One thing that drives any good organization is the goal of good customer service. The organizations that strive for more than good customer service to the point of excellence in the area of customer service are the organizations that truly understand the fundamentals of good business, and know that it is its customers that make their organization successful.

In any conversation you can rest assured that anyone who talks about customer service more than likely would agree there is one company that stands above the rest.  I bet you have already said the name of that organization in your head.  Your thoughts are correct Disney is one of the top rated organizations when it comes to customer service.

Not everyone has a training program like Disney that can provide employees with the skill set of how to be so customer service oriented.  It’s not just the training of the employees that helps an organization deliver excellent customer service.

Really true excellent customer service starts at the very top and is emulated down to the management team and so on down to the staff that greats the customers. However, not every organization is consistent in the delivery of customer service, but should strive to make it a top priority within its business plan.

I have had the pleasure of working at a few different companies and seen the difference a great management sponsored customer service program and how it can work.  Just yesterday, I was hopping on to the elevator to go to a meeting, and like many other facilities the elevator was filled with customers and the President of the company was right there with all of them as well, and having a conversation with them about what floor they were going to and hot to get to the office on that floor.

Our customer service program begins from the moment all the employees pull into the parking lot. They start to smile, as they are walking into the building if they see a lose piece of paper or an empty soda can that was left behind by someone, they pick it up and dispose of it appropriately.  Once employees get within a 10ft range of anyone, a customer or another employee they give a hearty and genuine “Hello”.

We have potential Physicians and employees that have come to our organization to interview and every single time they report in the interview that they are amazed at how welcomed they feel.  A few stated that they had even noticed they were saying “Hello” to other as well by the time they got to the interview.

One other aspect of our customer service program is if we see a customer that looks the slight bit lost or asks for help on finding one of the 80 physician offices, we don’t just stop and ask how may I help you and give them directions, we stop, ask how we may help them and then walk them to the physician’s office or the ancillary business and perform what’s called a hand off.   We stay with that person until we get them to the right person in the office and insure they have another employee that is going to check them in or get them to the right person in that department.

It doesn’t stop there, we are also given the liberty to know and judge to be late to a meeting based on making sure that the customer gets to the right location and the right place.  Employees rarely show up late for meetings and use that as an excuse. That’s motivation and levity given to a great staff, but that is another blog.

I do want to close with why this is such a successful customer service program. This program succeeds because the President himself exhibits the very behavior he wants all employees and Physicians to copy. Yes, when I was on the elevator he walked off with an elderly customer and made sure to get her checked in at the front desk of the physician’s office.  Now this guy is busy and he had a meeting to go to and this put him about 4 mins late for his meeting. He could have easily passed the customer on to me and I would have done it. He didn’t, and I know why. To him customer service is not just customer service. He is setting the standard of “World Class Service”. He believes in it and it shows to all the employees and staff.

The team of staff we have as healthcare consultants have the entire same mind set of “World Class Service” for all our clients. We do what should be done not just because it’s the right thing, we believe in what we are doing to help the clients and customers. This attitude carries over to the facilities we have worked in. That is one small difference we bring when we are hired in into your organization.