Customer Service Management In Private Hospitals: Strategies And Best Practices

1. Customer Service Plan

Describe about the Cutomer Service Management in Private Hospital.

Organisation Description: It is a non-profit and Catholic hospital that came into existence in 1885 and is still continuing to provide premium quality services and treatment to patients.

Organisation structure: It is a publicly owned hospital.

Products/services offered: Exclusive treatment to mental health patients, cardiology, endocrinology, pastoral care, orthopedics, ophthalmology, rheumatology, and oncology. It also has an emergency department, Intensive Care Unit and scope for General Medicine and Surgery.

Organisation vision: The hospital’s vision is to stay excellent in its services and continue its treatment through hope and nurturing to the communities and people they serve. Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper

Organisation mission: Calvary mission is to provide quality, compassionate and responsive care to all its patients. This hospital operates on Gospel values and believes that the spirit of Mother Mary stands by her son on Calvary.

Target audiences/customers: Aged people, mental health people and other normal people suffering from any health ailments.

Customer service Standards/KPI’s: It excels in customer servicing. It has taken all its obligations in serving the communities and is perfectly continuing with it.

Customer services policies and procedures on: ·         Ways to Identifying customer information and needs: Through meaningful conversation regarding their needs and demands. ·         Procedures to obtain and manage customer feedbacks: Through survey form and questionnaires sent through email and also through face-to-face conversation. ·         Tools to analyze customer service issues and solutions: o   E.g. delivery issues: Timely Delivery through maintenance of charts done for each of the patients. o   Product faulty: Through verification of Date of Expiry of products. o   Misinterpret costing: Data Base Management System. ·         Procedure to handle and manage customer complaints: Discussion with the patients as well as the staff member against whom the charge was given. Based on the discussions, necessary actions are taken. ·         Monitoring: Continuous improvement strategies in place to improve the customer service practices: Yes provided ·         Staff training on customer service: Yes provided ·         Record management system in place and documents to be kept for record keeping: Yes done ·         Legislation to be considered: Yes, strongly adheres to the rules and regulations. Customer service plans prepared by ————–ABC—————————————- Customer service plan approved by ——-XYZ————————————————

1) Steps adopted by a hospital supervisor to resolve complaint made by the patient

Confronting the complaints of patients may be stressful but is essential in a hospital. According to Bisschoff and Clapton (2014), depending on the supervisor’s efficiency in handling grievances and complaints of patients, the matter can either come under the supervisor’s control or can reach to the authorities. In this case, it is seen that Mary, an experienced nurse of Calvary Public Hospital, in her first few weeks, was working well, and the supervisor was also pleased with her conduct. But, after few days her attitude towards work changed completely. She became rude and bossy over her colleagues and patients. She became disobedient to her supervisor and even interrupted the conversations of her colleagues and patients consistently. Moreover, Mary didn’t provide any medical help and service to a patient that has undergone a C-section. She was quite aggressive and rude in her behavior. So, it is necessary for the supervisor to take certain steps to resolve customers’ complaints and restore the hospital’s reputation (Murti et al. 2013).

As suggested by Brahma (2013), the supervisor can show cause Mary for her conduct. Questions regarding her experience, duty and responsibility can be done. A vivid investigation should be conducted by the supervisor regarding that incident. The supervisor can question the patient, Mary and other co-employees those were the witness of this incident. Since Mary is an experienced nurse, the supervisor can conduct a meaningful conservation to understand her problems. It is to be followed by providing Mary a copy of Calvary Public Hospital’s functionality and policy booklet. The supervisor can also request Mary to adhere to this book of policies and procedure for continuing her service in this hospital (Dishongh et al. 2013).

