“Biggest question: isn’t it really ‘customer helping’ rather than customer service? And wouldn’t you deliver better service if you thought of it that way?” – Jeffrey Gitomer
Most hospice team members/employees (over 65% are clinical and involved in direct patient care) do not have a business background and may not have thought of our patients and families as customers. In fact, they may be highly offended by the word “customer”. I’ll share a story with you:
One of the hospices I worked for had acquired a quality hospice that had provided services for many years in their community. Needless to say, acquisitions produce anxiety, anger and a “what’s happening next?” atmosphere. So, many of the team members I was meeting with were not too receptive to my presence. I automatically use the word “customer” for patients/families, community members, referral sources and employees and have for many years (and yes, I am a nurse and I do think of patients as customers). I obviously was not thoughtful enough about the employee customers I was meeting with and used the word customer when talking about care delivery for our patients and families.
One of the team members quickly raised her hand to let me know how offended she was by the word customer (thank goodness I hadn’t used the “S” (sales) word). I wish I had known about the above quote and used it to open the meeting and the discussion about customer service. Anyone who chooses hospice as a place to work, regardless of their position, is committed to helping people during a very difficult time in their lives (and if they are not, they probably shouldn’t be working in hospice). I will share my approach to diffusing this incident later in the article when I talk about suggestions for introducing customer service.
In hospice we care for our patients and families during a very difficult time and we do what we can to support the patient and family’s quality of life, while being professional, respectful, clinically competent and empathetic. There are many components of hospice services: medical, psychosocial, spiritual, emotional and bereavement care. And I would encourage you to add customer service or customer helping as an equal component.
Every time we care plan, we are providing quality clinical care and good customer service:
- identifying patient/family needs
- discussing the best interventions with the patient/family and the team and
- evaluating what works and what needs to be revised.
We are taught to ask on every visit: “If there is one thing I could do for you today, what would it be?” and then we work as a team to make it happen. One of the basic principles of hospice care is: THE PATIENT AND THE FAMILY ARE THE CENTER OF THE PLAN OF CARE and we plan care based on what emotional, medical, spiritual, psychosocial and bereavement needs should be addressed. We do this based on what is most important to the patient/family (our customer).
We may think reducing the pain level from a 6 to a 4 is the most important goal, but the patient who has been distanced from their children may think that restoring that relationship is most important. We don’t ignore one goal for the other but we prioritize based on patient/family needs and we plan care for all needs identified.
This is excellent hospice care and it is also good customer service. “Customer service is awareness of needs, problems, fears and aspirations” (unknown). And, it is responding in a thoughtful, prompt and caring manner.
PS: The situation I describe initially was diffused by comparing customer service to care planning and doing the right thing for our patients and families.