It’s a rare occurrence when customer service and health care are mentioned in the same sentence. At Concentra, we are changing that. Our philosophy is that the best approach to addressing the American health crisis is to provide a “retail-like” customer service with quality medical care. But getting there isn’t always easy.

In early 2007, we began collecting information from patients regarding their experiences in and out of our medical centers. Obtained through medical center surveys, online questionnaires, and patient/client forums, customers provided us detailed information about what works and what doesn’t. These comments also gave us a critical eye and a snapshot of typical encounters with our organization.

Through the collection and analysis of information culled through endless patient and client surveys, we determined that customer service deserves a place in a health care setting as much as in any discount store or specialty retailer. But more importantly, great customer service can have a positive experience on medical outcomes, and it would begin at Concentra.

By early 2008, we implemented clearly defined and measurable customer service standards based on six core components:

1. Establishing a culture of customer service
2. Patient‐focused service standards
3. Recruiting, hiring, training and retaining excellent Concentra colleagues
4. Continuous quality improvement
5. Ongoing patient and customer feedback; and
6. Periodic colleague/internal customer feedback

Guiding us through this culture change (and at the heart of the feedback we received from customers) is the use of the Net Promoter Score as a metric for both our external customers and internal colleagues. This unique number showed us the likelihood our existing customers would recommend our services to others. We soon learned that we had a lot of work ahead of us.

We collected over 6,800 comments that were transcribed, quantified, trended, and assigned as action items. This touched every element that works to create a great experience, including reduced wait times, interior upgrades, new center planning, marketing and sales collateral, clinician-patient interactions, and more. As many of these improvements and enhancements were rolled out to all Concentra Medical Centers, we continued to collect customer comments on what other areas needed improvement. Almost like to-do items on a list, we checked off one area and moved on to the next – and the positive results soon followed.

When we started this quest, our NPS was 8% – with over half our medical centers being negative.  Today, we have an NPS at 50% and no centers are negative. We continue to collect patient and client feedback, and direct them to appropriate colleagues for follow-up. And for the 25,000 patients we see every day, a mailed survey or telephone interview solicits confidential satisfaction ratings. We believe this is huge progress in a short amount time, but there is more to do.

By using customer comments, what our organization becomes is a continually evolving business model. Instead of trying to become what we think customers want, we transform to be what they desire and need. As a medical organization, where doctors and physical therapists are our “product,” we believe coupling medical care with a truly caring experience offers the best rating of all – a positive impact on peoples’ lives.