Doris Young Associates'
Young Thoughts
Volume 6, Issue III
March 2005
IN THIS ISSUEYour Customer is Your Paycheck!
Know Your Power!
On The Lighter Side
Your Customer is Your Paycheck!Jeff Gitomer is my favorite author on customer service. If you haven't read his book, "Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless," you need to get it today. He recommends that you not be fooled by the signature on the bottom of your paycheck because the customer is the guy who put the money in the checkbook. Any business that doesn't realize that their wallet will be empty if there are no customers will go out of business. In healthcare sometimes we get lulled into thinking that if there is sickness there will be customers. Healthcare has become a very competitive business and if you're not giving the customer what they want someone else will have your customer. He further says, "The more you work for your customer's success, the more you will earn. You won't get the money the second you perform the service. Don't measure each action...consider the big picture. The more you serve, the better you will eat. The more you do for the customer, the more praise you will get, the more you will earn." When you interact with the people you serve with a positive attitude that can come from seeing them as your next pay check the more likely you will see them back again. Loyalty is the measure of success even in healthcare. There is enough repeat business even without sickness because we are a monitoring society. We have regular check ups and screenings. Most organizations don't take the time to measure this information. Gitomer points out that the value of a customer is 20 times his annual sales volume. For example a customer that buys $10,000-a-year is worth $200,000 over a lifetime. It's important to keep educating and servicing the people you serve. If you can get your customer feeling really good about you they are going to tell other people about you and you will expand your network. I recently had a wonderful experience with Enterprise when I was traveling on the West coast. I absent-mindedly left my purse in my seat on the plane. When I landed and went to get money out of my wallet, it was gone. I found myself in San Francisco with no identification, something today no one wants to be without; no money, another thing no one wants to be without; and no credit card. I was in a state of panic and turned to my sister and husband who where able to keep their heads level while I was about to lose mine. My sister contacted Enterprise where I rented my car because they had the lowest rates. They allowed her to be listed as the primary driver on the car by sending a fax of her credit card and driver's license. They told her to contact DMV to get a letter that I was a licensed driver and when I arrived after sobbing to the police officer, I was able to pick up my rental car. My husband did a similar miraculous thing with Bank of American and they gave me money from our checking account. I will never rent a car from anyone else but Enterprise and I will never do my banking from anyone else but Bank of America. They have won me for life and I will tell everyone I meet what great organizations they are. Word-of-mouth advertising is 50 times more powerful than any other advertising according to Jeffrey Gitomer. And the way you get that kind of advertising is to WOW your customers. I don't care if I have to pay extra for my rental car, I will use Enterprise. I don't care if I pay more in fees, I will bank with Bank of America. I will recommend them to all my friends and family for the rest of my life because I experienced a WOW. We often go into businesses that want to quote their company policy. Like the time I bought tile for my kitchen. I had the company send their employee to measure my kitchen and order the tile. The person that measured must have ordered enough tile to cover my floor with 9 inch tiles when we were using 12 inch tiles because we had one whole and part of another box of tiles left after the job was complete. When I went to return the full box of tiles the sales clerk wanted to charge me a 20% handling fee. I was upset because it was their employee that measured the tiles. After a long discussion with two sales clerks and then another discussion with the manager I was able to get them to see my position. Though I finally got my way, I was not happy and I would try to get tile anywhere else before I would go back to that place. I've never had a WOW experience in healthcare. I have had struggles with the clerk at my doctor's office and still go because I like my doctor. But if I could find another doctor I like as well with an outgoing and respectful receptionist that doesn't yell across the waiting room, I would change in a heart beat. It is only a matter of time that people in healthcare are going to figure out that the customer/patient is their paycheck. When it starts happening, some organizations are going to be left in the dust. To learn more about how to improve your customer service contact Doris Young at 800.673.8005 or at Doris@DorisYoungAssociates.com.
Know Your Power!Mohini, a white tiger at the National Zoo in Washington, DC spent twelve years pacing back and forth in her twelve-by-twelve-foot cage. When a several acre natural habitat was created for her with a mile of trees, a pond, and a variety of vegetation, the tiger immediately sought refuge in a corner of the compound. She spent the rest of her life pacing back and forth in a twelve-by-twelve-foot area. This doesn't just happen in the animal kingdom. Human beings fence themselves into repeated patterns and they never even notice what they're doing. We will imprison ourselves because it is comfortable. We reach the limits of our comfort zone and stop. Even when it is possible to move beyond our prison and move freely, we stay trapped. We create the outside world based on what we believe in our inside world. The good news is that we do this to heal the inside world so we can see it as a blessing when our life feels too confining or isn't working for us. Never look outside yourself to fix what is bothering you. First fix your inside world and you will interact with the outside world with your natural power. Your power comes from clarity. When you are totally clear about what you want and you don’t harbor old resentments you will feel your authentic power. When you are cleared of all of the blocks you're carrying from unhealed childhood issues, past unfulfilled relationships, and any inabilities to have and get what you want, you can experience your own power. All these past hurts will continue to block your ability to fully experience yourself and your source of energy until you clear them permanently. The solution is simple yet difficult to achieve unless you take full responsibility for what is happening in your life right now. The major issue people have is trying to control the things they cannot change. As the serenity prayer differentiates: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. When you focus on changing other people you will never solve your problem with them. I talk with nurses who get critical about being called critical. How does that work you may say. Well, the initial statement a person makes may not be a critical statement and yet because of the other person’s unhealed issues they see it as critical. The receiver accuses the sender of being critical and rather than saying, “I’m sorry that hurt you, I was not trying to be critical. What I meant was…” The sender instead responds by saying, “You’re always trying to make me the bad guy. I think you are the critical one.” You can see how the two would be off to the races with the second statement when the sender had another option to just clarify what he or she meant. You always have options and once the underlying issues of feeling criticized unjustly in previous relationships are healed, things can go differently. Past hurts are the issue you have control over, not how people react to what you say. To begin to make a shift in how you react to the world start by noticing what kind of people you seem to have around you. Do you have aggressive people who are accusing you of being aggressive. They are projecting their issue on you. If you are arguing with them about who is the aggressive one, you are engaged in the debate because of your issue with being blamed unjustly. When you get to the real issues of feeling responsible for other people's feeling and heal it, you can handle someone making an accusation without feeling attacked. Yes, they are yelling at you, but the feeing of being attacked is your issue. You have an opportunity to identify when you felt powerless at a young age when you were unable to protect yourself. Safety comes from inside once we heal. We don't need a protective shield when we have confidence in our ability to create a safe space for ourselves no matter what the other person says or does. Coaching helps people connect with their authentic power and is an invaluable asset to any organization. To get more information about transformational leadership coaching contact Doris Young at 800.673.8005 or at Doris@DorisYoungAssociates.com.
A POEM FOR COMPUTER USERS OVER 50.
A Computer was something on TV From a science fiction show of note A Window was something you hated to clean And Ram was the father of a goat. Meg was the name of my girlfriend And Gig was a job for the nights Now they all mean different things And that really Mega Bytes.
|
