Do you enjoy waiting on hold for customer service? How confident are you about receiving a helpful return call or email after you leave a message?
In the book Switch by Chip and Dan Health, the authors tell the story of Rackspace, a company that specializes in internet hosting and cloud computing. In 1999, the company received a message from an angry customer who was unable to get through to customer service, despite several calls and emails.
The leadership at Rackspace took the time to review what caused the angry complaint, and they quickly discovered their customer service department was set up to deflect the customer. And we have all experienced customer service deflection: press 1 to go to this area, press 2 for that issue, and then prepare for a long wait.
Leadership decided that Rackspace needed to embrace fanatical customer service, which meant tossing out their call-queuing system and allowing the customer to speak directly to someone who could help. Rackspace also shifted their internal culture and how everyone viewed customer inquiries. By 2001, Rackspace was the first internet hosting firm to turn a profit, and today the company is renowned for its fanatical customer service.
How can you and your team do an even better job of taking care of your patients? And if you really stretched yourself, what would it take to provide fanatical customer service in your practice?
The success of a dental practice is propagated through lasting patient relationships. And lasting relationships are nourished with memorable customer service. As someone once said, “If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will.”