Is your practice providing a quality patient experience?

If you surveyed your customers, what would they say about your practice and the level of customer service you provide? Great customer service is an important part of any business and plays a large role in creating loyal customers. It’s simple: A medical office that provides a quality patient experience is much more likely to have patients who recommend them to their friends and family. On the other hand, the effects of bad customer service can be significant. Consider this:

Unhappy patients are much more likely to leave — and provide negative reviews.

Studies show that often, it’s the little things — like a grumpy or rude employee, being sent to voicemail or facing a long wait on hold — that can make a patient feel like they aren’t valued. It may have little or nothing at all to do with the quality of medical services you’re providing. But it can result in a poor online or in-person review that can hamper your patient recruitment efforts.

Poor customer service is costly.

It’s estimated that U.S. businesses lost more than $75 billion last year due to poor customer service. According to NewVoiceMedia’s Serial Switchers report, U.S. consumers today will readily switch from one company or business to another if their needs aren’t met. In fact, 67 percent of consumers have become “serial switchers,” meaning that they are more than willing to switch companies — and often do so — because of a single poor customer experience. Main reasons for switching: Not feeling appreciated, not getting answers to their questions, rude/unhelpful employees, long waits and otherwise not having their needs met. Don’t think this happens in the medical services setting? Think again!

Once they leave, they won’t be back.

All it takes is one bad experience to ruin a relationship with even the most loyal of customers, and it’s not very easy to win them back. According to one study, 91% of unhappy customers will never come back to the companies they left.

Even if they don’t leave immediately, you’ll have to work hard to keep them over the long term.

Research shows that it takes about one dozen positive experiences to make up for just one unresolved negative experience. It is possible to work things out with an unhappy patient, but that initial experience can never truly be erased.

Bad experiences are shared at twice the rate of positive experiences.

When someone has a bad experience with a business, they often share it with other people in person and on social media.