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I'm From the Mob and I'm Here To Help You...

...improve customer service.  Attending a town hall forum in leafy Downers Grove, IL, Commonwealth Edison officials heard “You’re treating us like Cubs fans!”

That’s a pretty good insult, intuitively understood by even the most diehard Cubs fans. In reality though, NOBODY, not even electricity-starved suburbanites, are treated as shabbily as Cubs fans. But I digress.

Interesting, isn’t it, to think what your customers, organized into a public mob, er, audience, would say about your hospital?

You: “Yes sir, you over there standing at the microphone. Do you have a comment?”

Audience member: “Yes I do, thanks for asking. I’m feeling pretty (blank.) You treat us like (blank.)”

What’s in the blanks?

“I’m feeling pretty good. You treat us like royalty!”

Maybe.  Maybe not.  Of course all of YOUR customers LOVE you. Your golfing buddies tell you so, and when have THEY ever been wrong?  (Maybe they’re White Sox fans.)

I wouldn't blame you if you avoided organized mobs, oxymoronic as they are.  Still, you could do what these leading Michigan hospitals are doing:
  • Ask patients one at a time, like Dr. John Popovich Jr., president and CEO of Henry Ford Hospital.
  • Ask patients to keep tabs on their experience with a real-time journal, like St. John Providence Health System.
  • Eat in the cafeteria once in a while, like Gene Michalski, CEO of Beaumont Health System in Royal Oak. Not a bad idea and I’ll bet the food improves.
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