Improving customer service consistency at Acme Health Enterprises

¶ … quality improvement initative that is being presented to the Board of Directors. Submitted for your approval, this proposal has been deemed a necessary and needed improvement to the service structure of Acme Health Enterprises. For too long, there has been a general focus on quality of interactions with clients and patients but it has lacked the proper structure and definition so as to ensure consistency and continuity from experience to experience. There needs to be a great quality overall with all interactions but the underpinning principles of those interactions needs to be ingrained and integrated with every person that is acting as the face of Acme Health Enterprises.

To be sure, the people of Acme Health Enterprises that are client and/or patient-facing do a great job and this project should in no way reflect badly on them or how well they do their job. However, there has been some inconsistencies identified in the type and form of follow-up, general interaction and general customer service that is being executed and this should not be the case. The cause for this inconsistency is a lack of definition and training on the part of management. With a defined structure for everyone to follow and a little training, everyone will be on the same page as far as how to interact with patients and their families and why it is important to present a united and monolithic front. For sure, this does not mean that interactions should be cold and scripted…to the contrary. This strategy will insure that the interactions are warmed, personalized and that all of the patient's needs and concerns will be met.

As is probably clearly already, the purpose of this program is to improve the overall perception of Acme's customer service and how well it is delivered to patients, their families and so forth. The target population of this project will be the patients themselves, their friends, their families and anyone else that the medical and/or administrative staff comes in contact with as part of daily job tasks. This would include the assistance of families and friends who are accompanying an injured or sick patient, someone who has come to pay a bill or make payment arrangements and vendors who come in and out of the Acme offices.

The costs involved in making this all work will actually be quite reasonable as there is not a lot of materials and resources necessary to make this all work. The one thing that will be greatly needed is time as it will take some modicum of it to separate people from their normal job duties and get them up to speed on the overall strategy. The training on this new united front will not be optional and whatever arrangements that are necessary to get everyone through the training will be employed. It is understood that some jobs and tasks must be covered no matter what and that will be taken care of. At the same time, everyone in the company must complete the training and they will be expected to follow the rules and guidelines explained therein.

The efficacy and performance of the program will be judged based on the customer survey scores that emanate from the metric measurements that occur in the months and years following the initiative. If scores fall or do not rise to the level that is expected and required, training will be retooled and tweaked based on the feedback provided by the customers. If there is an obvious trend or pattern that reveals that something was missed or mishandled, the overall strategy will be adjusted. Further, feedback from the front-line employees themselves will be listened to and abided by when it makes business and/or ethical sense.