FEATURE


excellent customer service take it seri- ously. By involving staff and leveraging technology, they relentlessly work to improve on the customer service they provide on a daily basis and reap the rewards of their efforts. This holds true for the ASC community as well, and those ASCs that do not make customer service a top priority are more likely to struggle with patient, physician and staff satisfaction and eventually face de- clining case volumes. ASCs that provide great customer


service have many things in common and will usually perform some combi- nation of the steps that follow.


Putting People First


Good customer service can ensure the success of an ASC. BY ROBERT MCDAVITT


Many of the problems in an ASC typically involve a focus on customer ser- vice that is too narrow or a failure to address the


combined meaning of the two words customer and service. The word cus- tomer on its own poses a significant problem for many ASCs because they narrow the definition to just patients or physicians. The word service pres- ents a challenge as ASCs do not pro- duce a tangible commodity at the end of the exchange with their customer to examine and evaluate. Customers at a salon have a tangible commodity when they leave—their hair. They can examine and evaluate it as they like. Conversely, the tangible commodity from surgery may be staples, stitches or a pressure dressing from an intra- venous therapy.


18 ASC FOCUS JANUARY 2013 A further complication for ASCs


working to define good customer ser- vice is that every customer defines the term differently and has different ex- pectations for their experience. Effec- tive evaluation of an activity involves trying to solicit feedback, which may or may not be accurate, often from one of many customers involved in that activity. If you treat your patients like royalty but your staff poorly, you will not be able to sustain your per- formance. If patients are happy and staff members are fully engaged but you can’t complete your first case in a timely manner, physicians will not bring all of their cases to your ASC. An ASC is only as strong as the weak- est link in the chain of stakeholders of the organization.


One thing is consistent: Success- ful companies with a reputation for


Identify the Customer Before an ASC can begin to think about improving customer service, the staff and management need to identify the ASC’s customers and list them and rank them in order of importance to the business. A typical list should look like this: 1. Patients 2. Families 3. Physicians 4. Employees/staff 5. Physicians’ offices 6. Vendors 7. Payers If staff struggle to put together a list—and when they think they are done making that list—ask questions about answers that could be missing and en- courage everyone to consider less ob- vious customers, including families of employees and physicians. The net ef- fect of this exercise is to help the staff understand that their customers include everyone who the ASC “touches” as it relates to the overall experience. Not all customers have the power to effect a change, but all have the ability to influ- ence performance and success.


Identify Each Customer’s Value, Power and Points of Influence Now that the staff has brainstormed to identify their customers, a good exer-


The advice and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent official Ambulatory Surgery Center Association policy or opinion.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38