02Feb “Hello, My Name Is…” A Simple Thing For Great Customer Experiences
Creating remarkable customer experiences should be the goal of all forward thinking businesses and organisations, and that includes the National Health Service! I know not everyone sees their patients as ‘customers’ and the idea of customer delight doesn’t go down well with all medical practitioners (I know, I’ve done some customer service training there!), but the principles do apply!
Someone who has campaigned passionately about simple things like treating customers with respect is hospital consultant, Dr Kate Granger. Her ‘Hello, My Name Is…’ campaign has just been adopted by more than 90 NHS organisations.
Dr Granger started the campaign to improve the patient experience in hospital, shortly after she was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer three years ago. She felt frustrated by staff who failed to tell her their name when they treated her. The doctor who informed her that her cancer had spread did not introduce himself to her and did not look her in the eye.
The terminally ill doctor started the #hellomynameis campaign on Twitter to encourage healthcare staff to introduce themselves to patients and as well as having over 32,000 followers she has got the support of the likes of David Cameron and Bob Geldof no less!
Dr Granger’s campaign reminds staff to go back to the basics and make real human connections with their patients, and at a really simple level, give their names to their patients (customers!)
It now has the support of more than 400,000 doctors, nurses, therapists, receptionists and porters across the NHS and is a great example of a simple approach to getting the customer service ‘basics’ right.
Here’s the inspirational Kate explaining her approach…
So, what are you like at the ‘basics’ when it comes to customer service in your business?
- How do you encourage your people to ‘engage’ with your customers?
- What support and guidelines do you give them?
- What do you do with those who do it?
- What do you do with those who don’t?
Finally, just to show you that the NHS still has got a long way to go in some areas, check out this terrible example of ‘scriptease’ – simply ‘following the script’ with an automated customer feedback mechanism for a couple of had just suffered a miscarriage!
