Over in the CX (Customer Experience) blog, Shaun Smith posts an article about his own experience as a patient in a UK hospital, which prompted him, while in a hospital bed surrounded by beeping instruments, to create his own ECG – experiencecareogram – charting his satisfaction and dissatisfaction with the various points in his customer journey.
Shaun cites Daniel Kahneman’s Peak-End Rule and the work of two other behavioural/behavioral psychologists, Chase, and Dasu, to offer advice to health service operators on how to create a great experience:
Five Rules for a Great Customer Experience
“In the case of the hospital experience in particular, we can turn to two other psychologists, Richard Chase and Sriram Dasu and their research into behavioural science. They build on the ‘Peak-end’ principle by Daniel Kahneman to suggest five rules for creating a great experience. Shaun writes:
1.Finish Strong.
Customers accept waiting in-line at Disney because they manage expectations about waiting times and thus under-promise and over-deliver.
2. Get bad experiences over with early. If you have to have a bad experience, get it out of the way as quickly as possible. In the case of the hospital make the lag time from admission to surgery as quick as possible so don’t ask everyone to arrive at the same time-stagger admissions.
3. Segment pleasure, combine the pain. Spread out the pleasure-so don’t ask me to choose my menu for the next two days at one time-allow me to do this before each meal. Try to group tests together so that they are seen as one process not separate events.
4. Build customer commitment through choice. Give me full information and then allow me to make an informed choice of treatment and drugs. Research shows that patients experience less pain and faster recovery when given some control over their pain-killing medication.
5. Stick to rituals. Nurses should give information to patients about what they are monitoring and why. Include the patient in the ‘ritual’
Source of the five rules: ‘Want to perfect your company’s service? Use Behavioral Science. Chase and Dasu. HBR 2001
The above is from Shaun Smith’s CX (Customer Experience) blog
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