Customer Service In Healthcare Organizations

Customer service is the provision of a service to a customer. In healthcare, customers are the patients, their families, and communities. The service provided is healthcare. Many people access health care each day. It can be just a routine exam or more serious critical or emergency care. Also, it can be a surgery, laboratory work, radiology, immunizations and so on. Patients in the United States of America have the ability to choose healthcare provider. That is why hospitals and practices must provide the best customer service in order to compete for their patients. The purpose of this paper is to explore customer services provided by three different healthcare organizations, to explore my feelings regarding the customer services, and
First organization I chose is the place where I am taking my leadership clinical at. It is the critical care unit of Beaumont Gross Point. Because nurses are the ones with the most direct patient interaction, I asked my preceptor`s permission to describe customer service she provides to her patients. My preceptor gave me a verbal perdition to describe her interactions with the patients. On the critical care unit my preceptor provides care to acutely and critically ill patients, some of these patients are sedated and ventilated. I think, my preceptor provides excellent customer care to her patients and to the families of the patients. My preceptor stays connected with her patients: uses listening skills; uses touch when appropriate; makes eye contact; does not rush interactions with the patients; explains procedures to her patient before making these procedures even if the patient is sedated. Also, my preceptor shows that she cares for her patients and their families: asks patients if they have any questions; asks patients and their family members if they need anything while she is in the room; addresses issues that patients may have and keeps them informed; educates patients when needed in language that they can understand. The only negative thing in my preceptor`s customer care in my opinion is that sometimes she can become too personal and call the patient words like "honey" or "sweetie" but
"Meeting expectations is tricky in the best of times, but add in cultural differences and providing good customer service can be even more challenging" (Envision Incorporation, 2013). Customers with different cultural backgrounds have different expectations as to what great customer service is. So to make people experience with customer service better, I propose a program that deeply examines culturally diverse populations and allows to improve customer service in healthcare through better cultural sensitivity. The evaluation of this program could be made through the survey on customer service satisfaction conducted before and after employees are educated about different