Having visited Berlin just last week, I was prompted to write this blog about customer service. I have always been much more aware of customer experiences since we began to focus on this with our team, and so I like to pick up on what other businesses such as hotels and restaurants do. Most of our experiences in Germany were great, but there was one restaurant that let itself down. We had opted to go there as it was close our hotel and had some good reviews in the past. The food was good. The waitress that served us was very nice and friendly and she took our order for food and drinks promptly and served us in a timely fashion. So far, so good! However, once we started eating we were never once asked how everything was, and we were not offered any further drinks. After we had finished we were left for over 20 minutes with our empty plates still sitting in front of us. I felt neglected and a little bit annoyed.
What was wrong? They spent all of their time getting new customers, and neglected those that were existing customers. What did we do? Left a small tip and wrote a bad review on trip advisor! If I ever go to Berlin in the future I will not go there again.
So what has this do with Orthodontics? Well it shows me what is important to all customers. They want to feel special, they want to be noticed, and above all they want to feel valued even after they have “bought”. And if they feel that they are not, they will not recommend us and won’t come back.
One of our latest customer experience systems is to ask all patients who have completed their treatment to fill in an online questionnaire about the orthodontic service they have received. We also ask all of our referring dentists too to make sure we are always improving the services we offer them. By doing both of these, we can provide all who work with, or are treated by us, with the best experience possible and we can react quickly to remedy any shortfall in our service to them. Happily, most of our feedback is very good, but we do not take it for granted. Customer experience is the most important aspect of the treatment we provide and we will always dedicate ourselves to keeping this at the highest standard possible.