Dr. Bradley Block talks with customer service expert Shep Hyken about transforming patient experiences in medicine: from handling complaints and building loyalty to creating a culture of amazement. Learn how small, consistent improvements can turn frustrated patients into loyal advocates.
How can physicians and their teams deliver exceptional patient experiences, even when things go wrong?
In this episode of Succeed In Medicine Podcast, Dr. Bradley Block interviews Shep Hyken, as he shares practical strategies for elevating patient care, emphasizing that "amazing" service doesn't require grand gestures, it's about being slightly better than average, consistently. Drawing parallels from hospitality giants like the Ritz-Carlton, he explains how using patients' names, setting clear expectations, and leveraging technology like patient portals can reduce friction and build loyalty.
The conversation dives into handling "moments of misery," such as late appointments or scheduling mishaps, with a five-step process: acknowledge the issue, apologize, discuss resolutions, own the problem, and act with urgency. Shep also stresses the importance of creating a patient-focused culture through leadership, training, and hiring for personality fit. He introduces concepts like "destination employment" to foster employee fulfillment and uniqueness, ensuring staff feel empowered to deliver compassionate care. Ultimately, Shep reinforces that patients compare healthcare experiences to top-tier service in any industry, so practices must prioritize convenience, empathy, and proactive communication to stand out.
Three Actionable Takeaways
About the Show:
Succeed In Medicine covers patient interactions, burnout, career growth, personal finance, and more. If you're tired of dull medical lectures, tune in for real-world lessons we should have learned in med school!
About the Guest:
Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, award-winning keynote speaker, researcher, and New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. He has been quoted in hundreds of publications and is the author of eight books, including his most recent, "I'll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again and Again." Shep works with companies and organizations that want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/shephyken
Website: hyken.com
About the Host:
Dr. Bradley Block – Dr. Bradley Block is a board-certified otolaryngologist at ENT and Allergy Associates in Garden City, NY. He specializes in adult and pediatric ENT, with interests in sinusitis and obstructive sleep apnea. Dr. Block also hosts Succeed In Medicine podcast, focusing on personal and professional development for physicians
Want to be a guest?
Email Brad at brad@physiciansguidetodoctoring.com or visit www.physiciansguidetodoctoring.com to learn more!
Socials:
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@physicianguidetodoctoring on YouTube
@physiciansguide on Instagram and Twitter
[00:00:00]
things don't always go as planned for patients and rightfully, they can get upset or forgotten appointment a script that wasn't sent. But how you handle that can turn a disgruntled patient into an evangelist who will sing your praises. Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, award-winning keynote speaker, researcher, and New York Times and Wall Street Journal , bestselling author.
He has been quoted in hundreds of publications and is the author of eight books, including his most recent, I'll Be Back, had to get customers to come back again and again. He's a customer service wizard. Shep works with companies and organizations that wanna build loyal relationships with their customers and employees.
And in our case, our patients. But before we get to Shep, stay tuned for a word from our sponsors.
Shep. Hi. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Brad. It is great to be here. Thanks for having me. So let's get right into it. You talk about giving people amazing. Customer [00:01:00] experiences, right? And so people come into the doctors, they're uncomfortable, they're nervous, maybe they're getting some bad news.
So, you know, there can be a lot of badness associated with being at the doctor's office. So how do we make sure that we are giving them. An amazing experience. That's a great question and this is an overarching philosophy I have, by the way. I was working with a client whose business responds to emergencies when homes are burning or flooding, and it's like same kind of thing.
These people are in distress. So how do you be amazing? Okay. First. Amazing is not what you think it is. It Isn't over the top. Blow me away. The most incredible experience I've ever had. I can't imagine getting experiences like this anywhere else. It's very difficult to maintain that level of experience.
What amazing is. and I tried to come up with a word people were saying, create the wow experience. Go above and beyond. That can happen when there are emergencies. For example, if [00:02:00] I'm gonna go to the doctor's office and I'm really sick and I'm feeling bad and you sneak me in, before you know whatever the time is that you normally open, just so you can see me as a patient, that's amazing and over the top.
