Adapted from Quality Manager's Alert.
If there is an absolute truth in business, it's that first impressions are lasting ones.
A good first impression paves a path to a long and productive relationship.
A bad one is hard to ever overcome.
This is especially true for businesses that rely on a relatively high and steady stream of changing customers; think retail, hospitality & entertainment, and even healthcare.
Healthcare? Especially healthcare.
Healthcare is both the fastest-growing and fastest-changing segment of the economy. Those kinds of pressures mean that these are make-or-break times for hospitals and providers.
That's why it's worth stealing a page from the “First Impression Playbook” at City of Hope, a comprehensive cancer center in Duarte, CA, which is not only making tremendous inroads in life-saving treatments, but in patient/customer satisfaction as well.
City of Hope knew it needed to do a better job on first impressions. So here's what they did to turn things around:
1. Reduced waiting
City of Hope created and distributed easy to use patient surveys to help steer them toward the biggest and most frequent problem spots patients said they faced. For instances, areas with long wait times were identified and fixed right away. Nothing makes a bad impression more than waiting endlessly.
2. Faster connections
Another problem that jumped out of the survey was people weren't thrilled with how long it took to even make an appointment.
The solution required some internal communications fixes at the facility.
Things like boosting instant messaging among staff helped to save time by eliminating phone tag between very busy staffers. That alone made juggling different schedules and setting appointments much easier — and the customer benefited!
3. Multiple options
Another common complaint was long lines.
The hospital knew it couldn’t have sick patients standing in line, waiting to check in. So instead of having everyone register at one central location, they created multiple points where patients were able to register — and cut the length of those lines by almost 80%!
4. Staff flexibility
Managers were encouraged to be flexible to keep wait times in check — and customers happy — by moving staff where they were needed most. It required some cross-training and a lot team work. Yet each morning, City of Hope moved staffers around to different departments, depending on which ones would be the busiest.
The end result has been a much stronger first impression and a higher quality patient experience.