Expectations, Excuses, and Experience, Oh My!

I recently completed a routine visit to my healthcare provider. It was not a great experience.? That being said, it wasn't a bad experience, just one that missed my expectations and added insult to injury by throwing in a few excuses along the way. As always, the points of failure in my experience served as real world illustrations of the challenges that my clients work with us to solve each day and how the success of the solutions we recommend is all about the execution of the idea.? Ideas come to life in many ways. This is why we have so many variations of the same products successfully coexisting and competing in the marketplace. Just last night, as we tried to solve the problem of being hungry at 9 pm in the suburbs attempting to select from the limited options still open that would satisfy our hunger. Most of the places that we crossed off the list were based on the dining experience, not the type of food. Even my teenager chimed in with "The food is ok, but the service is terrible there." Which tells me that experience is not a nice to have but an essential component of how we run our businesses and manage our relationships. We all make mistakes, we all have gaps in our planning and sometimes we miss the mark, but what do you do when you find yourself in a sticky situation? Here's what I know about managing expectations and replacing excuses with accountable action to deliver exceptional experiences.

The impact of patient experience continues to increase in health care. Traditional health care providers are continuing to see the emergence of non-traditional care providers, some relentlessly focused on experience, disrupting what has been the standard for health care.? These disruptors are attracting the next generation of healthcare patients who prefer to be engaged digitally, the busy traditionalists, those who have grown weary of the lack luster experiences of the traditional system, and the list goes on. The absence of cost awareness among patients continue to disappear, choices are continuing to multiply, and an acute awareness of the right and ability to choose providers who meet not only patient needs but patient expectations is making attention to experience a? business imperative. But turning a big ship is not an easy task. How can an organization expand to meet expectations while keeping all the balls of today in the air and holding on to patients and personnel along the way.?

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Managing everyone's expectations will likely not solve all of the problems that change can bring, but can free up valuable time and energy to solve the inevitable operational challenges that will occur. Change is difficult for patients and personnel. Communicating early and honestly about what the intent of the changes are and what those changes will look like helps to reduce the anxiety of not knowing what to expect. Communicating those expectations honestly is the key. The bait and switch to spare feelings in the short-terms erodes trust. Trust is a critical element in successfully delivering a positive experience. Every interaction will present the opportunity to build or erode trust, use these opportunities wisely. In the case of my lack luster recent provider experience, what I was told did not align in any way to what happened.? I reached out to schedule a specific appointment which required a prescription to be ordered in advance and was told by the scheduler that was in fact what happened. I arrived at my provider prepared for that appointment, only to be told that I was scheduled with a provider who could not perform the requested procedure and that even if this provider could, the prescription had not been ordered and would require me to return not once but twice to have the services that I was told I would be receiving today.? A time sensitive procedure was now delayed, my time had been wasted, and they were now asking me to pay for more visits than planned to account for their mishandling of the situation.? Given my occupation, I can think of at least 5 ways in which this could have been prevented. However, for the sake of our time today, simply confirming the appointment type and my expectations before arrival could have gone a long way.?

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As I sat in the doctor's office, already checked-in for an appointment that wasn't useful to me, the details of how my expectations had been missed and how the provider team was also in the same boat began to unfold. The medical assistant collecting my vitals began to explain how the practice's decision to outsource schedulers who sometimes get their processes wrong is what led to the confusion of today's appointment. That's right friends, my expectations had been missed and the only explanation that I was being provided was a set of excuses. What makes the scheduling faux pas an excuse and not a reason? They were aware that this was an issue.? This was not the first time that a patient presented with frustration due to a scheduling mistake by an extension of their operations.? They have become reliant on this excuse. They had chosen the comfort of shifting blame to someone not present to defend their actions over confronting a repeated failure in the process. The interaction paired with being asked to complete 2 visits for what I had always accomplished in one, communicated to me that having billable visits on the books was more important than the time, health, and experience of the patient currently present. Excuses took what could have could been a mitigated missed expectation to an exceptionally disappointing experience. Providing excuses never drives exceptional experience. Choose not to excuse yourself from accountability and watch as the quality of the experiences you provide increases drastically. Avoid the excuse, sit in what makes you uncomfortable about the interaction, empathize with what the miss means for the person on the other side and you will begin to find the secret ingredients to creating exceptional experiences.

There is clearly much more to be said about experience. It is an often underestimated and overlooked impact category. How will you think differently about explanations and excuses to drive exceptional experiences? Until next time, love hard, live well, and be great!