Mystery  shopping has become increasingly popular in healthcare settings, as it provides  a quick and objective method to identify and evaluate service performance. A  mystery shopping project often begins when an incognito shopper makes an  inquiry call to a healthcare facility asking for information and continues  through to a visit to the facility, sometimes extending through a second and  third visit. It concludes when the mystery shopper reports on his or her  experiences. Mystery shoppers can provide feedback on things such as first  impressions of the facility, customer service, and the marketing and  rapport-building skills of the sales staff.

Mystery shopping  can help healthcare organizations identify several key issues, including the  following:

• The  care and treatment of patients
• Why  you may be losing business
• Marketing,  sales and service problems
• The  responsiveness (turn around time) and sales skill of your staff
• How  your organization is perceived in the community
• If  your organization is being recommended by any other sources
• How  your organization's staff handles inquiries 

In addition  to identifying issues at your own facility, mystery shopping can provide huge  benefits when used at competitor sites. Mystery shopping at a competitor site  can prove to be a lesson in humility, as it demands the wisdom to acknowledge  that another organization may be doing things better than you.  However, if you're able to set your personal  feelings aside, there's a lot you can learn from shopping at a competitor site.  Mystery shopping at the competition enables your healthcare facility to  identify, learn and implement industry best practices and therefore gain a competitive  advantage.

Of course,  some managers believe that they already have their fingers on the pulse of  their industry and how their organization is performing. But ask yourself: When  was the last time your organization formally (and objectively) evaluated  service and operations? If the answer is, "It's been awhile," or  "I can't remember," then it's probably the right time to mystery shop  at your organization as well as the competition.

At the end  of the day, the level and quality of service you deliver to your patients and customers  is vital to your company's success. Your customers' total experience with your  company and your staff ultimately dictate whether your company will succeed or  fail. Simply having expectations about what sort of experience your customers  and patients should have is not enough. To realize positive results, you must  inspect and measure. Objective, anonymous, third-party assessments of the  customer experience will provide the information you need to ensure that customers'  actual experiences match company expectations.  Mystery shopping programs provide this service  and opportunity. Moreover, mystery shopping can deliver insights across  stakeholders-including physicians, nurses, CNAs, patients and consumers-to help  you anticipate and impact customer behavior so you can optimize sales, brand,  treatment, communications, and performance.

Measuring the Value

As with any  program or expenditure, executive management and administrators will want to  know mystery shopping's return on investment (ROI). The ROI of mystery shopping  programs can be readily measured, provided that the results are followed up on  and effectively used to change employee behavior.  For example, if a mystery shopping program  reveals that fifty percent of the time employees fail to greet customers and  visitors when they enter the facility, the company might take specific steps to  ensure that employees know they must acknowledge customers within thirty  seconds of arrival. Subsequent mystery shopping might reveal that customers are  greeted within thirty seconds, ninety-five percent of the time. The return for  the company is that a specific expected  employee behavior has improved by forty-five percent.  The exact financial value of this and  similar types of behavior improvement may be hard to gauge, but consider this:  A customer who is made to feel welcome and valued is far more likely to do  business with your company than a customer who is ignored.

Of course,  mystery shopping is valuable in ways that can't be readily measured. By  identifying issues that otherwise may have gone unnoticed, mystery shopping can  prevent the loss of business and negative perceptions. However, measuring  something that has been prevented or didn't happen is nearly impossible to do. Mystery  shopping programs can prove extremely valuable in ways that may not be readily  measured for two primary reasons:

• Most  customers/patients who have unsatisfactory experiences will not complain, they  will just never come back.
• Dissatisfied  customers are likely to tell many others about their experience, who in turn  probably will avoid doing business with you.
• It's critical  to keep these items in mind when measuring and proving the value of mystery  shopping programs.

The More You Put In, The More You'll  Get Out

  If your  organization wants to realize a positive ROI out of a mystery shopping program,  it must take the feedback and results and turn them into action.  After all, if the data isn't being used to  initiate change or enhance programs, then it's really all for nothing.