But we can't wait for those emergencies to happen every single time with every patient. So my definition of amazing is simply being the tiniest bit better than average. All of the time, and that includes simply meeting expectations. This is what you want your patients to say. You know, whenever I contact them and leave a message, they always get back to me quickly.
Whenever I do talk to someone in the office, in person, over the phone. Via a virtual call, a video call. They're always so helpful. They're always so knowledgeable. They're always friendly and personable. and that word always is what's the setup if you have always followed by something.
Good. Now let's jump to the hospitality industry for a moment. Because I think it's really important to highlight what you just said, which is just be a [00:03:00] little bit better than the competition all the time. The thing, no, I didn't say that. I said, be not the competition.
No, it'd be better than the standard. Average. Average. Okay. All the time. So a little better than average. Even easier even. That was gonna be my point. Even easier. Yeah. Because people's expectations of what they're gonna get from healthcare are so low. I mean, sometimes their expectations are a little high 'cause they think we can work magic.
But in terms of like the customer, the patient experience, their expectations are so low. So to be a little bit better than average every time really shouldn't be that hard for us. Yeah. The hardest part is that you're consistently doing it. and what I really wanna focus on the hospitality industry for just a moment because I think it makes a great picture.
I've had an opportunity to work with a gentleman named Schultz, who's the first president and co-founder of the Ritz Carlton organization. largely known for iconic service throughout the world, right? Yeah. And he and I have the same philosophy. He just says it with an Austrian accent, a little bit better than average and consistently and predictably.
And I said, can you. Tell me [00:04:00] how much better than average we have to be. And he simply thought about it for a moment. He said, 10% better. I go, that is just a little bit better, isn't it? Now, what is 10% better look like in real life? Okay. this is where it transfers into what we do. On a scale of one to five.
If one is lousy and five is fantastic or great, three is in the middle and it's average. Now, by the way, if you do one to 10, your average marks that you get from your patients might be a seven or a six whatever it is. The point is. How much better do you have to be?
He said 10% better, which means a 3.3 on a scale of one to five. But I asked him to gimme specific examples of what that looks like. He says, for example, we use the guest name every chance we get in the right way, by the way. And so if I'm walking into the doctor's office and I'm recognized by whoever's working that desk, they use my name in the Ritz Carlton.
Whoever's working the door sees somebody come [00:05:00] up in a car, they help them with their bags, they look at the bag tag, and like, if it's my bag, they'll say, are you Mr. Hyken? Yes. Well, welcome to the Ritz. Have you been here before? Yes, I have. Come on in. Let me take you up to the front desk. I get straight out of Dale Carnegie, how to Win Friends and Influence People.
Yeah, there's no sweeter sound than the sound of your own name, so use their name. In my first book I ever wrote back in the late 1980s, I actually quoted that exact thing because, it's a timeless principle. Here's what happens. When the bellman or whoever it is bringing the bags in, goes to the front desk and says to the person, this is Mr.
Hi, and he's here to check in, and two hours later I'm walking through the lobby and maybe it's one of the person behind the desk or the person who helped me at the door say, Hey, Mr. Hyken, how's your room? Or Are you having a good day? And they use my name again. another thing he talked about was when somebody says, where's the bathroom?
You don't say down the hall to the left and then make another right. You'll see the sign they take you there. Now say, Mr. Hi, can follow me, sir Don walk into the bathroom with you. Yeah, [00:06:00] that's a little crazy. Make sure you wash your hands. Yes, exactly. Good point. No matter whether you're in healthcare or not, wash your hands.
But the point is it's just a little something extra and that's the key. And you know what? I never do it. As much as I've done a bunch of episodes on patient experience, and I've heard this before, I don't do it. And the reason I don't is because it's just me and them in the exam room. I mean, maybe there's some other family room and I know their name because that's what's on the top of their chart.
But I sh doesn't mean I shouldn't do it just because there's nobody else in the room, so I couldn't possibly be talking to someone else unless I were hallucinating. But still, that's a specific example where maybe you don't have to because you could say it. No, no, but I thinks you still use it.
Yeah. Yes. You can still say their name. Yes. it doesn't change the fact that people like to hear the sound of their own name. You wouldn't have to pepper it with using their name over and over again, but a couple of times during the visit, just say their name. Yeah. And it could be right when, Hey, Shep, it's great to see you again.
