There has not been nor will be an optometry practice that does not have service failure. You know, the kind when you are driving down the highway and your best friend from optometry school is telling you about the offer she just received from the biggest and most well-known practice in the city. She is just getting to the details of her six digit salary plus bonuses and . . . . . silence. Yes, a dropped call. Seriously?
That is what your patient is thinking when your office gives bad service. Seriously? The practices that survive and thrive are the ones that anticipate dropped calls and intentionally work on fixing the problem before it occurs. Below are a list of the most frequent “dropped calls.”
- Miscommunication/Misunderstanding
- Patient does not receive product when promised
- Poor communication regarding fees
- Inconvenient/repetitive filling out of forms
- Excessive waiting
- Misunderstanding of contact lens fees
- Office hours that are convenient for the unemployed
- No one present at front desk when patient arrives
- Remakes
- B/O product (and yes product that stinks or aka back ordered)
Many of the above services failures begin with the leadership of the optometry practice. As CEO, you create the culture that intentionally plans for “dropped calls” and prevents many of them by being proactive. Proactive leadership means putting people in the right place to create systems that prevent service failure or you take the initiative to create them. It is not a matter of if you will fail in serving your patient, it is a matter of when and how often. Successful practices limit and learn from their service failures.
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