I’ve written many times here on the screed about customer-focused business behavior. I want to tell you about several professionals who exemplify what I think is the ultimate in customer focus. These are the people who provide hospice and palliative care. While it may sound a little cold to look at what they do as a business (and it’s a lot more than that, I know), there are a few really important things we can learn from them.
First, we often focus on the lifetime value of a customer and we prioritize the kind of service we deliver predicated on that. After all, the new customer who walks in to take advantage of a GroupOn offer is very different from the loyal customer who comes in once a week. How do you prioritize your customers when the entire reason you’re there is that you’re going to lose them in the near future? The answer is to do it as they do – deliver an incredibly high standard of service to everyone, looking at them as if they’ll be customers for life.
We all have customers who are demanding. Imagine a customer who can’t do much of anything for themselves. While we might talk about our jobs as 24/7 situations, very few of us actually live with our customers. These folks do, and they are on duty 24 hours a day for several days at a time. That might make anyone a little cranky, but part of the job is maintaining a positive attitude in the face of a lot of negativity (terminal illnesses tend to breed bad vibes…). Something to consider, perhaps, the next time we have a 30 minute meeting with an unhappy client or a customer rep who needs to engage an angry consumer on the telephone for an hour?
I can list a bunch of other comparisons here but the entire point is to change your perspective a bit as mine was changed over the last few months. A family member was fortunate (strange word to use when anyone needs this) to have had some excellent care from professionals providing hospice and palliative services. The way they went about their jobs, even when their customer was grumpy and difficult – was inspiring. It opened my eyes and hopefully I can pass that along.
Consult Keith 