I'm looking at your chart. The test came back great, you [00:07:00] know, or whatever, or let's talk about your test. The using the name is powerful, but that's just a very basic example. There are many things you can do to bump up the experience to better than average. And here's the easiest way. Just do what's expected all the time.
Now you need to learn what's expected for your specific practice in your specific industry. It's gonna be a little different, than. Perhaps a retail or a hospitality, a restaurant or hotel, you know what's expected, and you just figure out a way to always hit that expectation. And when you do that, people say.
Always followed by something good. And they say that, that is an amazing place. My doctor's amazing. The doctor's team is amazing, and we want everybody on our team to be doing the same thing. And that's extremely important. The word you wanna stay away from is fine. How is your experience today? It was fine.
Fine does not mean fine. Shep, I gotta interrupt you 'cause there's some problems here. Yeah. The reason, you know, one of the things is we [00:08:00] expect people to. Pick up the phone when you call. Right. The problem is we get deluged with phone calls, and so in order to be able to pick up the phone in a reasonable.
Period of time you have to hire an army of people who are answering the phone on a Monday morning, but that army is gonna be sitting around twiddling their thumbs being paid on a Wednesday afternoon. And so it's not always possible logistically to deliver on all of those things and people are gonna be unhappy about it.
Yeah. My short answer to that is. You're gonna have to figure it out, and I'm gonna tell you why. Yeah. And by the way, we can talk about specifically how to do that. But I don't wanna get too into the weeds on that. And the reason is a lot of the listeners are not in positions to be hiring people.
Like what they do is they see their patients. They go home, they maybe work for a hospital system where they're not necessarily able to influence a lot of that stuff and I think we have a solution that might give them the answer beyond hiring another person.
Okay. Okay, then let's hear it. Yeah. but I just want to [00:09:00] tell you that your patients aren't comparing you to other doctor's offices anymore. When they think of the experience, they're comparing you to the best experience they've ever had So not the cable company. It's definitely, well, it could be.
Some people rate them high believe it or not. I just read some research by Qualtrics that said that when it comes to people having bad experiences, the customers that leave the internet, utility type companies, cable companies or customers who leave businesses, leased are those companies.
The reason is there's usually not many choices. It's either, spectrum or at and t or at and t and Comcast. So you get two, maybe three choices and sometimes it's sticky. By the way, doctor's offices are the same way. It's a sticky solution. You know me, I've been coming here for years and I'm tolerating.
below expectation, level of service, you know, and I may just tolerate it because at least it's easier than having to start over with a new doc and letting them know my history and all that. [00:10:00] That is not where you wanna be. You want them to love you. So let's go back to the concept of it's Monday morning.
The phones are ringing like crazy. What I wanna do is create a convenient experience for both my patients and my employees. And the way I'm gonna do that is the use of technology. I wrote a book a few years back titled The Convenience Revolution and two of the six convenience principles are self-service and technology.
And when you marry them together, you might be able to handle a lot of the. Inquiries and calls and needs of those patients at busy times. What you're gonna do is train your patient to go into the portal. And by the way, this is far less expensive than hiring a team of people. But I know every doc that I go to is on some portal.
I go to my dentist, I don't even have to call anymore to make an appointment. I simply go online, find the time that works in my calendar, book it, make some comments [00:11:00] as to anything special. That's going on and one of two things will happen. Either I get a confirmation, I'm set, or I get a phone call from somebody in that office saying, Hey, what's going on?
I see this comment. There's no reason you can't do the same thing on a Monday morning or any time. And by the way, we all. Probably have a number to call for emergency purposes. But if somebody's calling just to try to get in because they're not feeling great, there's no reason why they can't do this and set it up and then your team responds to these patients and, you know, what's the word? Asynchronous communication so that they leave a message and then you get back to them in a reasonable period of time. But here's the key to that. Yeah. You need to let 'em know how fast they're gonna hear from you.
And if, you can set this up with technology, it will send an alert. We know you're waiting to hear from us. you can set up a message and you need continuous communication. Yeah. Based on the personality and need of each thing. This can all be handled digitally, electronically.
