Leadership Institute

Service Plus® Health Care: Building Patient Loyalty

(Skill Practice Program)

Order No. SPH

The industry devoted to saving lives has to save itself. Costs and care are colliding, insurance firms are imposing payment caps, and funding is shrinking. To survive, health care facilities must become more patient centered.

Service Plus Health Care: Building Patient Loyalty develops skills to ensure that patients and customers receive top-quality service. It gives your organization the edge it needs -- loyal customers who demonstrate “the three Rs” of loyalty: Return to your facility because they view you as their health care provider of choice, Refer others, and Relate to service providers as partners in their care.

Performance Objectives

Creates staff who:

  • Take personal initiatives that meet and exceed patients’ and others’ personal and practical needs consistently and reliably.
  • Conduct effective, efficient interactions and handle difficult or emotional situations.
  • Work as a team to provide service beyond expectations.

A version for physicians helps them:

  • Understand how the concept of “service” relates to physician-patient and physician-staff relationships.
  • Work with their staff as a team to provide excellent patient service.

Course Overview

  • The Service Challenge: A “Stand Up/Sit Down” activity leads into a discussion on the differences between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Participants reveal the variety of customers that they serve. The facilitator leads a discussion of “what’s in it for me” to help participants in the training better understand their roles as service providers.
  • Personal and Practical Needs: Learners brainstorm patient needs and learn about personal and practical needs. Testimonials from patients and family members help learners identify how personal and practical needs were met by service providers. Participants categorize the list of patient needs into personal and practical needs, and learn that they must meet both types of needs.
  • Keys to Service: Three Key Principles for meeting personal needs are presented. Learners view a series of positive models of each being used, followed by activities and discussion. They identify which Key Principle is most appropriate to use in different situations, as well as what they would say. Pairs role-play their scenarios and provide feedback to each other.
  • Steps to Service: Through a positive video model and discussion, participants learn a four-step process to meet practical needs.
  • Using Key Principles and Service Steps Together: Learners see how achieving the right balance of Key Principles and Service Steps is critical to providing everyday service excellence.
  • Extraordinary Service Opportunities: Talkers and Walkers: The facilitator explains “talkers” and “walkers” -- two types of dissatisfied customers. A positive model shows a service provider turning a dissatisfied customer into a satisfied one. Participants learn a four-step process of how to do so -- Taking the HEAT -- and what you would say and do for both walkers and talkers.
  • Skill Practice: In pairs, learners take on the roles of service providers and patients/customers to practice using Service Steps and Key Principles, adding HEAT for a second skill practice.
  • Extending Your Learning: Learners complete one activity in Service Boosters -- a booklet of tips, techniques, and activities to boost skills in handling challenging service situations on-the-job.

Program Details

  • Target audience: Health care providers and frontline through mid-level leaders.
  • Length: 6 hours, 15 minutes, or 4 hours, 45 minutes Fast Track.
  • Facilitator certification: DDI-certified facilitator required.
  • Prerequisites: None.
  • Series: Health care.
  • Group Size: 8 to 16 people.
  • Prework: No.

Related Programs:

Program Advantages

  • Builds essential service skills in just one day. Your service providers can start using what they have learned the very next day.
  • Makes extensive use of high-quality videos, carefully structured skill practices and exercises, and easy-to-follow workbooks and facilitator materials.
  • Includes materials and skill practices that present real-life, health care-specific scenarios to create participant buy-in.
  • It’s fun! With engaging activities, exercises, and fast-paced discussions, you’ll feel the energy in the room.

Primary Competencies Developed

  • Building Customer Loyalty
  • Communication
  • Initiating Action

Secondary Competency Developed

  • Negotiation

Results

  • A 5,000-person health care system, located in Northern Alabama, improved its customer service ranking from the 50th to 98th percentile, making it one of the “best of class” of its size and scope in the Press Ganey Associates nationwide data pool.
  • Six large medical centers improved their customer satisfaction ratings by more than 60 percent in 10 out of 14 service provider skill categories.
  • Based on the results of 10,000 patient satisfaction surveys conducted over a two-year period, Ohio-based Akron General Medical Center scored an average of 4.33 -- a strong indicator of Service Plus® success.
  • A large Midwestern academic health center raised its patient satisfaction ratings up to 4.5 on a 5.0-point scale while maintaining its status as a leading national employer of choice.