Lowering the CG of decision making in your organization

This happened sometime back, in the pre-pandemic era.

I had to take my son to the hospital ( a reputed one in Bangalore) for a minor skin allergy. We met the doctor on a Tuesday, he quickly diagnosed the issue and prescribed medicines for 5 days but asked us to visit him back in 3 days for a follow-up.

So here I was, on the third day, in the registration queue at the hospital. The queue moved slow (this always happens to me, the queue i am in, is the slowest; hope this doesn't happen to you )

Inevitably, as time progressed, I was at the counter. The receptionist informed that the doctor was on leave. I asked for an alternate doctor and yes, there was another pediatrician who was available then. She asked me to pay the consulting fee to proceed.

This was the turning point.

Usually, most hospitals don't charge for a follow-up if you are visiting in a stipulated number of days. The number of days could be 3 or 5 or some other number. I mentioned to her that it was a follow-up visit in just 3 days. She said, 'Sir, yes I know that. However, this is a different doctor.' After recovering from the initial shock, I tried to explain chronologically.

She nodded her head throughout, but at the end had the same answer. She explained to me this was a different doctor and that time there was an explanation, our process does not allow that.

I stood my ground and argued in favor of my 'very logical' demand. She hid behind the processes. I felt bad for the people standing the queue behind me. They started looking at the other queues.

The discussion ensued. Finally, I asked for someone senior who could handle it. She called someone on her phone and after 5 mins (but looked like an hour for me and I am sure 2 hrs. for the person behind me) her boss appeared. Both went to the corner, discussed and came back. Looked like the boss understood. She said, 'Actually sir, this is not in process, but we can give an exception.' Of course, she was smart not to announce this in front of the whole audience.

I did not take the higher moral ground arguing for the greater good of humanity that this rule should be universal and I am not going to agree. I was happy that my problem got solved. We met the doctor and went back.

But I shared this bad experience with a few of my friends. And you can imagine their approach to the brand( hospital) and my hesitancy in future interactions.

Why did this happen? What had gone wrong here? How it could have been solved?

The hospital could have avoided this scenario if they had thought through it from a user perspective. If the receptionist had the power and autonomy to make that decision in favor of the legitimate demand of the customer, it would have left the customer with a superior experience. The customer would have thought that the brand went out of its way to get this done for me. The experiences he would have shared with his friends would have been completely different.

Could they have empowered the receptionist with making decisions?

Now, there could be some completely unexpected scenarios that could happen at the user interface, in this case at the receptionist desk. This could be at your organization's reception or an employee on the call with a customer.

Have you enabled your front-line staff to handle these scenarios? More importantly, have you empowered them to make decisions?        

I agree that it will not be possible to get the employees to make all the decisions. However, the more empowering your organization is, the better the customer experience is, and studies have proved, the more motivated the employees are.

The customer wants to get his 'work' done fast. He is not bothered about the hierarchies and levels. He just needs decisions to be made as quickly as possible.

The customer sees your brand in the employee. He doesn't say that employees in that hospital could not help. He says that the hospital could not cater to my legitimate ask.

If you look back at the various user experiences you would have had with the brands through calls, meeting their representatives you can understand the difference between an empowered employee and a non-empowered one. You came out satisfied when you interacted with the empowered ones.

So, how empowered are you as an employee?

As a manager at a company or brand, are you empowering the employees?

Lower the center of gravity of decision-making. It will get more happy customers who will spread the joy about their experience