And if you think, well, gosh, how do I get my patients to do this? You've gotta teach 'em. Think about what the [00:12:00] airlines did. I don't know when the last time you took a flight anywhere recently. Oh yeah. Over the summer. And did you call the airline or did you go online and make your reservation?
No, everything was done online. Exactly. And you check in, you barely interact with a person. Right. But they're always there if you need them. But 20 years ago or whatever the year was of the first, time Delta Airlines, and it was actually northwest merging with Delta. Introduce the idea of booking your own flight.
Yourself. They gave you a thousand miles or points, or maybe it was 500 if you would try it. And they worked it out. So when you tried it, you would like it. And most people in a very short time moved over to doing it themselves. When you train your patients, even the boomers and what do they call the older than boomers, they call us.
Not me. The greatest generation dreamers Really? Was it Dreamers, the latest generation? Well, I'm talking about the older, no, the greatest generation was the, world War II vets, the greatest generation. Yes. And even they will embrace the technology when you teach 'em and [00:13:00] show them how easy it's to use.
And you've gotta deliver too. There's no doubt about it. But that's one way, that I would handle those phones. And knowing a Monday morning could be busy. I might actually staff somebody for a few extra hours on a Monday morning. I'm gonna give you a scenario based on what you just told me, okay?
Because another thing that you talk about is turning moments of misery into moments of magic. Yes. Right? And so let's say that person went online, they made an appointment on a Monday for a Wednesday. They come in on Wednesday at one 30 for their appointment. First of all, their appointment was at one 30, but they show up at one 40 and they haven't filled out their paperwork.
And then they find out on top of that, actually. They didn't fill out the portal correctly and it never confirmed their appointment. So they never got an email confirming their appointment. They thought they had one, they're not feeling well. They're coming in, they took the afternoon off from work, and now they're irate because they don't have an appointment and they're yelling at.
My staff [00:14:00] member who has no control over the website works. She has no control over whether or not I'm gonna be able to accommodate that person. Because you know what? I'm already running a half an hour behind because my first two patients didn't show up on time either. And so now this person is, I rate, 'cause they may not be seen.
How do you turn that moment of misery into a moment of magic? By the way, there's a lot to unpack here. Okay. let's start with what a moment of misery and a moment of magic is moving from amazement. How do we create that amazement? We manage the moment. The moment goes one of three ways. It's either misery.
A problem, a complaint, an issue, a bad experience. It's mediocrity, which is average or fine. We wanna stay away from that. If we want to be seen as an elite practice in how we take care of our patients, or we create that magic is anything better than okay. Any positive experience. And once in a while it might be an over the top thing, kind of like amazement, but it doesn't need to be.
So that's my definitions of. You know, that interaction, which by the way I learned this from a gentleman named Jan [00:15:00] Carlson, who wrote a book titled Moments of Truth, and he defined the moment of truth in any business. Medical practice as well is whenever a customer or patient, comes into contact with an aspect of a business and has an opportunity to form an impression.
Now let's talk about your scenario number one. The patient, or I would say the customer is not always right. Okay. And we need to let our staff know that. But we need to also add still. They're always our patient. So if they're wrong, we need to let them be wrong with dignity and respect.
So how do we do that? Number one, if somebody's on the portal and they don't complete the form properly and they don't log in or they don't set their, there should be an alert to let them know you're not finished yet. This is not gonna go through. So maybe even on the front end, you say, if for some reason you do not receive confirmation after you.
Complete this, please let us know. so you do that on the front end and maybe on the back there's a [00:16:00] technology that won't allow you to if you don't hit send, reminding them you've gotta hit, enter, for it to go forward. I fill out forms all the time that says there's something wrong on this.
And I say, oh, I see. I left a piece of information out. So technology should allow you to help that. You should also train your patients. That being on time at a doctor's office is a non-negotiable. It is understandable that a Dr. May have an emergency and have to spend a little bit more time with the patient, but our goal is to see you in a timely fashion.
