Monday Morning Meeting: Seven Things Your Customer’s Won’t Tell You Unless You Ask – Poor Systems

Monday Morning Meeting: Seven Things Your Customer’s Won’t Tell You Unless You Ask – Poor Systems

Did you know that customer research has shown that 96% of people won’t take the time to complain to a business?  This means that only 4% of those who had a bad experience at your office will tell you about it. However, you better believe that those who didn’t complain to you will certainly be complaining to someone else….

It’s important to provide your patients with the opportunity to express their frustrations or disappointments. But it’s more important to listen to these complaints and to utilize this knowledge to improve future patients experiences. It’s all about increasing the positivity people!

Patients Won’t Complain to You About Your Systems

Systems are what keeps our offices in order, on schedule, and on track. You probably set up your systems when you first started practicing and haven’t looked at them again. However, systems that we establish now may not always be as efficient later on. And unfortunately we very rarely step back and evaluate them so it’s hard for us to see where errors or flaws may be.

But your patients definitely see those issues and want to share this information with you. Customers will tolerate the system and procedures as they are if you’re a great dentist and they think it’s worth it. But as soon as you stop being worth it, they’re gone. It’s frustrating to do something that you know could be done more efficiently but most customers won’t tell you how difficult or annoying it is.

Give your customers the opportunity to explain how a process could work better and you can revolutionize their experience and maybe learn how to do something more easily or quickly!

What Can You Do?

These are tips we found that can help improve your office and customer interactions.

Host a Customer Focus Group

Customer focus groups interviews are a great way to hear specifics on what customers like, dislike and ideas for new products and services.

Customer Satisfaction Survey

Customer satisfaction surveys can provide the data to identify what is working and what needs to be adjusted on services and products.  It also provides correlations between what the customer values and their intent to continue using products and services.

Customer Comment Cards

Customer comment cards provide more immediate feedback from customers and can capture customer response while the experience is still fresh in the customer’s mind.  This is a great opportunity to identify those things that affected the immediate experience of the customer.

Customer Interactions

Relationships really are the name of the game and interacting with customers on a regular basis sends the message that you care and it makes them feel valued.  I don’t think I’ve ever dined in a nice restaurant without seeing the manager interacting and thanking customers for coming in and checking on their experience.

Service Recovery

Every organization should have a service recovery process that allows employees at all levels of the organization to fix customer problems. Great organizations do a good job of this and it pays off by creating a committed, loyal customer base.

Hearing customer complaints can be difficult, particularly when you and your employees are working so hard. However, until you can identify those things that the customer wants, and is willing to pay for, you are wasting your time.  Customers who share feedback with a business are gifting them with the information they need to provide the products and services that people are willing to pay for.

Learn More About Customer Service Here: http://thethrivingsmallbusiness.com/articles/7-things-most-customers-wont-complain-about/