers. And you know, if you want to know if something's working, maybe all the things that you put in place last year, this might be a great time to take a survey of your patient family.

Ask your customers for feedback.

And now more than ever, it's so easy to do that. I mean, I remember how we would do surveys at Jameson, and back in the day, we would literally pay. We put our surveys in the mail and put a stamp on it and send it to the doctors and say, please return! And now you can do it with something that's in your office. You can have it on a clipboard, but you can also send out a link in a follow-up email. You can send a link for someone to click and complete the survey. You can put it on their phone. There's so many easy ways you could take a poll. You can ask a question on your social media channels about, “Do you enjoy this or that.” But you need to be asking people what they like, what's working for them, what they'd like to see different, what they need.

Make time to ask and listen to your patients. That's how you can know if something’s working. You can also know if things are working by what kind of referrals you’re getting. I mean,