Service Industry

Every business has its purpose. If you serve food, you want it to taste good. If you sell clothes, you want them to look stylish. If you are in the medical field, you want to heal or help. Your staff needs to be the people to get you to that goal. After 12 years I still have to make my staff aware that it is their responsibility to do that. A patient came in yesterday and was the most agitated woman I ever met. Since I booked her appointment I knew why she was acting like that. I told my staff to be extra kind to her, no matter how annoying she was. They started off being nice and then she pushed them to the point of being not so nice. That is when I had to step in. The woman began to fill out the forms and then got up to say she couldn't read everything so she wouldn't sign the paperwork. They were arguing that she had to sign before she was seen. The waiting room was full and I could see that things were about to get ugly. I stepped in to ask what the problem was. It seems she was so nervous about seeing the doctor, that she could not read the office policies that were 2 pages long. I walked out to the waiting room and sat next to her. I told her to relax and that I would read it to her so she could then sign it. I read the two pages to her in a calm voice as if I was reading a bedtime story to a child. When I was done, she signed the paperwork. Sometimes you have to know how to pacify people to move the day along.