AAMI: Survey says? Find out how your CE dept is serving your customers
 |
“Whether you are an in-house program, third party service, OEM or a supplier, customer service should be present in the beginning, middle and end of everything you do,” he said.
Perception is critical in establishing the value of a department or service company. “Thus, in order to understand how you are perceived, it is important to identify and understand who the customer is that is doing the perceiving,” said Ongirski, who identified the four most important customers as the front-line personnel (caregivers, nurses and technologists); peers (facilities maintenance, IT); management (departments supervisors, managers, nursing and house supervisors); and the C-suite level executives (directors, VPs, CFOs, COOs and CEOs). For the latter group, he suggested that these executives should perceive the HTM department—whether internal or external—as something other than a cost center, even though HTMs cannot generate revenue.
One important peer group within the expanding HTM field is the IT department. “Does the IT department see you as a challenge or a barrier to getting their jobs completed, or a department to work with?” he asked, noting that the language/system disparity problems of the past need to be overcome for the purposes of dual growth. Thus, he encouraged more training for HTMs, CEs and biomeds to better understand IT and interoperability considerations.
To establish the importance of value, he encouraged the HTMs in the audience to internally assess:
- Responsiveness: Timeliness is integral to keeping the operation running.
- Communication: “If there is a delay, tell the department what day the piece of equipment will arrive.”
- Follow through and delivery: This is connected to communication, and “if you make a promise, keep that promise.”
- Competency: especially for the front-line personnel, “who must perceive you as being the expert because you are hired as an expert in keeping equipment running.”
- Cost efficiency: Could involve outsourcing vs. keeping servicing in-house people or equipment. “Also, HTMs should prove their cost-efficiency know-how on a daily basis, as well as for project management and new construction, in which you should be heavily involved.”
Competition should be one of the motivating factors for wanting to ensure that customers are satisfied, said Ongirski, who cited some findings from a recent U.S. News & World Report survey, including:
- The average U.S. business loses 15 percent of its customer base each year;
- 68 percent of customers who stop buying form one business and got to another do so because of poor or indifferent service;
- 14 percent of customers leave because of an unsatisfactorily resolved dispute or complaint; and
- 82 percent of customers go somewhere else because of a customer service issue
Ongirski recommended measuring a customer’s level of satisfaction through customized surveys, based on what matters to the customer. These should be distribution to the front-line personnel, peers, management and administration. TriMedx, for whom Ongirski works as a site director at Alexian, sends these surveys to his customers bi-annually, and also as shorter “hot surveys,” which are issued every 100 service visits.
Specifically, he asks customers to assess his department for response times, professionalism, technical competence, overall effectiveness, cost effectiveness, departmental efficiency, alignment with organization’s values and goals, and communication and follow-up.
Wording is key with the surveys. For instance, adding “at all times” after a question about professionalism or communication can sidestep complications that arise on any particular day.
However, the work cannot end when the surveys are distributed and diligently collected. Based on survey results, Ongirski recommended identifying multiple customers with whom to conduct follow-up interviews, identifying at least three areas for improvement and, finally, designing and implementing an action plan based upon the interviews and survey results. “You can do all the surveys you want, but if you don’t identify areas of improvement and design an action plan to implement them, it won’t be beneficial. Plus, you need to monitor the progress against the action plan,” he added.
The C-suite is the most overlooked aspect and “maybe the most important,” according to Ongirski. He asked these questions of the HTMs in the audience:
- How do your CEO, COO and CFO view your department?
- What are the value-adds that you bring to the table?
- What savings do you produce?
- What do you bring to the asset management program at the facility?
He suggested that providing opportunities for savings will be the greatest value that HTMs can bring to C-suite executives. “However, you need to know what they expect before you can produce the proper results,” which he concluded can be ascertained through surveys.