Excellence in customer service: A course for healthcare clinics

“The topics that were most useful were the ones that gave you ideas on going that extra mile… All the topics are applicable; but only with the support of my manager. All the topics were challenging in their own way. I would recommend this course as a great all-round staff-booster! Rod Solar is very good; creates a great atmosphere and a very positive vibe.” — Receptionist, London

What is the gold standard? Has anyone really experienced it?

We often find that some businesses expect their staff to perform “gold standard” customer service, without the business owners or the staff really knowing what it is. Just ask your staff: “when is the last time you experienced “gold standard” customer service?” and watch as their faces paralyse in a blank stare.

Anyway, it might be a better idea to give your staff an idea of what the “gold standard” is before expecting them to achieve it. That’s what we do at our Delivering Customer Service Excellence course, as one participant remarked.

Customer service training to drive referrals

“I have attended various customer care training in the past and I believe I know how to deliver good customer service, but this course stands out because I feel that this is suitable for those who already care about their relationship with their clients but would like to achieve excellence.

What is the loyalty of one customer worth? Well, depending on what you offer, sometimes that one customer’s loyalty can be the equivalent of 20 repeat purchases and 20 additional customer’s purchases, or 40-fold! People in customer-facing roles, absorbed in the day-to-day transactional nature of their businesses sometimes fail to remember that a customer is so much more than a mere transaction.

Remember, people don’t tend to talk about when they had their expectations met. They do, however, talk when they’ve had their expectations exceeded, and they talk a whole lot more when they’ve been disappointed. Ever wondered why the evening news and the papers is 95% bad news and hopefully 4% neutral and 1% good? It’s because good news rarely sells as much as bad news does.

You can leverage this patient feedback to tell you whether or not you have built “remarkability” into your pricing, promotion, process, product, or people. Like Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow”, are you truly “remarkable”? Are you doing something that exceeds expectations so much that your customers recommend you to everyone all the time, even when they are not talking to people who may need you right now or in situations that warrant the discussion?

That’s the kind of powerful referral potential via word of mouth that will eventually enable you to fire your advertising agency and stop wasting money on paying people to pay attention to your sales efforts! And who wouldn’t want to do that?