Don’t Let Rude People Ruin Your Day

It never ceases to amaze me when people are rude in the office or anywhere in public.  I wonder what is going through their mind that they can justify their behavior.  But more so, how can we “the recipients” of this behavior not let it affect us?  All to often we let these situations that happen to us to “stick” with us and bother us all day and night.  We try to figure out why it happened and was there something we could have done to prevent it.  Such as the situation that happened today in my office, a patient was accidentally scheduled for yesterday, which was a holiday.  The patient was called yesterday morning and was told of the mistake, we apologized and gave her an appointment for today at 11:00.  She called us this morning and asked for a later appointment due to a service for a friend, so we told her to come in at 4:15 and we would work her in, as our schedule was full.  When the patient arrived we were running about 1/2 hour behind, not the norm for our office, but it does happen.  The patient was roomed around 4:45, and at 5:00 our front door flies open and in walks the patient’s husband yelling at our front desk person “where is my wife who had a 4:15 appointment?”  I looked up and this man had the meanest look on his face, if I didn’t know him, I would have been frightened and I think my front office person was in shock.  I told him that we were running behind and she was next to be seen.  He proceeded to yell and tell me that our office made a mistake and this was our fault, rambling on and shaking in his anger.  I replied “yes you are correct we made a mistake, but were willing to get her in today”.  I did not even mention that they had changed the appointment from this morning to this afternoon as it would not have mattered.  Once I agreed with him and told him that his wife was next, in a very calm manner, he just looked at me and I smiled.  He turned and walked out the door, and we all just looked at each other wondering “what was that all about?”  We will probably never really know what was going on with this man for him to react to us in this manner.  The interesting thing is his wife was okay, not happy, but okay that she had to wait, go figure.   The important thing is that we need to be able to handle these situations knowing that maybe we triggered the behavior, maybe not, but let it go once it is over.  This is easier said than done sometimes.  Tomorrow is a new day and when I think about it, people who behave like this in the office are the 1% and I think we should be able handle that.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2112304_deal-rude-customers.html

Calculating What Your Time Is Really Worth

Have you ever really evaluated what your time is worth in dollars and cents?  You may be quite surprised if you do.  It is a fact that many business owners do daily routine tasks that their employees would happily do and do them well, but they just cannot give them up for some reason or another.  These simple tasks could be costing more in time than what it is worth.  Taking the time to evaluate what you do, how much time it takes, and whether you can have an employee do the task for less is important for business owners to do. Having checks and balances in place to oversee certain tasks that you delegate to your staff is important, but carrying them out can be done by someone other than you.  When you figure out how much your time is really worth, you start to see things a bit differently and your time becomes more valuable.  Take for instance, you have a large yard that needs mowing each week and this tasks takes 2-3 hours total time to finish, and you have calculated your time to be worth $50 an hour, wouldn’t be wiser to hire someone to do this job for you?  It is actually costing you $400-600 a month in time.  Another interesting thing that happens when you figure out how much your time is worth per hour is that you begin to structure what you do and how you do it in a more efficient way.  Take e-mail versus a phone call, you can shoot out a quick e-mail in seconds and if you picked up the phone to talk to someone it could turn into minutes.  Or when you get in your car to head out you will start to think about everything you need to do while you are out, the best route to take, how much time you will spend doing it.  No one really wants to waste time and how we look at it will determine a lot about what we do with it.  There is one factor about time that is important to keep in mind and that is not one of us knows how much we have been given, so make the best of it no matter how you do it.  It really is valuable.

How To Price Your Time

Avoid Burnout With A Healthy Work Life

I read a very good article, which I have attached below for your reading, by Martha Beck for the “O Magazine” titled “10 life lessons you should unlearn.”  It caught my eye because I am always on the look out for information on health, happiness and the pursuit of life and this title seemed to fit.  I was right it was a great article with lots of pearls of practical wisdom that almost everyone could benefit from.  All 10 lessons were very important but the one that I really liked was “it is important to stay happy.”  It is so true that most of the time we can find all kinds of things that we are unhappy about, but we do not take enough time to look at how happy we really are.  Everyday things come our way that can throw us into a well of unhappiness and we allow ourselves to drowned in the well instead of climbing out and looking around at what is good today and why we can be happy.  Reflection on happiness is a good thing to do and making it part of our daily life either in the morning or evening can change our outlook for tomorrow.  Taking our “happy thoughts” a step further could be to carry or put a picture up in your office of something that reminds you of what makes you happy, for me it is pictures of my family and when I am down in the well, I can just look at them and it brings a smile to my face and a reminder of what is good in my life.  When I am happy and smiling at work I can make a big difference in the lives of those I work with and those I serve.

