EPISODE 482: Service vs Hospitality

Hey, chiropractors. We're ready for another Modern Chiropractic Mastery Show with Dr. Kevin Christie, where we discuss the latest in marketing strategies, contact marketing, direct response marketing, and business development with some of the leading experts in the industry.

Dr. Kevin Christie: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Modern Chiropractic Mastery. Uh, today I'm actually going to play a, um, a recording of a video that I did for a, a chiro business virtual summit, and it was on the topic of service versus hospitality. And we coach our clients a lot on this. We really try to get our clients to have, uh, a world-class patient experience, and what I find is it's definitely a mix of you gotta have clinical skill, right?

You just gotta have clinical skill. That kind of falls under service, um, but the clinical skill needs to be there. Then I want you to have really good and efficient service, and we talk about that in this recording, and then, um, layering on hospitality, which is different than service. And we take some of this, as you'll hear, um, from, from Danny Meyer, Setting the Table.

There's also another good book, um, called Unreasonable Hospitality, so check that one out, [00:01:00] uh, if you wanna dive deeper into it. Um, we also touch on, uh, Joey Coleman's eight phases of the customer journey in his book, Never Lose a Customer Again. So those are a few good resources for you. But, uh, this will be a audio only of a video webinar that I did on this topic.

So enjoy that, know that if there's some things that I'm talking about that are a diagram or whatever, that's because it's, it's me going through a presentation that we did. So without further ado, here is my, uh, audio recording on service versus hospitality

 All right, we're gonna talk about the patient experience, and we're going to dive into the difference between service and hospitality. Uh, we will talk about both. Both are very important, and we wanna have you understand how this can, uh, really transform your practice. So let's dive in a little bit here.

So defining the core concepts. Service is really gonna be the technical [00:02:00] delivery of a product, uh, or service. Um, these are the fundamentals of customer service expectations, right? The basic mechanics of how you deliver care. Whereas hospitality, that's how the delivery makes the recipient feel.

Hospitality means creating emotional connection with your patient, going beyond expectations to show you genuinely care Service versus hospitality. So again, doing the job correctly is gonna be your technical delivery, the service. Timing service with customer expectations, right? Responding to a request in a timely manner.

There's just a few examples. Whereas hospitality is gonna be that emotional connection, presenting with en- enthusiasm, a smile, and sincere interest, letting them know you have their best interest in mind. And true hospitality can often overcome a lack of service or a service mistake, right? A lot of [00:03:00] times, um, a mistake in the service is an opportunity for enhanced cover- customer service or hospitality, right?

But great service can rarely make up for poor hospitality, but great hospitality can overcome service gaps. Now, a lot of this information comes from Danny Meyer, a restaurateur and hospitality leader at a book called Setting the Table. - He says hospitality exists when you believe that the other person is on your side.

And so you want your patients to believe that you are on their side and everybody on your team is on their side to getting them better, even if maybe, uh, you're not getting results with that person. If the hospitality is there, they will still believe that you're on their side, and they'll have more confidence, right?

So some examples of service in chiropractic, right? Online scheduling, to me, is a high level [00:04:00] of service, right? But doesn't necessarily go into the hospitality side of things. Um, very efficient and clean insurance verifications, right? Uh, payment transactions. I mean, that can be done poorly, it can be done great.

So I think there's examples of service that go above and beyond, but again, doesn't really get into that emotional connection part that hospitality does. Uh, notes and reports, maybe text reminders and Google reviews, uh, two-way texting is great service, um, having a really effective history and consultation and report of findings, reexaminations, right?

Those are just examples. There's many more, but you get the idea of some of the examples of service. Okay. And then there's examples of hospitality, where the emotional connection be. Again, these are just some of them, but using their first name when meeting them and shaking their hand. Uh, maybe having water fr- and refreshments available.

Um, maybe there's a new patient tour and a new [00:05:00] patient gift Personalized thank you notes and cards, personalized vi- birthday videos. Imagine if you, uh, you know, you printed out the daily list of birthdays and you sent a Bonjoro video, which is a little quick video that gets emailed to them. That'd be pretty cool, right?

