6.5 billion greeting cards every year for different occasions. This fact alone explains why every grocery store has an entire aisle devoted to buying these decorative pieces of paper.
If we take a look at this fact on a deeper level, though, why is this such a lucrative business?
Tufts University social psychologist, Sam Sommers, wrote a self-reflection blog post entitled The Power of Hello. In it, he describes the positive impact of greeting his students before class. He didn’t realize how much his students appreciated it, though, until one of them left a written review expressing the impact it had on them.
Sommers went on to say, “There's surprising power to hello.”
My point after all of this is, if you’re trying to figure out where your patient experience is lacking, maybe it’s not a matter of how your waiting room looks or that you don’t post enough on social media accounts.
Instead, your biggest area improvement could come from lacking in one of the smallest of gestures.
LINKS:
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Think about what you do when you come into work every morning. You park your car at your favorite or reserved parking spot, scan your ID card at the front door and start your morning routine.
That sounds like the start of a productive day. But there’s a big problem here, it’s only about yourself.
In other words, we never look back at what the patient goes through. The majority of us don’t think about where the client or parks and how they find the right entrance.
After all, if you work or operate a hospital there are about twenty signs trying to direct traffic to the right department.
From their perspective, they’re driving to an unfamiliar place while ill, trying to get help. So they’re already worried about their diagnosis now they have to figure out how to find the right entrance.
So, if they had to spend 30 minutes trying to find a parking space semi-close to what they think is the right entrance for their ailment, they’re going to enter your building frustrated.
I’m not saying you should restructure your parking lot, that’s either not an option or way too expensive.
Instead, I’m asking that you keep what I just said in mind. If they enter your office frustrated for reasons outside of your control, a welcoming and personable greeting could have a huge impact on their mood.
Let’s stick with the idea that you work at a hospital or a large healthcare facility. Once they’ve let themselves into your building, what happens next?
Their first touchpoint in your building will most likely be through security. Sure, security is there to ultimately protect your clients and I’m sure they feel safe walking into your office.
However, if you’ve ever met an on-duty security officer before you know that they’re a little gruff. That’s the nature of their job. In order to protect the masses, they have to be direct and impersonal.
If a patient comes into the hospital flustered from trying to find the right entrance, only to have to pass through an overly-stern security guard, their frustration will only build.
Once they’re past security it’s on to the concierge. If your hospital is like most, this is the first time your patients receive a friendly greeting. Hopefully, it’s a welcome “hello” followed up with helpful directions.
Sure, eventually patients receive a greeting. However, if everything leading up to that greeting was a disaster, it won’t garner a good response from them.
We often forget about the faces we see every morning as we stumble into work before our first cup of coffee, our minds are on autopilot. Thus, hospitals forget to keep them in mind when trying to boost their patient experience.
At this point, they’ve finally made it to your office. However, the greeting has only just begun. Your front desk’s main job is to do things like…Check-in, Check-out, Check eligibility, Make follow-up calls, and help with insurance changes.
Above everything else, though, their main responsibility is to establish rapport with your patients. Rapport can’t happen if they don’t give a proper greeting. But what does that look like?
Well, more than half of all patients want their doctor to call them by their first name. That fact might seem a little strange at first considering that a healthcare facility is technically a formal environment.
However, it makes sense if you think about it.
Going to the doctor is one of the most personal and private experiences that we all go through.
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