Under-Promise

With all the changes these days, it is important to develop better customer relations. What better to do than under-promise and over-perform?

You have one commodity, one that you must protect: It is your customer. Never make pie-in-the-sky promises about what your company can do. Don't say how many dollars your customer might save by dealing with you. Prove it — and then you will have a happy shopper who will be carrying your message without being asked.

I am going to repeat the heart of this message: You must never promise to do anything that you cannot do. This is important, because once you fall down and fail to perform as promised, you may never get a second chance.

Let's discuss a very simple order. You receive a call to rush out a bedside commode. After it is packaged to deliver, does the driver knock on the door, hand the commode to whomever answers, obtain a signature and then return to base? Or does your driver unwrap the unit, help the patient or family caregiver place it by the bed, review how to clean the commode and show how to move the patient in and out?

Usually the second scenario is what takes place, but does the source of the order — the physician, case manager, HMO or family member — know that your company has performed this service? Send a memo indicating who delivered the unit and specifically what they did while making the installation. Over-performing, that's what wins.

Look Who's Talking

I returned a call the other day to a DME provider on the West Coast. A machine answered, and I had five choices to press. None of these directed me to the person who had called, so I pressed “0” for operator. When I did finally reach the provider, I queried why the company used a machine rather than a person to answer the phone. I was told they were so busy that they required a “laborsaving device,” which they found to be considerably less expensive than a person answering and forwarding telephone calls.

In this age of answering machines, voice mail and other “labor-saving” devices, some home care companies appear to be losing close contact with their customers. I know that the cost of staff to handle the phones can eat up dollars, but that staff can also greatly improve customer relations.