2) Strategies adopted to help Mary overcoming difficulties in meeting customer service standards

Since Mary is an experienced nurse, she is quite aware of certain medical procedure and practices and hence can take care of patients. As mentioned by Faryadras and Dashti (2016), one of the strategies that can be adopted by the supervisor is providing basic training to her regarding Calvary Public Hospital’s way of conduction, treatment of patients and expected behavior from nurses. It will help her to understand the difference of her working in this hospital with that of the other one where she had worked before. Another strategy that can be taken is putting Mary into a probation period where her activities, attitude, and behavior will constantly be measured. If improvements in her conduct and behavior are noticed, then the supervisor can allow her to continue her work; otherwise, can report her misbehavior to a higher authority. This will help in keeping up the hospital’s reputation and meeting the customer’s standards. Moreover, the supervisor can also communicate with Mary to understand her problems and also provide her with practical solutions for her adherence (Gilmour et al. 2013). 

2: Case Scenario

One of the well-known and renounced public hospitals in Australia is “Calvary Public Hospital”, located at Canberra (Klein and Shelton, 2015). The hospital was founded in 1885, and henceforth it maintains a good record about treatment of its patients and customer services. It is well recognized as one of the charitable, Catholic and non-profit heath care organization. The patients and staff members of this hospital maintain a good and friendly relationship with one another. The hospital is quite systematic in its approach when it comes to customer servicing and treatment. Periodic “customer satisfaction survey” is conducted in the hospital to monitor the activities, behavior, attitude and services of the medico and non-medico staff members towards their patients (Mander et al. 2013).

Customer Satisfaction Survey for Calvary Public Hospital

In any business, one of the vital keys to success lies in its top-notched customer satisfaction. So, during conduction of a “customer satisfaction service”, it is important for the hospital authority to know what they are asking for the customers and the reasons for it. A customer survey can be conducted through face-to-face conversation or can be conducted via phone (Murti et al. 2013). It is also important to take permission from their customers to give them a call regarding the customer survey. It can also be conducted through mailing a questionnaire or a customer satisfaction survey form to the customers. It is to be remembered that the survey should be conducted after the patients have freshly experienced its services and treatment. It will help them in getting accurate responses regarding the service. It is also necessary to remember that customers should be asked certain basic and simple questions to which they have to answer either Yes or No. According to Singh and Singh (2015), based on these collected results, the hospital authorities have to understand the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of customers. The customers are also asked about the areas of amendments the hospital should consider for improving their level of customer service. Their opinions and ideas are, therefore, taken into account for the betterment of customer services. It is done to make the customers satisfied and content with Calvary Public Hospital’s services (Patra and Ray, 2016).

1) To provide quality products and services to the customer, explain how you can develop, procure and use resources effectively.

It is quite essential to provide quality and timely services and products to the customers. It can be done through development, procurement and usage of resources efficiently and effectively. Calvary Public Hospital initially ensures that the skills and requirement of its staff members meet the organization’s requirement. As mentioned by Hamilton and Tee (2015), coaching and training sessions are organized to mentor the colleagues and staff members. They are also trained and advised to adhere to customer service strategies for upgrading their services. Grievance department should be present that deals with all kinds of customer complaints and queries. Moreover, the medico and non-medico members should be technologically savvy to conduct their work appropriately. Computer knowledge is also required that helps the hospital authorities in documenting the customer personal and health details. It, therefore, assists the doctors and nurses to go through patients’ case history at the time of their admission or future re-admission. Hosseini et al. (2015) commented that the staff members should also have knowledge regarding the handling of patients as per government rules and regulations. The hospital’s staff members should adhere to the anti-discrimination law, ethical principles, privacy laws, Occupational Health and Safety, Australian Consumer Law and financial legislation. They should also have strong techniques and principles to maintain customer relationship, understand customer behavior and their requirements.

3. Calvary Public Hospital

2) In the monitoring of customer service, how organizations manage records and all other relevant documentations within the organization’s systems and processes?