That's hospitality. Uh, sending condolences when necessary. Uh, following up for calls, um, for referrals or imaging or maybe, you know, they're having surgery, um, things of that nature. Uh, new patient welcome letters, um, call or a video. Again, I mentioned that Bonjoro video. It's B-O-N-J-O-R-O. And I, I... every new patient I have, I, I record a 30-second video.

"Hey, Bob, it was a pleasure meeting you yesterday. We look forward to helping you with your shoulder. Remember, you might have a little bit of soreness from your first treatment, but our goal is to get you back into playing golf. I'll see you on your next visit. If you have any questions, please let us know.

We're excited to help you on your journey to health." Right? And it's a quick little video. Plug in your [00:06:00] email. It emails them directly, and it's-- the video's embedded into the email, so it's a nice little touch there, right? And you could do that in lieu of calling the new patient, but that's a form of, of hospitality.

So these are some examples of hospitality for the patient experience. And one thing that I'm gonna review right now, which I've kinda felt, um, compelled, I think, a year ago to really do a thought experiment, and I know it's a, it's, it's hard, right? But what would a friction-free patient experience be like?

This is gonna be kinda back on the service side of things and, like, what would it look like for a friction-free patient experience? And so we did a checklist, which I'm gonna share with you. I'm gonna review some of it, and you'll get the idea. But, um, we break this down into three phases, right? The new patients, a seamless, welcoming start.

Online paperwork, [00:07:00] right? Do it from home. Great. Existing patients, that consistent, effortless, ongoing care. And then your inactive patients. Simple, encouraging pathway to return. In a lot of ways, make it easy for them to leave and make it easy for them to get back in, okay? So that's the friction-free patient experience.

Let me go ahead and sh- reshare a different, uh, document here. Um-

And so I'll share this with you, and, uh, we've got the new patient. So some things that would be friction-free. It doesn't have to be all these, some of these might not pertain to you, but if I was drawing up a patient experience, yeah, I'd love to be able to schedule online. That's great. Or the phones are answered, getting back to them quickly.

Being able to schedule a, a- an appointment within 48 hours. Uh, monitoring your social media, because a lot of people are direct messaging your social media now, and sometimes that goes unchecked and unnoticed, and you've lost a new patient. Um, online paperwork, okay, uh, is really good. [00:08:00] Making sure the patient wears appropriate attire for lower extremity issues and, and making, making them aware of that.

Plan in place for maybe non-English speaking patients if you have something there a- and you're in an area like that. Short wait times, uh, when they get to your office. Uh, a welcome video that's sent to them before they come that just explains to them how to get to your office and, you know, introduce the doctors and what to expect, right?

The revenue cycle. I'll get down to that in a second. Not gonna harp on that too much, but we do see a lot of friction in the revenue cycle. Insurance is verified for the new patient before they arrive. Schedule the entire treatment plan out in advance. Treatment plan handouts, chiro up reports, things like that are great.

Stored payment on there. Um, we use cash practice in our office, and it stores payment on there. It's great. You don't have to s-swipe the card every time they come through or the, you know, getting that, getting that done on the first visit's great. Package and payment opti-options. Like, they don't have to pay one time [00:09:00] Um, treatment plan recommendations being very seamless and clear and smooth.

Right? So there's some examples. Existing patients, right? Again, short wait time in the office, two-way texting. A lot of our patients two-way text us. Love it. You know, it's great communication. We monitor that really well. Online scheduling for follow-ups. Again, some of these are gonna be, um, gonna be, um, you know, duplicate of the new patient.

No, no future system. First learned this from Jay Greenstein, where he talked about if a patient is on a treatment plan and they leave your office and they, they don't have a new, uh, a future appointment, so they have no future appointment, and they should. And tracking that and making sure you touch base with that patient, getting them back on schedule.

Right? Uh, and so you can see, uh, maybe make it e- easy for seamless referrals. If you do exercises, can they be accessed digitally? Staff and doctors get back to the patients on particular needs, right? If, you know, patients call office like, "I got a question for Dr. Christie." And yeah, you get back to them.

