A focus on hospitality can have a strong impact on customer satisfaction in the health care setting. A study by Harvard University that looked at why service industry customers don’t return found the most common reason was that someone was rude or indifferent to them.

This is true whether the business is health care or hotels. For service providers, including long term care facilities, creating a culture of hospitality is probably the best defense against bad customer experiences, which almost guarantee that customers won’t return.

It takes everyone on staff in a long term care setting to achieve service excellence. This requires a staff that is trained to work in the hospitality mode. Employees must know that they are the most important part of the organization since every single customer contact point is a moment in which customers are judging service.

Think like a Customer

Everyone can relate to good and bad service experiences. Everyone knows what it feels like to be ignored in the grocery store and how frustrating it is when a store worker is rude or indifferent. People remember those experiences and often share them with their friends and family.

People also remember wonderful experiences as a customer and how great it feels to be treated well in a service setting. A good service experience makes people feel that someone cares and that the service provider truly appreciates their business. Those experiences and feelings that go along with them are the same for long-term care customers – residents, visitors, families, and physicians. A provider’s job in hospitality training is to relate those personal experience to how the resident perceives staff and to practice service behaviors that make customers feel valued.

Hospitality training should be interactive. Staff should be encouraged to tell stories about customer experiences they have had outside the facility, then relate those experiences to the service provided in the facility. The ideal class size for this type of training is 15 to 20 participants. Training is most effective in a modular format and in short doses.

The best results stem from a cascading approach. In other words, providers start at the top of the organization and funnel training down to the front line. In this way, supervisors will be trained to train their staff.

Training Basics All staff working in a hospitality mode should be trained to: · Smile and greet everyone with whom they come in contact. A smile is an important expression of goodwill and friendliness, especially to one who is ill. The body language of people within the organization tells part of the story of what kind of service customers can expect. Body language is a key part of interactive training. Role-playing is the best way to demonstrate the key components of body language: facial expressions, body posture, eye contact, and tone of voice.

· Perform value-added service. Value-added service has two principles. First nothing is more important than time staff spend with residents. Second, the facility should support staff in looking at the daily tasks they do and challenging their validity. Everything staff does must benefit the customer. Tasks that do not serve customers should be eliminated.

· Help the customer. Staff should at all times be ready to help a resident, even if the task is outside the caregiver’s specific job duties. If staff members can’t help, they should find the person who can. · Know the services and products the facility offers.

· Ask customer for their opinion. Customers’ complaints and suggestions should not be taken personally. They should be viewed as an opportunity to do a better job.

· Make decisions with the customer in mind. For example, a resident who has had medical tests during the day returns to the facility hungry. She hasn’t had lunch, but it’s bath time. The nurse assistant must decide between sticking to the bathing schedule-which will also allow her to take her break on time – or focusing instead on the customer’s desire to eat first, bathe later.

· Anticipate customer needs and be flexible in responding to them. For instance, if staff knows in advance that a family member is planning to spend the night in the facility, they should prepare the bed and check with that person to see if there are any special needs that must be met.

· Perform “extra mile” activities. These are small things that can be done to surprise customers, such as running an errand for a resident or helping with a personal phone call.

· Communicate in a warm and courteous manner. Staff should use words that customers like to hear and speak to them in a friendly tone and courteous manner. Phrases may include “Certainly”, “I’ll be happy to”, and “My pleasure”.

· Use positive and open body language. This includes eye contact, a firm handshake, and escorting customers to a destination rather than pointing them to it.

· Respond in a timely manner. Staff should listen and respond quickly to customer requests. They should tell residents about any delays or changes in their service as they occur and before they ask.

· Project a professional appearance. Staff should have clean, pressed uniforms, proper shoes, neatly groomed hair, and name badges.

· Take appropriate steps to resolve problems to the customer’s satisfaction. These steps are listening with understanding, empathizing, apologizing, and taking action to solve the customer’s problem. Staff should notify management to make sure the problem does not happen again.

The Hospitality Culture Staff training must be supported by a culture of hospitality that infuses a facility‘s management and operational style. In other words, facility managers must create the environment and the infrastructure that enables front-line staff to serve customers well. Health care managers must have a clear vision of what the work environment should be, then communicate that vision to staff. Leaders must “walk the talk” by exhibiting behaviors that demonstrate excellent service before they can expect to see those behaviors among staff. Observation of a facility’s leaders is the most powerful training of all.

In addition, job profiles and employee orientation must reflect the service level expected in individual positions and the facility as a whole. Staff must be held accountable for those service standards in their performance appraisals.

Management must do its part to facilitate service excellence by empowering staff to make decisions and solve problems. Employees must know what they can and cannot do to satisfy customer needs.

For example, if a resident needs something from the store, can a staff member go and get it? If a family member wants some refreshments, does staff have access to the kitchen? Facility rules and regulations that inhibit such responsiveness diminish staff empowerment.

Front-line staff must also have guidelines for the kinds of problems they have the authority to solve and those that require a manager’s intervention. Staff make decisions all day long that affect customer, and it’s important that those decisions promote, rather than undermine, customer satisfaction.

Instilling the spirit of hospitality is a continuing process rather than an event. Building a hospitality culture can be part of a broader cultural evolution in a long-term care facility. It is a foundation that requires planning, sensitivity, and a heart-felt commitment to service.

Author: Robert Moran, President, Moran Consulting, Inc.

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