We will do everything we can to be there for your appointment. But if you're late to your appointment. We cannot guarantee you'll be seen that day. You have to put the onus on them on the front end, okay? Not when they get there. Not reminding them, oh, you're a bad patient. You didn't show up on time, but we've gotta set some ground rules.
if I'm a doctor, I want to give you the very best experience. You've gotta help me give you the best experience. Now, this sounds like pie in the [00:17:00] sky, but it's not. I have a friend of mine that has a very, very successful dental practice and he has taken the whole idea of your typical dental practice and turned its on its ear by creating an experience that looks nothing like your typical dental experience other than when he's actually working on your teeth.
We want to create that experience and we need to look at every single touch point and I'm gonna get into the philosophy of how you look at these moments and try to avoid the misery that we have. So I wanna look at a typical patient's journey. What does it look like when it's right? Where are the friction points?
Maybe it's getting that appointment. Maybe it's filling out that form in the beginning. By the way, I was actually talking with a client today about their convenient or lack of convenience. They have several forms they require their customers to fill out. Every one of 'em requires the same information at the top, so it's like either make it one form or get it to auto-populate, you know?
Yeah. It's like they don't need. [00:18:00] People don't need to waste time giving you the same information. And it's easier than ever to do this with technology and very inexpensive. We wanna create that experience. We need to train our patients on what to do. We need to show them how they can get the best of us and how we can give the best to them.
Now there I will share with you a personal example of why I choose to go to the doctor I go to today because my prior doctor, who was phenomenal, sold his practice. To a large medical system, and I always got my first appointment at 8:00 AM when the office opened. I would get there a few minutes before eight and always be there for my first appointment after he sold the practice.
I got there 15 minutes early and there were three other patients ahead of me that had the same first appointment. I can see your face. That's it. Oh my gosh. Tell me this doesn't happen. Of course it happens. And I'll tell you the reason it happens is because the odds are the other [00:19:00] two are gonna show up late, right?
And this is a way to make sure that we run on time. So instead of having an eight, an eight 15 and an eight 30, you just have them all show up at eight. And I'm not saying I do that. But I can understand doing it that way because the frequency with which people don't show up on time, it allows you to manage your schedule better and actually run on time in the long term.
Yeah. but Shep, I do want to, 'cause we still haven't gotten to that, turning that moment of misery into a moment of magic. Like how do you handle that angry patient? Okay. So when you. Great. We'll get to that. And by the way, there's lots of ways that we can try to eliminate this. We can set the expectation, and you could even say you need to be on time for your appointment, but we promise you this, we will inform you if the doctor's running late, okay?
And by the way, this is a way to mitigate these problems. You let 'em know ahead of time and you can tell 'em to show up a little late. But what happens when you have a complaint or a problem? I think that's what you're asking me for. So I give you a basically a five step process that is gonna handle any complaint.
Our goal is [00:20:00] not to just fix a problem, and by the way, the fix in that moment may not be exactly what. That patient wants, but the effort and how you take care of it is gonna make all the difference in the world. Got it. So the five steps go like this, number one, well, and one and two kind of go together, an acknowledgement and an apology, and you can do either one in whatever order.
Oh, I'm so sorry. This happened. The doc had an emergency. He had to deal with it, pushed them back 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it is all day. And he's doing his best to catch up. And I understand that doesn't make it right, but you need to have an explanation. Here's what we're gonna do.
I'm looking at this schedule. If everything goes smoothly, now you're discussing the resolution you're going to be in by this time. If that doesn't work, I can schedule you for later today or another, whatever. I don't know all the situations. I'm just making this resolution part.
Yeah, but you give them options is a discussion what works best for you? Yeah. Yep. Now number four and [00:21:00] five. So you've got acknowledgement, apology, fix it or discuss what you're gonna do to fix it. Number four is, I own it. I'm talking to you. I'm your person. Yeah.and I need to own this as not my fault, but it's my responsibility to take care of you, and I need to act in the most urgent fashion possible.
The situation you described to me calls for a sense of urgency simply because we didn't meet a time deadline. Yeah. But once again,I'm used to. Having to wait a little bit in every doctor's visit and dentist visit it when I get in. And it's right on time. And by the way, I know the doc wants to be on time, but I also have to be a humanitarian and say, you know what, maybe there's somebody that's really much sicker than I am.