It's a nice form of service and hospitality. [00:10:00] Um, and then you see some inactive patients. And then what we did here on this document, you can see, is, is we broke down the, the, the typical revenue cycle, especially if you're in-network with insurances or accept insurances. This is gonna be from the patient registration and scheduling all the way down to reporting and analysis.

And we find that a lot of times there's a lot of friction here, right? The insurance eligibility verification is a problem. Um, maybe the claim submissions are an issue. And then, uh, you know, denial management's a huge problem. That really is a, a, a consistent ding on, um, the patient experience, and that's always frustrating.

So you have access to this and, and what would it look like? Take this and use it as a, a kind of a reference for you to be able to, um- Look at what your own systems are in your practice, and how can you get better and make it as frictionless as possible for your patients, okay? And so that's one thing I'm, I'm challenging you to do is to try to develop your [00:11:00] own friction-free patient experience.

It's never gonna be perfect, but the better we can get at that, the better that patient experience will be, okay?

All right, moving on. Now, this is where I think hospitality is so, so important, and there's a really good book, uh, Never Lose a Customer Again by Joey Coleman. Highly recommend it. And I wanna make a case for it for, for chiropractic and what that looks like, okay?

And this is where I want you to start thinking about opportunities for, you know, some of those nice things that we kinda mentioned up here, uh, right here, examples of hospitalities, okay? And so he breaks down the eight phases of the, um, customer journey, and he's-- he has the first one hundred days. Phase one, assess and admit.

It's kind of like on the marketing side, so I'm just gonna skip that. Again, I d- really rec- I do recommend reading his book to get some of that, but I'm gonna just tease out a few things that I think are important in the [00:12:00] patient experience, okay? And so we'll start with phase three. This is the affirm phase.

This is the buyer's remorse period. This phase lasts from between when they schedule their new patient exam all the way until they arrive for their initial visit. This, uh, the potential patient's excitement has faded, and now they begin to question their decision. What can you do between that time where they call and schedule a new patient before they come in?

Let's call it two days, a day. We always get frustrated when patients don't show up for their appointment, and they last-minute cancel or they no-show. What could have been done between when they scheduled and before they arrived that would be a, a high level of hospitality that would make them feel like, "Oh, yes, I picked the right place," right?

And so some of that's gonna be service, but then some of it's gonna be hospitality. Like I mentioned, a welcome video. We send-- We text a welcome video to the patients before their visit with us, and it's a video with me and the other doctor, and ours serves for, for purposes. Our office is kinda tricky to, to find for various [00:13:00] reasons, so we kind of spotlighted that.

That was one thing I wanted to do. Two is we wanna introduce the doctors. Three, we wanted to show them an office, so we were kind of walking through the office, and we have-- we're more proud of our office, so we want them to see that. And four, we wanted them to know what to expect with our model of care, and we send that to them, and we've gotten a lot of good feedback for it.

So what are some of the things that you can do to, in that affirm phase, to where they feel like they made the right decision, okay? And so I want you to, to tease that out for your, for your clinic. Phase four is the activate phase. This phase is the initial visit marked by the first time the patient pays you for their service.

Your goal is to set the bar for all future visits. Wow them. Give them a snapshot of the type of experience they will have each time they come to their office. This is the new patient visit. This is a new patient experience, um, that, that first visit, um, giving them an office tour would be great. We have some practices they put like, you know, "Welcome John, uh, to our clinic."

Don't put the full [00:14:00] name, but they do that. Um, you, you know, front desk could get up and walk around and introduce themselves. The doctor mentions them by name when they introduce them, shakes their hand, has a great history and consultation and report of findings. Um, um, um, you know, office tour, show them the other things you offer, make them feel at home there.

Uh, maybe a new patient gift within AIG rules, like $15 or less. Um, all really good ideas around making that new patient experience, uh, remarkable, okay? So think about what you can do from a hospitality standpoint to make that new patient visit day really, really special. And so his first four phases fall under the new patient experience, and the first two are gonna be around marketing stuff, and you can figure that out.

