We all know how difficult it is at a restaurant to find a waiter to bring over the check when you want it.
When the time comes that you and your party want to leave the restaurant it seems that nearly all wait staff have disappeared and those who are still on the floor are simply looking away from you frantically waiving your hand.
[Which is really amusing when you think about how wait staff in general are so keen to take your order from the moment that you arrive at the restaurant.]
And when you need some more sauce, or more salt, or just another beverage, attracting the attention of wait staff can really be quite difficult.
Just this morning I had to visit a local medical practice for a blood test that my doctor had ordered. When I entered the practice the one receptionist was on the phone talking to a patient [based on the conversation I heard].
All I needed from her during that two minute wait was a visual acknowledgement of my presence so that I could sign her, or show her my pathology referral so that she could wave me through to the pathology rooms at the back of the practice.
Sadly, there was no acknowledgement.
It was as though I was invisible.
Is it just me, or does it seem that in this day and age, service staff are unable to multi-task at all?
Is mono-tasking now the norm?
Years ago, I was consulting in a dental practice where I witnessed a new patient arrive at the front desk and be ignored for over three minutes while the dental receptionist mono-tasked with a patient on the phone.
There was no act of recognition, no act of motioning towards a comfortable seat, no act of smiling “hello”.
As a spectator sitting in the practice reception lounge this was very painful for me to witness.
And I wasn’t the only person present in that lounge…. Other patients witnessed this act of ignoring first hand.
Has this ever happened to you in a service situation?
More importantly, is this happening in your dental practice behind your own back?
In business today, more and more, as a business owner you need to have staff with exceptional peripheral vision, who are able to offer assistance, and offer attention, and solve issues and resolve issues without the need of being constantly asked to do so.
Proactivity is what is needed.
Sometimes I feel that I’m living in a world where service staff are wearing invisible dog cones that I cannot see.
And that they cannot see around out of.
They are permanently blinkered?
Is this your experience?
As a customer?
As an employer?
If it is your experience, then it’s time for things to stop.
Blinkered employees should no longer be accepted, and companies and businesses lacking in service because of poor peripheral vision do not deserve your patronage.
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The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Email me at david@theupe.com