You should be happy your patients are complaining:

“I can get my glasses online for way less than you guys are charging me!”

“What? You’re not here on Saturdays? Well, I have to work too, you know!”

“Why do I have to wait so long to see the doctor? I had a 1:30 appointment, and you know what time it is right now? Yeah; you’re right — it’s 1:30!”

What may seem unreasonable to us, certainly at the time of the patient’s comment, is anything but unreasonable to them. Because their complaints are important to them, leverage their importance by realizing complaints can be a great source of practice-building information — but only if you approach complaints purposefully and systematically.

REFRAME THE COMPLAINT

The first step is to reframe “complaints” entirely by you and your staff, viewing them as “advice.” Next, become analytical about the advice, and determine whether it is given by many patients or a small vocal few. That said, don’t make the common mistake of immediately writing off the small handful who may offer advice about something that rarely comes up. Vocal outliers often spark very creative ideas! Also, remember it’s likely the less vocal may have similar concerns. Like any advice given by anyone on any topic, you aren’t necessarily obligated to act on it, but if you’re smart, you’ll listen to and process it to see whether you might benefit from it.

‘I CAN GET CHEAPER GLASSES’

Let’s use the common “complaint” of, “I can get my glasses cheaper online. You guys are crooks. I know these glasses cost you $4, and you’re charging me $700!”

Step one: Understand the type of complaint. Is it due to a genuine problem, or is it venting by a patient? Act on the first, be aware of the second. In this case, the problem may be a simple misunderstanding (“I thought I heard the optician say they were $70, not $700.”) or a deeper more complex problem of lack of staff education, culture, branding, merchandising, marketing and poor overall presentation of your practice’s value proposition to patients.

Step two: Act; don’t ignore. The action may be a discussion with your staff, and if comments like this have never come up before (unlikely nowadays), the action might be a staff discussion about, “Why do you think Mr. Jones said that, and what can we do, if anything, to avoid this from happening again?” The more likely scenario would be, “This is the third time this month we’ve heard that. Why do you think it’s happening more now than last year, and what can we do about it?”

Step three: Prioritize the advice (act on it immediately or with a concrete, reasonably short deadline) and put a firm plan in place to act on it or agree to dismiss it: “I agree, the glasses should cost the patient $700, and I’m not (yet) willing to drop the price. With that, we need to work on our merchandising, we need a clearer, more concise explanation of insurance benefits to patients, and our value proposition needs more consistent communication by all of us. Therefore, starting next Thursday, and commencing for 60 days, we are going to be working on . . .” OM

DR. GERBER is the president of the Power Practice, a company specializing in making optometrists more profitable. Learn more at www.powerpractice.com , or call Dr. Gerber at (888) 356-4447.