Loading ...The other day I had to call my doctor’s office to get them to authorized refills for prescriptions that had expired. In my attempt to contact the doctor, I had a rather interesting encounter with the medical center’s IVR system. IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response. It’s some IT geek’s idea of productivity savings because it takes the human out of the equation. As I’m listening to the menu, it asked if I need a prescription renewal, since this was one of the reasons for my call I selected the response and got another menu selection. Upon following the instructions given, I place my request for prescription refill and proceed on my way thinking I was done.
I then dutifully waited to receive approval of the prescriptions so I could order the meds online – I’m not completely technology phobic - several days passed and nothing happened. I called the online prescription fulfillment company, and after going through their multilayer IVR system finally got a live person on the phone, told, they had no confirmation from the doctor and I needed to call my physician to have him fill out the forms that where being faxed to the doctor’s office.
Hmmm, they have the forms and I need to call the doctor to tell them to fill them out, they have all the information including the doctor and know where to send the forms but I have to tell them to fill them out and fax them back. I’m wondering to myself – what’s wrong with this picture? I called, and when I did get a live person. I told them I followed the automated instructions for prescription refills, and for some reason, it didn’t get to the prescription refill company. The person on the line informed me that everything looked correct, didn’t understand what could have gone wrong, and said she would have someone call me. Later in the day, I received a call and told that my request for my refills was entered into the system, but something happened on their end and it went into “cyber space.” In other words, not our fault, it was the computer system.
I got my refills, but I still don’t know if the connection between the online prescription fulfillment company was corrected, I’m not up to doing another 15 rounds with their IVR system.
That same day, I placed a call to Plantronics®. I was having trouble with my wireless phone headset. For no reason, I started to get a loud buzzing in the headset – and no it wasn’t from the prescription drugs – something was wrong with my headset. I call the customer service number for Plantronics® and to my surprise after two rings; a real person answered the phone. I told her my problem and expected to be told to call another number, image my surprise when she said, “I can help you with that, we just have to reboot your headset and I’m happy to show you how.” She then took me step by step through the process and I no longer have a buzzing sound in my headset.
Two examples of accountability, in the first example, no accountability at all, and the second accountability abounded. Let me explain.
In my first example, when I called the fulfillment company, the person I spoke to, didn’t take solving the problem to a reasonable conclusion. He, through the ball back in my court instructing me to call the doctor to have them him fill out forms that he would fax over. My guess is his “protocols” required him to tell the patient – me – they need to make the call to the doctor, whom I don’t fully understand, because they have all the information on record and could have handled it much better. There solution to solving this problem was actually no solution. Second, at the doctor’s office, their solution to solving the problem was to blame the computer for lost electronic paper work. Third, and most important, I still don’t know if the required paperwork went to where it’s supposed to, because no one said they would get back to me to let me know. I’m guessing that I have to make a follow up call.
With Plantronics®, we have an outstanding example of accountability. The individual I worked with took it upon herself to help me with my problem. She was knowledgeable, and walked me through everything I had to do. She also had all the information on my purchased. When the problem was corrected, she then told me that since I bought my system in 2005 I was at the life expectancy of my battery and that if I was getting any static in the headset, it’s a good indicator that it t may be time to replace the battery. I have to tell you if she asked for the order, I would have said yes for no other reason, than being so pleased with the level of support and the fact she took it ownership of the problem, solved it, and didn’t put it back on me, the customer to find a solution.
Now, that’s customer service the ACTing R.I.G.H.T™ way.
Topics: Accountability, Team building | No Comments »
You have two ears, one mouth, and used in direct proportion to each other. I know many of you have heard this adage. It suggests that we should do more listening and less talking. I like the one that goes like this, “better to let someone think you’re a fool than open you mouth and prove it true.” Both focus on the admonition to listen to before venturing forth an opinion.
Consider the following, you son or daughter come in and tell you that they want to drop out of school because they feel their teachers don’t understand them. What is your first reaction? I think most of us would move in the direction of telling them about the benefits of staying in school. That without and education their chances of getting a good job are limited at best. Some of you would even say, “Over my dead body” with a strong dose of how you sacrificed for them and that doing such a thing is being selfish and ungrateful.
What happens? Your child leaves frustrated and despondent, feeling guilty of bringing the subject up. If that was you goal, congratulations you achieved it. But, if your goal was to find out what was troubling them, you missed it entirely. You only heard the first part of the statement, the part that caused you to react and go into super parent mode. The part you needed to hear was the latter, the part that they don’t think their teachers understand them.
The art of listening wasn’t in play for you. The art of short cutting via stereo-typing was in play. When faced with this type of situation we use our knowledge of what a life is like without a decent education. Many of us have friends or relatives who thought they could make it without the benefit of a decent education, and immediately we go into hyper mode to prevent our children from going down that path. It’s only natural.
Everyone has the desire to protect love ones from making the type of decisions we believe can be harmful. However, the objective is to listen I mean really listen. Doing this is the most effective way we can provide help to our family members. In our short scenario, the real issue is the child feels that their teachers don’t understand them. By waiting, we get a fuller picture of what may be the real problem. Consider the following:
“I want to drop out of school, my teachers don’t understand me.”
“Wow, that’s different from yesterday. Yesterday, you were excited about getting to class to present your project. What happened?”
“It’s Mr. Dell, I did everything he told us to do and had all the points in my presentation. It was right out of the book. It was everything he said we should do. And he told me I wasn’t being creative, I wasn’t thinking for myself that I needed to put my own thoughts into it not just repeat what the book said. I followed the instructions, and gave him what was in the book and he still didn’t like it. He doesn’t understand me.”
By really listening, you start to get to what may be the real problem. I’m being deliberate, in my statement “you start to,” for this reason, sometimes it takes asking a series of questions before we get to the real problem along with really listening, we must also be patient. People will eventually tell you what is bothering them.
As parents, we can easily fall into the parent trap of knowing what’s best for our children, and be quick to dispense advice with anecdotes that underlie and support the advice we are giving. After all we’ve seen it all, been through it and understand the consequences of making bad choices. We are just trying to prevent what may have happen to us or friends and family members of ours, from happening to our children.
As coaches and consultants we have a wealth of experience and knowledge and like the example above, we can short-cut our listening to our clients, because we’ve heard it before and we’re quick to offer a process or solution that’s worked for us in the past. But when we do this, we are setting ourselves up as vendors not advisors.
We owe it to our clients to make sure that we are really listening to them. If we take the time to slow the process down and really listen to what they are saying, we will be in a better position to help the with their problem thus providing true value to our clients making us advisors as oppose to vendors.
Topics: Communication | No Comments »
Harry Truman said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” He had his reasons for making that statement, but I say you gotta love a dog. Today, while coming back from doing errands, I was laughing to myself as I looked at the car in front of me. Sticking out from the back window was this dog, just sniffing the breeze with its ears blown back by the wind, just loving every minute of having the wind in his face. This dog was as happy as it could be, because it was going from one side of the car to the other sticking its head out the window feeling the cool breeze on its face.
I could only imagine that the driver was very cold because he/she had both windows down and the temperature was in the low 20’s. Only a person who loves dogs would be so accommodating to their pet. But, there was something about seeing that dog, with his head out looking sticking its head into the breeze and just enjoying the moment. That’s when it hit me. This dog didn’t care about anything else, it was just enjoying that moment that point in time.
With the daily pressures each and every one of us face, how often do we take the time to stop and just enjoy a moment in time, letting a figurative cool breeze pass over our face.
You gotta love a dog.
Topics: ACTing Right | No Comments »