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An article in Healthcare Finance News suggests that Healthcare firms need to start benchmarking their healthcare customer service against firms outside their industry primarily because the level of healthcare customer service is so dismally low overall.

The article notes that patients do not stop being a customer when they put on a hospital gown. In my "Prescription Rx for Service" heathcare customer service training and keynotes, I actually put on a hospital gown to illustrate this point. When someone trades their street clothes for a hospital gown their personality can be altered from a confident, in charge person to one who is totally insecure and afraid. This would NOT be the optimum time to give them miserable customer service!

The article points out that timeliness and the ability to apologize are key to service success and service recovery.

It would seem that other industries could take heed from this article. Perhaps banks should not be benchmarking only against banks and retailers only against retailers but rather all should be looking to the stars in service such as Enterprise, LL Bean, Starbucks and others on the Business Week list of Top Service companies. (see full list here)

While the day to day activities of these different business types may vary, the things that please and displease customers are very similar!

To read the Healthcare Finance News article referenced above click here