This morning I woke up with a very red and irritated left eye and decided to work from home. After lunch I realized it wasn't getting any better, so I decided to head off to the doctor.
Now I live between Okotoks and Calgary so I decided to head south to the Calgary Health Region's "Okotoks Health and Wellness Centre".
Now I always find it interesting how different a town is from a city, even when they are 15 minutes apart. We've normally found people in customer service to be just a little more friendly, genuine and less rushed (pound for pound) in Okotoks than the big city.
The way it works there is that the first person you see is a nurse. They make an initial assessment as to your condition, the urgency of the visit and preliminary information gathering. After you finish with the nurse a second person gathers all the administrative information.
Now both of these people were very personable and had a great sense of humour. This puts the patient at ease very quickly and makes any wait less annoying. Not everyone can pull of the humour, but even a little light hearted dialog goes a long way.
After sitting in the waiting room for a bit, they moved me to a treatment room… PROGRESS. The nurse also told me that they had several very sick patients so the doctor might be tied up for a while.
After waiting a short while, the nurse paid a quick visit and did some more preliminary diagnostics, then left.
Then after a while the doctor appeared and completed the diagnosis. All the preliminaries were done in advance so the doctor focused on the problem and the solution. Very fast. But because of all the earlier attention, it did not feel short.
I may have been there 45 minutes to an hour tops. But it felt like ten minutes AND I got the problem diagnosed and solved.
Question: What can you take from this story and make your business's services better?
