I got a call from my eye doctor’s office that went something like this:
Me: Hello?
Eye Office: Hi, this is Cindy from The Eye Office. Your eye doctor, Dr. Smith, is reducing his office hours. You have an appointment scheduled for January 30th and as he will not be in during that day, he wants you be transferred to another doctor in the practice, Dr. Jones. Is that okay?
Me: Hmm, it doesn’t sound like you’re asking my permission. What if I want to continue to see Dr. Smith?
Cindy: {hesitates} Well, I would have to schedule a new appointment for you. (Sounding as if I’m asking her to change the date of Christmas.)
Me: Okay, what date would he have available?
Cindy: I have a free slot on February 14th. (Sounding as if that is so inconvenient: “Please don’t take it!”)
Me: Sounds good.
A brief background regarding this exchange: I had gotten a distortion in the field of vision and had been seeing Dr. Smith for several months, as it needed to be watched carefully. The appointment scheduled with was follow up for this issue and, naturally, was not the kind of thing you would want to have another doctor jump into the middle of. Another thing, I had just seen him a couple of weeks earlier. It was the perfect time for him to talk to me about his plan of reducing his office hours and having me see Dr. Jones.
Aside from the fact that I was just about to be dumped by my eye doctor, the way the whole process was handled by Cindy and the lack of empathy put me off. No one, after all, wants to feel as though they are an inconvenience to someone else. I would have preferred the conversation to have gone like this instead:
Me: Hello.
Eye Office: Hi, Mr. Peterson? This is Cindy from The Eye Office, so glad to have caught up with you, how are you doing today?
Me: Great.
Cindy: Wonderful. I see that you recently came in to see Dr. Smith. Is your eye doing okay?
Me: Thanks for asking. It seems to be doing a bit better.
Cindy: Wonderful news! Now, I was calling you to let you know that Dr. Smith will be reducing his office hours and he wants to make sure all his patients are well cared for. You have a scheduled appointment with him on January 30th for a follow up on your right eye, but he will not be in the office then and the following several weeks. To make sure that you don’t feel like you have to wait, he wanted you to know that Dr. Jones is fully prepared to take your appointment on the 30th instead. Would you want to do that or schedule a later appointment with Dr. Smith?
Can you see the difference? The second conversation includes two important elements left out of the actual call: empathy for me as the patient and the element of a real actual choice. Those changed everything. In the end, I felt the concern from both the doctor and the staff. Although the outcome would be the same, my response would be completely different.
If you own or manage a business that requires a lot of customer interaction, ask yourself: How do you speak to them? How much time do you spend in making sure that you make your customers feel cared for and empowered to make sound decisions?
To answer these questions, record calls, play them back and look for instances where you may be making the customer feel any negative emotions. Afterwards, come up with scripts and do role-playing to help employees become more comfortable in expressing empathy and choices. You will immediately see a dramatic change in how the customers respond.
David is an international speaker, executive coach, serial entrepreneur, and shipwreck survivor. He is the bestselling author of Grounded (Little River, 2016) . If you’re interested in David’s expertise in the areas of leadership, finance, and public speaking, please get in touch here.