On Wednesday, I was waiting to meet with a potential client who happens to be a doctor. Doctors are notorious for making us wait no matter what time we show up for our appointment. If we’re early, the wait is longer. If we’re late, we get shoved to the back of the rotation until they can “fit” us in even if THEY are behind schedule. I fully understood that I was at the back of the rotation as long as paying customers were walking through the door, and that was the price of engagement on this particular appointment.
So as I waited, I got to paying attention to how quickly the patients were “turned over.” When I arrived, there were three guys waiting to be seen, and that number quickly grew to six in about fifteen minute’s time. I began to think I might be there all day when magically the doctor pops his head out and says “come on back.” The patients were all gone (for the moment). As we were walking back to the office, another patient walked through the door. Hopefully he didn’t have to wait because of me, but the doctor actually moved people through rather quickly and seemed to genuinely care about his patients. That’s a wild concept isn’t it? A doctor that seems to legitimately care and one that is focused on getting someone in and out—try that on the next time you visit your busy doctor.
It got me to thinking, what allows us to accept waiting to see someone that we’re going to have to pay a lot of money for that doesn’t seem to care one way or another if we heal as long as we can pay the bill? It’s common knowledge that doctors have to endure a lot of education and have extremely high overhead costs because of insurance and specialized help, but would we wait very long for another “expert” in another field to help us that seemed disinterested in us? Do lawyers do this? Actually, they probably do, and I guess that’s the nature of the beast, but that doesn’t mean it’s right.
When an expert specialist figures out how to balance caring about the client, effective time management techniques to minimize the client’s waiting time, and easy ways to pay the bill without having to fill out a life history on each visit, he/she will own their local niche market. There just aren’t many of them out there today willing to meet us halfway like that.
That will be the nugget to think about for the day—meet your clients, customers, or patients halfway if you want to make them happy. They may spread the word without you having to ask.