Leveraging the Value of Mystery Shopping

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 was 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." 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.

Are You Criticizing Yourself Too Much? Take this Quiz

The ability to evaluate your words and actions in an objective manner is a great skill to have. Capitalizing on your strengths and learning from your mistakes and weaknesses is paramount to personal and professional growth. Of course, acquiring this skill is not simple. And in this quest, it’s very easy to become your own worst critic. Being overly critical of yourself can make getting through the day extremely difficult. You may second-guess yourself about everything, which creates unnecessary stress and self-doubt. Furthermore, constant self-criticism can lead to a negative psychological state that is hard to break. So how do you know if you’re being too hard on yourself? Below are some questions to ask yourself to assess how harshly you criticize yourself: When you make an error or an oversight at work, do you criticize yourself harshly? Do you repeat the scenario over and over in your mind? Before important meetings or work assignments, are your thoughts negative—do you focus on all that might go wrong? When you are running late, do you bombard yourself with harsh criticism, even before anyone else notices you are late? Do you worry that you will be 'found out' and others will think you’re not really able to do what is expected of you? Do you lie awake criticizing yourself for anything that went wrong during the day, even though you didn’t have much control over what happened? Have you ever said or thought to yourself that you are your own worst critic? If you answered yes to even just one of these questions, then your inner critique is in overdrive. It’s important to give yourself a break. Perhaps you have unrealistic expectations for yourself. Just remember that everyone makes mistakes. Recognize what you’ve done wrong, find the solution so it won’t happen again, and then get over it! “All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.” -Anonymous

   
 

Recent Study Finds High Turnover in Assisted Living Facilities

A new study from researchers with Georgia State University’s Gerontology Institute has found troubling staff turnover rates in assisted living facilities. According to the study, the vast majority of staff members enjoy their work; however, nearly two out of three will leave their job in a given year. The study found that in dozens of assisted living facilities—which bridge the gap between independent living and nursing homes—throughout Georgia, a variety of negative factors have created a revolving door for employees. These factors include salary, benefits, and advancement opportunities. Although most employees choose to work in assisted living because they strongly value helping others, most also still need the job to make ends meet, which becomes a struggle when their average salary (in Georgia) was $8.40 per hour. The study also found that nearly half of the employees don’t have health insurance; either because their employer doesn’t offer it or because the employees can’t afford the company’s coverage. Moreover, with an apparent lack of advancement opportunities at most facilities, workers have to jump to a new facility if they want a substantial raise. The study, which was funded by the National Institute on Aging, also revealed that assisted living workers, who were primarily black, often face racial discrimination from residents, who were primarily white. Nearly half of black employees reported experiencing racism, with many of those situations arising from comments made by residents suffering from dementia. Simply put, high turnover rates have a negative effect on the entire healthcare continuum. When staff members constantly come and go they can’t develop good relationships with residents or learn their medical histories. This, in turn, damages the quality of care. Overall, facilities need to sharply focus on eliminating high turnover. Making sure employees feel valued, respected, and appreciated is a great first step. “People forget how  fast you did a job - but they remember how well you did it.” —Howard Newton

   
 

7 Fail-Safe Employee Orientation Tips

The first days on the job can be extremely stressful for new employees. Even if the new employee is a "seasoned vet," he/she will have concerns about fitting in, their ability to do the job, and/or getting lost or looking stupid. To help new hires feel comfortable and at ease, try incorporating the following into your organization’s formal orientation process. Show the location of break rooms and bathrooms. It seems obvious, but many employers forget to show new hires where essential items and rooms are located. Have an expenses-paid team lunch on the new employee’s first day. Allow the team to share food and conversation in a comfortable setting—it’s a great icebreaker. Tell existing employees about the new person, and encourage them to stop by and say hello. Provide an organizational chart and office seating plan—the new employee will be bombarded with new names, titles, departments, etc. This will serve as a handy guide. Have all security and passes ready and waiting. Give the new hire the date of their first performance review, and let them know when team and other regular meetings will occur. Remember, consistent communication is key to assimilating new employees. Have a trusted team member explain the unwritten rules and subtleties of office politics. Every organization has different cultures and communication styles—give the new employee an idea of how things work at your healthcare organization. Orientation plans set the tone of the relationship between you and the new employee. By incorporating the tips above, you can help the employee feel comfortable, while also getting the relationship off to a flying start.

  
 

Wanted: Staff Incompetence Manager

Many of us have had the unfortunate experience of working with less-than-par managers and supervisors. In fact, you may have wondered how particular managers got hired  in the first place. You may have asked yourself what the company was looking for and what kind of qualifications this manager could have had. The following takes a comical look at the wanted ad that may have been placed! Staff Incompetence Manager Duties as follows: Micro-manage and keep employees overwhelmed with unrealistic deadlines so they won't feel obligated to make frequent restroom visits, breaks, take lunch, or have extra time to blink. Pry your subordinates for personal information so you can use it against them later on. Distribute all work duties disproportionately among your subordinate employees in conjunction with distributing your own managerial responsibilities and taking the credit. When unsure of leadership ability, periodically humiliate employees in front of their colleagues. Always walk around the office at a fast pace with papers in your hand to present the illusion of being productive. Encourage bickering, distrust, and back stabbing among all subordinates in the office. Qualifications as follows: Incurable urges to delegate and micro-manage. Arrogance, sarcasm and having a condescending attitude is a plus. Lack of compassion. Never take ownership to mistakes or errors. Ability to shift blame in a single bound. “The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.” —Casey Stengel