According to Jabbari et al. (2014), Calvary Public Hospital is very particular in monitoring the customer services provided by both medico and non-medico employees of the hospital. A good record management embraces certain policies that reflect authenticity, reliability, usability and integrity of the hospital and patient data and information. The hospital authority can formulate as well as promulgate best practices for recording management requirements. It should also review and improve certain management policies periodically for establishing and implementing several guidelines, practices and procedures wherever suitable. Corporate Record Manager can also be appointed by the hospital authority to oversee the record overall management in the hospital. As opined by Khalili and Tayaran (2012), Calvary Public Hospital can also designate an Assistant Record Manager for each of the sections or hospital units. Their responsibility will be about documenting the files, naming them and facilitate accurate retrieval of the same whenever necessary. The recorded files consist of patients’ data, medico, and non-medico staff members’ data, hospital’s asset and liabilities and list of machinery present and will be required in the future. Along with this, monitoring results of each of the staff members’ activities and their attitude and behavior towards their co-workers and patients are also recorded. These results and observations are, therefore, used for future reference (Worthington and Bristow 2016).

References

Bisschoff, C. and Clapton, H., 2014. Measuring customer service in a private hospital. Problems and Perspectives in Management, 12(4), pp.43-54.

Brahma, P.K., 2013. Queuing theory and customer satisfaction: a review of terminology, trends, and applications to hospital practice. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing & Management Review_ ISSN, 2319, p.2836.

Dishongh, R., Dibeehi, Q., Janevska, K. and Erickson, G.D., 2013.Achieving Patient (aka Customer) Experience Excellence: Lessons From a Successful Cultural Transformation in a Hospital. CRC Press.

Faryadras, P. and Dashti, N.S., 2016. Discussing the Impact of Management Information System (MIS) on Improvement of Efficiency and Quality of Services of Hospitals—Case Study: Tehran’s Madayen Hospital. Review of European Studies, 8(3), p.258.

Gilmour, P., Borg, G., Duffy, P.A., Johnston, N.D., Limbek, B.E. and Shaw, M.R., 2013. Customer service: differentiating by market segment.International Journal of Physical Distribution & Materials Management.

Hamilton, J.R. and Tee, S., 2015. Expectations-to-value: connecting customers with business offerings. International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 9(2), pp.121-140.

Hosseini, M.H., Meymand, M.M. and Heidarvand, S., 2015. Examining the patient’s satisfaction from Hospital Service Quality using the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Model: a case study in Bahrami Hospital of Tehran. Journal of Entrepreneurship, Business and Economics,3(2).

Jabbari, A., Khorasani, E., Jafarian Jazi, M., Mofid, M. and Mardani, R., 2014. The profile of patients’ complaints in a regional hospital. Int J Health Policy Manag, 2, pp.131-135.

Khalili, A.N. and Tayaran, H., 2012. A Fuzzy-LTV Model For Customer Segmentation: A Case Study In Hospital Industry. Journal of American Science, 8(11).

Klein, L. and Shelton, G., 2015. Looking afield: debt collection tips hospitals can borrow from banks: hospitals can take a lesson from banks in debt collection by maintaining collections activities in-house for as long as practical, with a focus on delivering excellent customer service. Healthcare Financial Management, 69(9), pp.56-65.

Mander, G.S., Finn, B. and Ritz, R., 2013. Aligning physicians and managing service in a regional transfer center. Physician executive, 39(5), pp.54-60.

Murti, A., Deshpande, A. and Srivastava, N., 2013. Service quality, customer (patient) satisfaction and behavioural intention in health care services: exploring the Indian perspective. Journal of Health Management,15(1), pp.29-44.

Patra, A. and Ray, P.K., 2016. Measurement and Evaluation of Service Productivity: A Holistic Approach. In Smart Technologies for Smart Nations(pp. 57-72). Springer Singapore.

Singh, R. and Singh, R., 2015. Drivers of Salesperson’s Customer Orientation: A Work Value Perspective. In Boundary Spanning Elements and the Marketing Function in Organizations (pp. 49-62). Springer International Publishing.

Worthington, N. and Bristow, S., 2016, March. Enhancing a culture of patient safety in an oncologic hospital setting. In ASCO Annual Meeting Proceedings (Vol. 34, No. 7_suppl, p. 135).