“Being happy doesn’t mean that everything is perfect.  It means that you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections”  ~Unknown   

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/10-Life-Lessons-You-Should-Unlearn-Martha-Beck-Life-Coach-Advice_1

Betrayal In The Workplace

When you take a job, you usually feel like you are there to do what you are being paid to do, which is correct.  But as relationships develop with coworkers many times “not so nice” things can happen, especially when one employee is being looked at as a better worker than another by management, or there are personality conflicts.  There are many reasons why workplace conflict arises, but in many cases it brings betrayal of trust along with it. Betrayal is a tough thing to get over no matter what the situation is.  Working with someone who betrayed your trust is extremely difficult to work through and to remain employed. The parties involved need come to the realization that “as long as we live on this earth with humans we are going to have trust broken”.  Hurt has to be worked through and that will take time, open communication and the willingness by all parties involved to move forward.  Easier said than done.  Trust takes time to be rebuilt, if at all.   The betrayer needs to understand that even though the betrayed may have forgiven them or are being willing to move forward, they have not forgotten what has transpired.  Betrayal comes in three types: unintentional, premeditated, and opportunistic.  Rarely is the relationship the same depending upon what type of betrayal has taken place.  The link below has some good information on how to handle workplace betrayal and realistic expectations.

Betrayal in the workplace

Management Qualities….Lead Like A Dragon

I subscribe to a blog called Management Craft, which always has great posts about business management and related topics.  I recently came across a  post that was about the attributes of dragons and relating them to personal leadership.  Since it is Chinese New Year today, and the beginning of “the year of the dragon” I felt it most appropriate to make it the topic of today’s blog.  The post was short, sweet but to the point and I found it quite interesting and have posted the link below.   The author points out that “Dragons are proactive and protective” and relates it to leaders stating that they need to do whatever it takes to help and support others and to ensure alignment in the workplace.  I totally agree with this philosophy of management leadership, if there is something that is out of alignment in the office as management staff we need to sift through the issues, find out what the problem is and fix it in order for the practice to continue running smoothly and efficiently.  I have talked to people who work in offices where the alignment was off and nothing was being done to fix it and the office environment eventually became pretty toxic as a result. 

Think about when your car tires are out of alignment, when you drive it shimmies, shakes and heads to one side of the road instead of being “centered and smooth”, which is how you want your office to be running.  Staff members take notice when office management supports them and they are more willing to bring issues up quicker knowing that they will be resolved.  When office management sweeps issues under the carpet hoping they will go away or resolve on their own, staff members become distraught, distracted and disappointed in their managers and work culture environment, which only leads to further problems. 

Are you a dragon? What dragon attributes can you bring to your office to make it a better place to work?  Leave us a comment we would appreciate hearing what you have to say.

Reference article: http://www.managementcraft.com/2010/11/your-dragon-within.html

Give Yourself A Time Out

Lately is seems that there just is not enough time to get everything done each day.  At work we are implementing a new software, which has taken more of my time that I had imagined.  When I get home there are 101 things that I need and want to do, but before I can get to half of them its time for bed.  The other night I allowed myself to watch a couple of television programs, which I rarely do, and I felt guilty the next day because I should have been doing other things that I needed to do instead of letting myself “veg-out” a little by just watching something that did not require thinking or effort, sound familiar to you?  We have such busy schedules trying to fit in work, family, relationships, daily chores, exercise, etc., that we are like a pin-ball in the machine that bounces from one point to another back-and-forth and when it tries to land at the bottom for rest, it gets hit right back up into the game bouncing around again, and we become exhausted.  As I was thinking about this vicious circle and what to do about it, I began to think about when my children were small and they would be so tired but did not want to stop and they would then become cranky and start whining, they were beside themselves because they were so exhausted.  So, what did Ido?  It was time for them to have a “time out.”  I would gather them up and have them lay down on their bed for 10 minutes, and guess what?  More times than not they fell asleep or they would just look at a book or play with a toy alone quietly.  They needed the time out just to “veg-out” from all of the stimuli of the day. 

When you think about it time outs would be a good thing for us busy adults to put in our “to do” schedule.  It is healthy to give yourself time alone just to think, read, write or whatever you need to do to escape for a little while even if it is just a couple of hours a week.  Once you schedule it start thinking about what it is you are going to do and before you know it you will be looking forward for the time to come.   

For further reading the link below has some good tips on how make your “time out” 

How to give yourself more time

Self-Evaluation A Key To Being A Better Manager

Self-evaluation is the key to becoming a better office manager, this is not always an easy thing to do because at times we are “so deep in the forest we cannot see the trees.”  You can start by watching and listening to your staff members that answer directly to you, how do they react to you when you are interacting with them?  Are they comfortable?  Do they smile at you? Ask yourself what type of relationship do I have with my staff members, what do you know about them and do you really care?  Evaluate yourself throughout the day asking “would I like to be managed by me?”  Being an office manager can be very difficult as our staff may think that we can make decisions about work issues on the spot and we cannot.  We not only have to work with our staff members closely but we have to answer to and work closely with our employers.  Many times we get tossed back and forth between the two and it can be quite a challenge.  We need to make sure that when we say we are going to do something for a staff member that we do it, there is nothing that can sour relationships quicker than not holding up to commitments and promised made.  Make sure that they know you “have their back” and are watching out for them and will stand up for them whenever necessary.  Communication is the key to keeping your relationships growing in a positive way.  As much as staff meetings can be non-productive, they can be productive when you keep them short and to the point, but allowing everyone to participate.  Another good point for staff meetings is it is a time when everyone is together, facing each other and connecting as a team, this is hard to do unless you have a designated time for it.  Managing a team of people is an ongoing learning experience, I do not believe you can ever know how to do it perfectly, as people change and grow and so must we. 