It's like, I'm sure if I go into the emergency room in a hospital and I'm just complaining about strep throat, not knowing that's what it is, they're gonna tell me to sit over in the corner and wait my turn. But I show up saying. I can't breathe. I'm having a heart attack. They're bringing me straight in.
Yeah. I know that's gonna [00:22:00] happen, so acknowledge, apologize, discuss the resolution or fix it if you can. Right on the spot. Number four, own it. Number five, act with urgency. Yeah. I love the own it, I am gonna be the person like kind of turning it into a concierge experience.
Yeah. I am gonna be your person. Let me help you. Get this sorted out. Let me give you, and then I will give you all me, talk to the doctor. I'll give you all the options. I love that, like empowering the staff to be able to deliver and give that type of experience. there's an issue there though, and that's something that we had talked about before that we were gonna bring up at the show.
the staff. are not stakeholders in the practice, if the practice does well or does poorly, it really doesn't affect them. The way the physician affects our bottom line in many situations. And so if you're busy versus not busy, for them if they deliver a good experience or bad experience, it's gonna make them feel good.
Nobody wants to be in a situation with a lot of friction. But it might be a lot to ask them to take ownership for something like that. So how do we create a culture [00:23:00] such that they feel empowered and responsible for delivering that type of experience? That's a great question and I'm going to.
Go through my culture building ideas in just a moment. But I think it's important to take a look at who you're putting on that front line. If you're not putting the right people in the front line and you're hiring anybody that when they come in, you put a mirror under their nose, if they fog up, you hire 'em regardless of their capability.
I think you're making a huge mistake. You've gotta hire the right people. let's, go to a much larger picture. I work with a medical. System down in, Arizona, large system, they shut down. Half of a floor of a specific area of the hospital because they couldn't properly staff.
They found very qualified, technically qualified and educated people, but it didn't meet the personality that they were trying to create in taking care of the patient. They wanted to be recognized as extremely high in patient satisfaction and [00:24:00] care and compassion and they knew that these people would work against that.
Not on purpose, but they just didn't have the personality. Their answer was, Hey, it's like going to a restaurant. There's a bunch of open tables. Why can't I sit there? You know what? We don't have enough staff to cover those tables. We only hire staff that is truly gonna take care of you.
Alright, but let's jump to another gentleman, Brian Keeley, who last year retired from Baptist Health South as their CEO. He had a philosophy called destination employment, meaning. I want to be a place where you want to come and work here so badly that once you get here, you're never gonna want to leave and work anywhere else.
So that's part of the culture, and I'm gonna get to that in a second. But I created this acronym called FUN. How do you create a fun experience? For your employee. Not fun in that we're having a party, but F stands for fulfillment. I want to give you a good experience. I want you to love working here.
It's maybe the way you're treated by fellow employees and me as a doctor. As your boss, okay? [00:25:00] Maybe it's because of the environment we have and what we believe in and that our patients buy into that, and it just is a great experience. Two is uniqueness. I want to exploit you for what your true unique talent is.
I can teach you to use a computer, but what I can't teach you is to be super nice and compassionate, so if that's one of your unique traits. I wanna bring you in. We work with people in contact centers all the time, and we recognize some people have the personality of wanting to help and take care of and show empathy and sympathy, and other people are better handling very complex issues that require technical ability, but they can be void of personality.
We put them in the right spot. The third thing is next, NFUN. fulfillment, uniqueness. Next is it. A great experience enough to get them to come back the next day. Or are we getting ready to do something new? Are we getting a new piece of equipment? Are we hiring somebody to, expand our, practice?
What's next that would get people excited? Alright, so that's just this idea that let's create destination [00:26:00] employment and fulfilling experience. Now, the customer or patient focused culture. We've gotta start at the top. It starts with the doc, it starts with the boss. and I'll give you the real quick rundown on what these steps are.
Number one is we have to define what we want that experience to be. I'll go back to the Ritz Carlton nine words. We're ladies and gentlemen, serving ladies and gentlemen. Nine words. Every single person that comes to work at a Ritz learns that day one. They probably learn it when they're in the process of being hired, and then they're trained on how to deliver on that.
