Creating a culture in which your entire organization pervasively and consistently strives for true five-star customer service can be challenging, especially if personnel — whether they are physicians, advanced practice professionals, staff, or management — do not first exhibit “internal five-star” behavior in times of stress.
It is in times of stress that relationships and communications often break down, and an organization’s five-star culture is challenged. During these times, it is more important than ever to focus on good communication skills, patience, respect, and courtesy. It is about more than keeping one’s temper; it is also about developing organizational habits to reduce the stress and tension that often exist in an intense work environment.
Realistically, you cannot eliminate all stress and tension; therefore, you must learn to manage it. Internal five-star service reflects how doctors treat each other and the staff, how staff members interact with each other, and how management interacts with healthcare professionals and their staff. Of course, it is a two-way street.
You’ve likely seen how the lack of internal five-star service can play out in a medical practice. When a doctor is chronically late, patients’ appointment times are affected and they often take out their anger on the staff. The staff becomes frustrated and take out their frustrations on the doctor. The doctor becomes angry at the staff because the doctor expects the staff to ensure the smooth flow of patients. That one action — being late — begins a vicious cycle of animosity that can intensify throughout the day.
When this occurs, it is difficult for the staff to do precisely what the doctor would want under these circumstances: pour on the five-star service so the patients who are waiting longer than anticipated remain calm.
Another example involves the impact of life outside of the medical practice. Maybe a staff member had a difficult weekend. Perhaps a family member is ill or finds that raising teenage children is challenging. However, when staff members’ frustrations or concerns overflow into the office, patients and staff can see it in body language or verbal cues; it’s as if the staff member is saying “stay away from me.”
Everyone can sympathize with that kind of behavior; however, in truly service-oriented organizations, an individual’s frustrations and concerns outside the workplace do not touch the customers. We understand that within the Ritz Organization, managers ask employees during team meetings whether there is anything occurring in their lives that could affect their interaction with customers that day. Sometimes concerns are voiced and resolved to the extent possible. It is taken seriously. There must be internal five-star service for true outstanding customer service to take place.
BEST PRACTICES FOR FIVE-STAR SERVICE
Fortunately, once the entire staff accepts the true importance of the five-star concept, they can be trained on communication issues, strategies to overcome frustration, and body language. Scripts can be created to handle specific circumstances.
Practices around the country have used the following strategies:
Yearly in-service. Five-star service needs to be front and center at all times; it never becomes redundant. Each year, the practice can hold an in-service program on service excellence, reviewing effective strategies and tools. The program should address concerns that arose during the previous year or were brought up in patient experience surveys. The session should be enjoyable, nonjudgmental, and fresh.
Recognition. Although many employees may not admit it, being recognized for excellence in this area is important to them. Recognize employees for service excellence in the form of an employee of the month with an employee parking spot and an announcement in the organization’s newsletter and on the website. Even verbal recognition and a sincere thank you for a job well done can go a long way.
We underestimate how powerful recognition can be. Tell someone tomorrow about the good job they have done, and they may well pass the goodwill on.
Annual Employee Opinion Surveys. Taking the pulse of your employees is important. If the questions are specific enough, you can get valuable information that your five-star committee can use to address concerns. Note that the surveys should not simply be an opportunity for employees to vent or dream — those kinds of responses will not benefit the practice. However, once the five-star culture kicks in, employees’ sincere, constructive feedback will be useful.
New Employee Orientation and Five-Star Attestation. All new employees should receive an orientation to the practice’s five-star culture. They must understand the concept generally, but they must also understand how important service excellence is to your practice and what your expectations are for them. It will be part of their evaluations and, in part, their compensation calculation. Make it important from the beginning and have the employees sign a short, concise document that attests to the fact that they understand how important five-star service is and that it is part of the practice culture.
Employees’ questions about the value of such a document or concerns about signing it are certainly red flags, but most prospective employees will see it as an example of just how important the concept is and will even see it as a positive reflection of the type of environment in which they want to work.
Five-Star Service Excellence Value Statements. Having a values statement that is displayed for all employees to see can help them understand how important this concept is to the practice. Again, your goal is to keep the concept in front of people so it can truly become part of your culture.
A COMMITMENT TO INTERNAL FIVE-STAR SERVICE
Five-star service is something that everyone can and should embrace. Physicians can go a long way in creating an internal five-star environment by embracing it themselves and taking it personally. Tasks as simple as starting on time, saying good morning upon reaching the office, sharing a smile, and keeping one’s emotions in check are all ways to promote this culture. Physicians are a mirror. Staff will look to them to see if all the talk about five-star service is real or just another passing fad.
Breaches in five-star service should be treated like any other HR issue. If it is at the physician level, it must be addressed by the physician leadership. If it is among the staff, it needs to be handled like any other breach of an important HR policy. Those who need help should receive additional tools; those who simply will not support the program perhaps should not be there.
Excerpted from Operation Five-Star: Service Excellence in the Medical Practice — Cultural Competency, Post-Adverse Events, and Patient Engagement by James W. Saxton, Esq., and Maggie Finkelstein DiCostanzo, Esq.