Jul. 1, 2009 at 2:09pm

If hospitals were more like Starbucks

Posted by Shari Campbell in Community Relations
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I dropped by Starbucks recently to pick up a couple coffee cards—gifts for some patients who appeared in cardiac ads for one of our clients. In a hurry, I sprinted to the counter, grabbed two cards and gave them to the barista.

After up-selling me a latte, she promptly gave me the receipt and encouraged me to go online (Web site is on the receipt) and complete a customer survey. “It only takes a few minutes, it helps us improve our products and services” she pleaded, “and you’ll get a free beverage!”

Fast forward to today. I found the receipt and hopped online.

www.MyStarbucksVisit.com is easy to remember and the site allows me to pick my language, English, Spanish or French. Gently, I was guided through a series of basic questions, all asking me about my experience. From coffee and comfort to friendliness and cleanliness, I rated my local Starbucks.

Contrast that to my most recent hospital experience with an ill family member. Discharge took hours, medical records weren’t complete and the new medications she needed required us to go to an outside pharmacy. And two weeks later, we still haven’t been asked about our experience. Which was really good until leaving the place.

How can your hospital be a bit more like Starbucks?

Ask frequently, listen more. A business colleague got into a serious auto accident recently. It cost him dearly. (The deer died, his insurance rates jumped). But he raved about his insurance carrier nonetheless. Seems Pemco was helpful, asked questions, provided great service and took care of his claim quickly. And when he blogged about the incident on his firm’s Web site, the folks at Pemco responded within hours, thanking him for his kind words.

My local Starbucks handled a service concern in a similar manner, thanking me for the helpful input, promising to do better next time, and comping my drink.

Make it easier to complain. I visited Scottsdale Healthcare’s Women’s Services a few years ago and was impressed by the service orientation of this growing system. One of their standards at the time was to minimize wait times—10 minutes or less. When a delay occurred for any reason, staff were encouraged to call the hospital’s massage therapy service and offer a complimentary chair massage—a simple way of making amends for the added wait time. Not surprisingly, this was a big hit. More important, the staff who ran the Women’s Center talked about how they instilled in employees the value of service and trained employees to observe and seek out comments—not as a way of punishing anyone, but as a way of continuing to improve care and service.

Value my time and reward me. I’ve worked as an employee and a consultant for a number of hospitals and health care systems with robust systems and processes for seeking patient feedback. None has ever offered me anything for completing “their form.” Consider a coffee certificate for your hospitals latte stand, a gift card to the gift shop or a complimentary health risk assessment. Even if patients don’t take you up on the offer, you will still get credit for your thoughtfulness.

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