As a Customer Experience Consultant with The DiJulius Group, I have become hypersensitive to the service that I receive as a customer, constantly searching for opportunities in which service providers can improve my experience with each interaction. In restaurants, the gym, grocery stores or running errands, I recognize both the positive and negative practices of every business I interact with.
When I recently decided to undergo LASIK eye surgery, I hardly shopped around for a LASIK company or surgeon. The reason behind this easy decision process was due to a trustworthy friend of mine who said her experience at Clear Choice Custom Lasik Center couldn’t be matched. I made my first appointment, and that was it. I could SEE what all the hype was about. SEE what I did there?!
“I could SEE what the hype was about.”
The facility was new, clean and inviting. There were fresh baked cookies in the waiting room, along with an infinite variety of sodas, coffees and teas. The front desk staff was more than accommodating when scheduling appointments and reviewing financing options. It gets even better. The handoff from the care coordinator to the technicians to the surgeons was completely seamless. The surgeons performing my LASIK procedure were the most friendly and comforting physicians that I have ever encountered. On the day of surgery, the surgeon sat down next to me in the waiting room for our pre-operative conversation, and then he led me into the operating room holding my hand. He continued talking to me and reassuring me, throughout the entire procedure, that my surgery was going “perfectly.” My experience truly was perfect from the first encounter to the last.
During one of my appointments, I found out a critical piece of information about this company’s amazing customer experience practices: Clear Choice had worked with The DiJulius Group several years ago! I must say I was not surprised, but definitely proud. Proud to know that The DiJulius Group’s values permeated into their culture to create an environment that consumers would describe as unmatched.
I asked Dr. Jeffrey Augustine to share some of his best practices on creating a seamless patient experience in the health care industry, where it is so uncommon. He spoke about their commitment to creating a successful team environment. This was a definitive quality of the Clear Choice staff that I was personally able to experience. Dr. Augustine stated that “strategic employee education and cross-training is helpful to guarantee that each patient will have meaningful coordinated interactions with any team member he or she comes into contact with.” Understanding that during each patient-staff interaction, the entire team and the entire system are being tested and judged reminds the staff to focus on the micro moments within every interaction.
In his recent article, “Why You Need a New Patient Care Model”, Dr. Augustine describes one of the most important pieces to an unforgettable customer experience. He has found that their team approach helps them to develop a more efficient external marketing strategy through this word-of-mouth publicity. This is evident in not only my experience of being referred there, but also with this article spreading the word about the exceptional experience.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: JESSICA BOUND
As a Customer Experience Consultant with The DiJulius Group, Jess leads clients in generating ideas, turning those ideas into systems, and then implementing and executing them enterprise wide. She is also an accomplished keynote speaker full of insight and wit; leaving audiences motivated, entertained and walking away with great content to implement immediately.