Um, but phase three and four, um, really are important from when they schedule to when they show up for that first visit. You gotta hit a home run here, [00:15:00] and you gotta make them feel like they picked the right place, okay? And then next is going to be the active patient care phase, okay? So in Joey's book, that'd be phase five and six, acclimate.

And then let's just kind of tease out phase six, which is accomplish, okay? Um, acclimate is going to be important. That's going to be just like basically they're, they're coming in regularly for their, uh, active care for whatever they have going on, and you need definitely to have certain things. Their service has to be good, hospitality has to be good, things like that.

But I want to, uh, spend a little more time on the accomplish phase, right? This is, um, the patient accomplishes their goal on this visit, usually corresponding with the re-exam and doctor discharge. Uh, match their emotions by celebrating with the patient and recognizing this visit as an achievement. Maybe there's a, a gift at the end of the road there that they get.

Uh, maybe there's some kind of, uh, fun thing you do for that patient. Maybe there's, [00:16:00] um, uh, something that you do, like after the, you know, the next day, you send them a, a letter, uh, or you give them a call. Just again, want to make sure you have any questions. You did a great job. I would also use this to have a great conver- the doctors have a great conversation about, uh, maintenance or performance care at that point, what that looks like, right?

So you really want to make this kind of a special visit that they've accomplished what they set out to go, to do in your clinic and what the next steps are, uh, for them. We cannot-- Too many clinics overlook this part and miss a big opportunity for that patient. It's a big deal what they've accomplished and what your, your team has accomplished for them, and we want that to be recognized, okay?

And then next is the inactive, uh, or maintenance phase, right? So he has eight phases. Uh, phase seven is adopt, and so, uh, if you have that during [00:17:00] that phase six one that I mentioned, you have a really good conversation around, say, maintenance, care, uh, performance care, their family, and things like that, they are going to adopt you into their life, right?

Uh, that's when they say, "You gotta go see my chiropractor," versus the chiropractor. When they say, "My chiropractor," that is a great sign that they have adopted, okay? But let's chat about phase eight, the advocate, 'cause the sci- silent killer of a practice is not enough people become advocates for your practice.

And then the thing that usually will just blow up a practice and make it just really busy and referral-based, and all that, is when they have a lot of advocates, right? The patient is now a raving fan and spreading the news about your brand to others. A patient reaches phase eight when they leave you a positive online review, like a five-star Google review, or make a referral to your office.

And you wanna celebrate that. You know, I, um, you should have letters, thank you [00:18:00] letters to people that send. You should, um, respond to that Google review. You should, if you get some people that are, like, super refer- referring people, maybe do something special for them. A lotta things you wanna make sure you do to recognize your advocates.

And the goal of having really good service, friction-free service, and a certain level of hospitality in your clinic Married with good clinical outcomes. You gotta, you gotta get them better. You gotta do well there. Um, when you can do that, that's when you got a phenomenal patient experience. You're n- you're unlike anybody else in your community, and you get a ton of referrals, uh, to your practice.

And so I really, really recommend working through that. Okay? And so your action plan is to kind of audit your patient experience, right? Um, and what systems need [00:19:00] to run more smoothly? Where do patients wait or feel friction? What three s- service improvements will you pri- prioritize this quarter? Okay. And then improve the hospitality.

Where is the emotional connection missing, do you think, in your clinic? What touchpoints feel cold or transactional? And in what three hospitality improvements will you prioritize? Okay? Um, so I'd love for you to, to work on that. All right? I wanna thank you for watching this. There's obviously a lot to it, but your homework is to take the friction-free patient experience, look at it, checklist it off, design your own, and then look at some of those key ins- uh, key parts of the patient experience and where could you layer in some unique hospitality.

Okay? You can check us out at modernchiropracticmastery.com, um, and Modern Chi- Chiropractic Mastery Podcast. Again, I'm Dr. Kevin Christie. I'm down in Boca Raton, Florida, with my own private practice and also have developed Modern Chiropractic [00:20:00] Ma- Mastery. Thank you for your time in watching this, and I hope it inspires you to develop an even better patient experience.