This past weekend I went swimming with my son who turned 2 years old a couple mont ago. He has quickly gotten past the fear of submerging himself in the water and he has observed his cousins jumping into the water so that is what he wants to do. What he doesn’t understand is his inherent trust of me to be there to catch him. When he sees daddy he has no fear of jumping in because I have repeatedly been there to pull him up when he goes under. His TRUST in me continues to grow because time after time I catch him. A patient in your optometry practice is no different. When they purchase a pair of glasses in your dispensary they are casting a vote of TRUST that the glasses will have the right prescription, the right measurements, and the cost will be a fair price. The most successful practices have learned to gain TRUST and demonstrate trustworthiness with each patient encounter. How do these practices do this?
- Integrity – There is nothing as important in building and sustaining a successful practice then integrity. It is the lifeblood of what every optometry practice should be. When you commit to doing something for a patient, you should do whatever it takes to fulfill that commitment. When you make a mistake, you should be willing to admit your mistake to staff and to patients. When tempted to bend the truth in your favor, you should resist this knowing that compromise will burst the balloon of integrity. When you took photos on a diabetic patient and the photos are unrecognizable because of dense cataracts, your staff should see you remove the charges off of the bill to insurance. A practice without integrity is a practice that has built its foundation on sand.
- Excellence – We live in a society that is no longer quick to forgive and will spread a bad word to thousands of people in a matter of a post. This requires that you, the optometrist, take the lead in expecting nothing less than excellence. When staff sees you cut corners or not give 100% to each patient in meeting their needs, then the staff will tend to not give 100%. As an optometrist, if I expect my staff to go the extra mile for meeting patient’s customer service needs then I must go the extra mile.
- Accountability – This is the willingness to take personal accountability and say that you are wrong when you are wrong and at times take the responsibility for mistakes that others have made. Too many times dispensaries blame the lab or the vendor for a delay in glasses, when all that needed to be said was, “I take full responsibility for this delay and apologize for the inconvenience it has caused you. How often and what method of communication would you like me to update you with the progress?”
- Give, give, give – My partners at the practice have taught me many lessons about optometry practice with this being one of them. I have seen them both bend over backwards to make sure patients are satisfied with services and product. When they brought me into the practice 10 years ago they created an associateship that was extremely fair and carried that fairness into the partnership. The spirit of giving is contagious. When you are given something you do not necessarily deserve, a natural response is to become a giver yourself. This character quality is key to having a very successful practice.
The most successful practices understand that doing business is about relationships. All of the best marketing strategies may attract new patients, but keeping those patients long-term is what makes the difference between practices that thrive and those practices just trying to survive.