Healthcare  organizations across the country are leveraging mystery shopping to improve  service and increase business. Below are some prime examples of how  organizations turned their mystery shopping feedback into action.

An Ohio Hospital  Makes the Right Call
An Ohio-based  hospital had mystery shoppers call the main phone line. They discovered that  operators were transferring several callers to the Ask-a-Nurse line for many  questions that didn't apply. Once the problem was uncovered by mystery shoppers,  the hospital was able to come up with guidelines and resources for the  operators so that they could answer callers' questions and transfer them to the  right locations.

A Dallas Facility Improves Scripts &  Terminology
A Dallas hospital learned  from mystery shopper reports that patients' levels of psychological comfort  were low. So, the hospital developed new scripts for speaking with customers.  Now, rather than just asking "Can I get anything for you?" staffers  are told to add, "I have the time.u201D; This small adjustment has done wonders  to help patients feel more important and valued. The facility also simplified  terminology and enlarged the font on its signs in response to mystery shopper  complaints that signs were difficult to read.

A Retirement Community Re-Focuses  Its Sales Efforts
A new  upscale retirement community was failing to meet its occupancy objectives while  several of its competitors were filled to capacity and enjoying waiting lists.  The owners had assumed that local residents were simply unaware that the  retirement community existed-something that the facility thought would solve  itself over time with good public relations. However, mystery shopping reports  identified the sales force as the more significant problem. If the mystery  shopping audit had not been done, the owners might have focused their energies  in the wrong place. They found out that awareness and PR was not the sole  problem, and so, they focused their energies in the sales area. They made  changes in staff and hired more experienced people with the right skills and  personalities to relate to the residents and reflect corporate expectations.

A Midwest  Facility Rewards Positive Feedback
In addition  to identifying problematic issues, mystery shopping often uncovers examples of  outstanding service and performance. A Midwestern nonprofit healthcare organization  began rewarding employees who got praise from mystery shoppers with small cash  prizes, gift cards, better parking spaces, and public recognition, such as  engraving their names on a wall plaque. Since implementing its mystery shopping  program, the facility's employee turnover rate dropped to 11.5 percent from  nearly 18 percent. 

There's No Mystery in the Results

Overall, healthcare  facilities that use mystery shoppers say that the reports have led to a number  of changes in the patient experience, including improved estimates of wait  times, better explanations of medical procedures, escorts for patients who have  gotten lost, and even less-stressful programming on the television in the  waiting room.
Mystery  shopping ultimately takes a snapshot of what visitors who come to your facility  encounter. This snapshot may or may not be an accurate reflection of how your  facility operates on a daily basis. After all, people have bad days, things go  wrong, equipment breaks, etc. That's why you should never approach your first  mystery shopping experience with the thought that it will be your last. Mystery  shopping is most effective if it is ongoing, or conducted on a periodic basis,  so you can see real patterns of progress. If you only intend to conduct a  mystery shopping project once, remember that there are limitations to the  comparative or trend information you collect.
  Mystery  shopping can ultimately help hospitals, clinics, assisted living facilities and  nursing homes identify unsatisfactory processes and employee behavior and  performance. By identifying these problems, taking action to resolve them, and  then going through the evaluation process once again, healthcare organizations  can increase business and customer satisfaction exponentially.

In 1963, the National Council of Senior Citizens designated May as Senior Citizens Month. The Council encouraged the nation to pay tribute in some way to older people across the country. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter's proclamation changed the name to Older Americans Month, a time to celebrate those 65 and older (which today equates to roughly 37.3 million people) through ceremonies, events, and public recognition.

The theme for Older Americans Month 2008 is "Working Together for Strong, Healthy and Supportive Communities." Healthcare organizations should be able to make this year's theme extremely successful given all the free resources and materials available. You can get your facility ready by downloading some of the Administration on Aging's free materials, including logos, a poster, and a sample proclamation letter and "drop in" letter.

Visit the following link and get started today!

http://www.aoa.gov/press/oam/May_2008/Materials_Downloads.asp

"I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel."
  -Elizabeth Arden

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Clint Maun is informed of the re-publication atclintm@clintmaun.com and receives a copy of the publication with reprint.