BUSINESS

  merchandising

Merchandising Staff Training

How to fine-tune one of your most valuable merchandising assets

GINA M. WESLEY O.D., M.S., F.A.A.O.

A recent call to a day spa reminded me of the importance of on-going staff training. I had prepaid for a service and called to find out the date of expiration for that service. The receptionist said she didn’t have my information. I politely requested she look it up. She replied that she couldn’t. No reason; just that she couldn’t. It would upset me if my own staff showed this blatant lack of service for such a simple request. The result: I called a competing spa and set up a new appointment.

Our best merchandising agent is a staff who knows our practice’s overall “why” or mission. We may think our staff is well trained and understanding of this message. But, the truth is it’s hard to predict every gray area of patient care and management. In light of this challenge, here are three tips on how to keep your staff well trained:

1 Train on particular tasks/skills, and train often. It’s not enough to train someone once on a particular task. If left to his or her own devices, most staff can begin to interpret their “own” version of how best to complete that task. This may not be a bad thing, but the idea is to strive for consistency.

For instance, if one staff member differs greatly from another in how he or she checks in patients, you may have confusion at best and poor customer service at worst.

2 Create a procedural manual. Have you ever lost a staff member and panicked, thinking he was the only one who knew how to [fill in the blank]? If so, you need a procedural or “How To” manual that outlines how to do every single task in your office, no matter how mundane.

In the worst of circumstances, it saves you from having to figure “it” out (whatever it may be). In the best of circumstances, it can help other staff know what to do in the absence of a key staff member, or even in his or her presence (so said key staff member can keep doing what he or she does best).

3 Hold regular staff meetings. My husband occasionally asks, “What do you DO in your staff meetings that makes you need to hold them every week?” Truly, I could have staff meetings every day and not run out of topics. My weekly meetings, an hour long each, touch on an abundance of topics. (For more information on meetings, refer to Dr. Neil Gailmard’s “Management Tip” at http://bit.ly/optstaffmeeting).

But, most importantly, I set aside the first 15 to 20 minutes of each meeting to go over several patient scenarios (sometimes imagined by me, but always based on real office happenings). I have one staff member read over our mission, then I have the next staff member read aloud the patient “case.” Then, I let the staff discuss how best to handle that scenario.

We don’t always arrive at one solution. We do, however, repeat the message and question how we will meet our mission in that case.

To me, this is the ultimate in staff training. If the staff knows your message and can critically think as to how to carry that message across, they can handle most any patient/customer request.

My experiences with other businesses are a great example, sometimes sadly, of what not to do in customer service. Train your staff, train them again, and know the consistency of that training will solidify the consistency of your merchandising message. OM

DR. WESLEY PRACTICES AT COMPLETE EYE CARE OF MEDINA, WHICH SHE OPENED IN 2008. SHE WAS HONORED AS MINNESOTA’S OPTOMETRIST OF THE YEAR IN 2011. E-MAIL DRWESLEY@CECOFMEDINA.COM, OR SEND COMMENTS TO OPTOMETRICMANAGEMENT@GMAIL.COM.