Member-only story
How To Handle an Unhappy Customer
And leave them thanking you
There was an episode with a disgruntled patient yesterday. She was annoyed because she’d been waiting for over an hour for her doctor’s appointment.
For context, I work in an overly hectic public hospital.
If you’re fortunate enough to never have had a hospital appointment before, here’s a brief overview of how it goes.
After you register, there are a few “stations” you have to go through. First is usually a pre-consult assessment station, where your height and weight will be taken. Next, for us, is often a basic resting ECG. Only then will you flow into the queue for the doctor’s room.
Back to the aforementioned disgruntled lady.
I don’t know what went wrong, but allegedly she waited for an hour to be called in for her height and weight measurements. Naturally, I — the ECG person — am her first choice of staff to rant to.
However, by the time she left my room to proceed to her consult, she was smiling and thanking us.
Stark contrast from when I first met her huh.
Here’s how you can make your customers/clients/patients go from 😤 to 😊.