 

http://www.compensationcafe.com/2009/07/building-trust-during-the-repression.html

The First Line You Deliver Sets The Tone

Have you ever really thought about how you sound to others, especially your customers?  It is the tone of our voice that sets stage for those we are encountering.  Just think about when you have encountered an employee at either a store, restaurant, or office, who you could tell was either having a bad day, or just didn’t seem to care how they came across when encountering you, their customer.  I know for myself, there have been times that I was really busy, or dealing with other problems in the office when I needed to stop and either answer a phone call from a customer or encounter a customer face-to-face and I was just a bit off from being as pleasant as I normally would be and I could tell the customer was a bit put off by my less than cheerier welcome. 

From past experience, I have learned to take that extra second (maybe two) to gather myself together and re-focus before saying “hello” or “how are you doing.”   It is my encounter with our customers that can make the difference as to whether they stay our customers or leave.  If they stay, the chances are that they will refer others to our business, and if they leave it is a for sure thing that they will tell others why they should not come to our business.  Studies show that a person who likes a place of business will tell about 2-3 people about it as a good reference and if they have received bad service they will probably tell about 10 people not to come to your business and why.  So you can see from these facts that it is very important how you set the tone from the beginning of your encounter and how you treat your customers overall, everytime.

A good thought to have each time you are about to encounter a customer is “The first line I deliver sets the tone, mine is friendly and helpful.”  You cannot go wrong when that is your primary goal with your customers.

“Choose to deliver amazing service to your customers. You’ll stand out because they don’t get it anywhere else.” -Kevin Stirtz

Great Customer Service Rules

Poor Customer Service, When You Are Short-Handed

 Recently a co-worker and I went out to one of our favorite Mexican restaurants for lunch.  I was really looking forward to it because we hadn’t been there in a long time and their food is very fresh and authentic.  When we arrived it was crowded and once we placed our order there was only one small table left to sit at.  As I sat down I noticed how messy the floor was around us and as the other customers finished their tables were not being cleaned up, something was wrong.  As we waited, which was longer than usual, a waitress came up carrying two plates of food and was trying to find who it belonged to, she found the happy owners who had been waiting much longer than we had.  She finally brought my co-workers food and after about another 5 minutes of not getting mine I stated to my co-worker, “look around us, the place is dirty, people are not getting their orders and it looks like just two women in the back trying to do everything themselves, they must be very short-handed today.” 

Physician Online Reviews: Do you see what they see?

 

We look in the mirror every morning before we step out and carry on our day to make sure we present well in all of our daily business interactions. We ensure that our business’s practices reflect that of integrity and good customer service. However, do you take the time out to check your practice’s online presence? Many times, a physician’s  reputation and practice suffers as a result of unnoticed negative reviews or comments online.

Here are some simple steps you can take to make sure your business shines online with a healthy presence.

 

• Perform a simple Google search of your practice’s name, or Physician’s name.
• Assess the information listed online: Keep printouts of the reviews various sites may have, along with the URL(website address). This comes in handy for future monitoring of additional reviews on these sites. Make sure to share the information you found with your entire practice.
• Positively manage negative content online: A great tip to deal with a negative review is to enlist positive reviews from your other patients. In doing so, this will help you overwhelm the negative review when a lot more positive reviews are posted. This Article will give you additional helpful tips. http://www.reputation.com/reputationwatch/articles/how-doctors-can-manage-negative-content-online
• In the absence of an online presence, make one for your practice: The best marketing you can do is to have online profile listings on many sites. Here is a list of some website portals to get you started. Each one of the following links takes you to the support page to help you claim your business and manage your online profiles:

yellow pages

Google online listings

Bing

Health Grades

Yelp

• Make sure all listing have accurate information about your practice. Do all listings have the correct “Contac US” information and your Website address listed? Include pictures, times of operation, services available, and insurances accepted among others.
• Encouraging satisfied patients to go online and post positive reviews. The most powerful marketing tool are positive reviews. Have small cards with the website addresses to your online postings, direct patients to go online and give you good reviews. Remember a lot of your patients are more than eager to tell others about you.

A small cautionary warning is to refrain yourself, other employees, or relatives from going online and posting positive reviews. Not only is this unethical, but many recent instances have brought embarrassment to businesses for doing exactly this. Remember even if anonymous, postings can always be traced back to an IP address ( the address to the computer used).

Through out the month make sure you periodically monitor your practice’s online presence. A lot more patients are going online and doing simple searches to find referrals to physicians. It is extremely crucial to do so, since it is easier for unsatisfied customers to go online and often anonymously post negative comments that reach a far greater audience.

By: Jesus C. Vazquez, PMAC