They actually have 24 gold standards, and that's a whole nother thing we can get into another day. But the first thing is you define it. So what one sentence? Defines what you want that patient experience to be. Number two, it needs to be communicated over and over again. This is not something you need to share with your patient, although some companies do share their vision.
I call it the mantra, the one sentence or less mantra that. You know, is what we want our patients to experience. [00:27:00] Number three, after you've communicated again and again and forever. Number three is you make sure people are trained properly to it. And training is not something you did, it's something you do.
I work with a medical practice here, very small practice for docs, concierge business. I come in, we talk to them. And I gave them a set of training tools to use every month for the next year till they bring me back to do it again. And the idea is every month they're gonna show up a half an hour before the doors open, and they're gonna go through a little bit of a reminder and go through a short little exercise that gets them very patient focused.
Some of my clients do this on a weekly basis. I have actually two clients now that do it every single day, they're in the retail world. They get their surveys about customer satisfaction overnight, and they get to talk about 'em that morning and talk about how to deal with whatever happened, good or bad.
Anywaynumber one. Define the vision. Number two, communicate it. Number three, everybody [00:28:00] gets trained. Number four, as the leader, the doc, you've gotta demonstrate the behaviors that you want. Walt Disney was an amazing man who would walk into a theme park, and everybody knew who worked there. The cast members, that's what they call them.
Employees would know who Walt was. Walt would walk around, look around. He saw a piece of paper on the ground, he stooped down, pick it up, and threw it away because he knew that if he walked by that piece of paper. He gave permission to everybody to do it. Now I call that being a role model. Yeah, the role model goes beyond just picking up a paper and he called that stooping the excellence, by the way, the role model is also in how you treat your patients and how you treat your employees, your team.
If you treat your internal customers, yeah. Any differently than you treat your patient, your customer, they have permission to treat. That patient the same way. Yeah. So you must do what I refer to as the golden rule of employees, and that is to treat the people you work with as or do unto your employees as you want done unto [00:29:00] your patients, if not even better.
So that's kind of the role model. Number five, defend it If somebody goes out of alignment on what you want them to do. Sit down, coach them, mentor them, help them, train them. And if they're not gonna make it, guess what? Maybe they're not right for your job and your practice. And finally, number six, if everybody's doing a great job or individually, somebody's stepping up and really making it happen, celebrate the success.
Do something special to acknowledge 'em. It could be as simple as a pat on the back, or maybe every once in a while say, everybody show up 15 minutes early tomorrow I'm bringing the donuts. And, by the way, I hope you're not in some type of practice that focuses on diabetes when you do that, but you get the idea.
So define the vision. Communicate it, train to it. Be the role model, defend it, which means you're defending the culture and celebrate it when it works. Amazing. Well, this was a very densely packed episode with lots of fantastic advice on how to turn moments of misery into moments of magic, setting the tone for your culture, creating a culture of [00:30:00] amazement, and, just all such fantastic advice.
So, if the listeners wanna learn more from you, they want to take a deep dive into your books or your podcast. Where do we find you? Yep. We go to hyken.com. H-Y-K-E-N. There's a couple things there. If you wanna subscribe to my newsletter, great. It's free, and I always have a fun cartoon that goes with it.
And probably one in every two, or. Three of those articles will apply to exactly what's happening in your practice. I also have customer experience research, even though I'm focused on a general consumer, the findings in there, it's a nice big report. The findings in there will be fascinating because this is what your patients are thinking about any experience they have in any type of business, including ours.
And, that's free. Just click on it. You don't even need to gimme an email address. It's really, truly free. So we want that. And I do have a podcast. It's called Amazing Business Radio. you'll see it says podcast at the top and I even had a TV show. There's lots of episodes that are still, available.
If you wanna watch me do my little talk show, shep hyken[00:31:00] hyken.com. Yep. thank you so much for your time and sharing your expertise with us. Brad. Thank you. And I love your energy and I love your passion for this. I'm sure that your. Customers, if you'll call them, the docs that you work with have to be fascinating and love working with you.
So thanks for having me on the show.