An Integrity Doctors Verified Clinic Considers WOW Service a Core Value! The problem with doctor’s offices all across the country is this: If you have been in one doctor’s office you have been in them all. It’s almost like there is a reward for being medical clones. They answer the phone the same, they greet patients at the front desk the same, they dress the same, and even act the same. There is no creativity. No imagination. No personality. Nothing outside the box. The only thing different is the name on the outside of the clinic. They should be called Stepford Healthcare Clinics. You would think the government is handing out $44,000 grants to all practices that look, act, sound, and bore the same.
There IS good news in all of this! What is the great thing about so much sameness? It is easy to provide WOW! Standing out in this crowd of health care is a piece of cake. The bar is set so incredibly low. Nobody in health care even has a desire to be awesome. They pride themselves in being boring and average. They call boring and average “professional”. They enjoy making patients wait. The longer a patient waits, the more important and better the doctor feels. It’s like they have an unwritten code. These offices disrespect the public like their time is worth nothing.

Insurance has also hurt the service mindset in healthcare. If a service is covered by insurance it’s easy to act like the customer service provided with it is worthless. If the service is free to the patient anyway, what does it matter if a patient needs the service or understands it? What does it matter if they provide wow service or mediocre service? They lower the bar of service expectations because patients aren’t going to be paying much out of their pocket anyway. This already paid for mindset has made all of health care very average and mediocre.

We won’t settle for mediocrity! What would happen if we stepped it up? What would happen if we EARNED the patients visit. In other words, what if patients were coming in with little or no insurance or coverage. In this day of high deductibles, this is truly what we are facing! Our core value must be anything worth doing is worth doing on a WOW level. Everybody performs perfect procedures! We understand that it’s not just what we say, it’s how we say it. We must do everything with a WOW! A WOW greeting instead of a mediocre greeting. A WOW answer of the phone. Patients are so used to the boring and mundane answer of the phone that if you answered with enthusiasm and excitement, they would fall off their chair! What would happen if within the same minute that they turned in their paperwork on the first day, they IMMEDIATELY started getting service? They would go into shock.

Medical doctors have started using deceptive service, particularly in emergency rooms and it hasn’t worked. It used to be that when you turned in your paperwork that you sat in the reception room for another hour before being called back. Now they call you back immediately, and you get all excited, but they put you in a treatment room so you can sit THERE for an hour and see nobody. They then charge you for the entire time you are in a treatment room, but you still wait just as long! They just made the appearance that you weren’t going to have to wait. This is not WOW service. We don’t follow this model.
When we call patients back, their CARE immediately begins! They are taken back and given the Right Place Promise. We relate to them and show them that they can trust us with their health. They watch the Integrity Welcome Video. And then within moments they meet the doctor. It is non-stop service. They are being cared for from the moment they walk in the door until they leave. We strive to make all of their visits as short as possible. They have jobs, errands, responsibilities, and work to do. Their time is precious and the first day should take no longer than an hour from start to finish.
Here are some ideas that can help set you apart with WOW service.

What happens when it rains at your clinic? Do patients come in soaked as we act oblivious? What if we ran out there and walked them into the clinic with an umbrella? Have you ever walked them out to the car? How many times do you open the door for your patients to come in? What about senior adults filling out the paper work? Could you help them fill it out? What could we do to prove our core value of WOW service?

If all other chiropractic offices are closed 2 hours for lunch, what if you were open? The easiest time for your patients to come in during their work day is during their lunch hour. We should plan our hours around them and not the other way around. No person or business needs a 2 hour lunch. Do stores close from 12 pm to 2 pm? Do emergency rooms close from 12 pm to 2 pm? What would a core value of WOW service do? Is WOW service being closed so a person chooses a walk-in clinic instead? We are better than this and we will put our patients first. We will WOW them with care at all times, even during lunch.
Should You Adjust Your Hours? What time do you open? Is that because that is what is best for your patients? How late do you stay open? Did you poll your patients to find out when it would be easiest for them to come in for the next two months? Would your patients like to come in before work or after work? If we want them to come in 2 or 3 times a week, they need times that benefit them. When our core value is WOW service and we make all decisions with WOW service in mind, we will set our office apart from ALL other chiropractors.

Answer the Phone!
When is it easiest for patients to call our office? Most people work and can’t make personal phone calls while they are working. This means they need to make their personal calls on their lunch hour. So, what do other offices do? They put their phones on voicemail from 12 pm until 2 pm. The main time patients can call, these offices don’t answer the phone. Was that because they put the patient first? Who are they really thinking about? When our core value is WOW service, we figure out a way to answer the phone. We are there for them. We have a passion for making patients happy!
What if we were to learn and call all of our patients’ kids by their names? What if we remembered birthdays and anniversaries? What if we had cards and gifts on hand at the office to give out to patients on special occasions of for their accomplishments? What if we remembered important moments in their life and called to check on them? That would be a WOW!
It’s much harder for patients to miss appointments or quit when they feel like they’re connected to our office and we expect them to come in. If we don’t really know them, they feel like they can miss and it’s no big deal. If they get a call or text within 15 minutes of their appointment because they’re not here, it communicates a message!

Other offices make decisions based on what requires the least of their office time and effort regardless of what it means to the patient. It’s all about them. Our Integrity Core Value is WOW service which means we do everything with the patient in mind! That is why it is so easy to stand out. When we accept our core value of WOW service, it catapults us above all others and makes us stand out in the health care field like a 10- carat diamond in a drawer full of rocks. Our core values are different from the rest. We obsess over the patient and seek to put them first with WOW service!