Welcome to my blog, or should I say to the ramblings of an old man. I doubt that my ramblings are of much value, but at least I have an opportunity to share them.  So, please be kind and humor me. If nothing else of value stands out in these thoughts, I hope that you at least sense the value I place on a daily walk with the Lord.  That walk is what has provided me with motivation and a sense of purpose throughout my lifetime.  My prayer is that you, too, are experiencing this direction and joy in daily living which is available to everyone who puts his trust in Christ.  So, thanks again for joining me.  Please don't go without leaving some comments here so I can get to know you better as our paths intersect today in this blog.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Customer Service Tale #2


It was Saturday morning and I was chewing on a hard pretzel - a dumb thing to do! Suddenly I realized that the entire front side of one of my molars had broken off.  I knew my dentist wasn't in but I wasn't sure what kind of pain would develop over the weekend.  Now I have an excellent dentist who we've gone to for years.  Before his father died I went to his father.  Those two were the only dentists that I have ever gone to and my experience with them spans about 60 years.  Not sure what to expect, I decided to place a call to his office.  As expected, the answering service told me that he would not be in until 9 am on Monday. She took all my information and told me that the office would call me when they opened at 9.  In the meantime, in case that I would have any difficulty, she gave me the information of the dentist who was covering that weekend.  I decided to give him a call.  I also got his answering system and they said they would connect me to him.  After a considerable wait, I was finally patched through to him only to find that he was out of town and wouldn't be available until Sunday afternoon.  So much for somebody on duty for emergencies.  I decided that if I was going to wait that long to get checked that I might as well wait another 20 hours and see my own dentist.  As it turns out, thankfully I had no pain and was comfortable waiting until Monday.  Well Monday came and by 10:30 I still had not heard from my dentist.  So I decided that I would just drop by his office and ask him just to look at it and decide how much time I would need for a future appointment.  I didn't see any need at that point to have it taken care of immediately. And since I knew him and his assistant so well, I didn't feel that there was any problem with doing this.  But then I met his receptionist.  She must have been having a bad day.  Maybe she wasn't feeling well.  And even though we go there every six months, I don't think she really knows us.  She immediately told me that there wasn't anything that could be done that day - the dentist wouldn't even have time to talk with me - they were booked full.  I mentioned that I had been waiting for the call that I had been promised and she informed me that she didn't have time to call me.  I noticed that my chart had been pulled and was on the very bottom of the stack of Monday's patients.  I don't know when she might have ever called.  I kindly insisted that I would at least like to talk to the dentist or his assistant and that I only needed a few minutes of their time.  She didn't know if that was possible.  When I told her that we had driven 30 minutes to get there she said that I could wait if I really wanted to.  I said that I would.  As I said, she must have really been overwhelmed that day because she really didn't want to accommodate me.  A few minutes later, the assistant came out and told me to come over to one of the chairs.  A few minutes later the dentist dropped by and I apologized for taking up his time.  As I expected, he said it was no problem.  He quickly looked at my tooth and asked the assistant how much time they had until the next appointment.  When she said 20 minutes he replied that he could fix it in less than that.  They went right to work and 15 minutes later the tooth was fixed and we were headed home.  As I've said, I guess the receptionist was either having a bad day or just didn't know how to organize things.  If I had not been a regular patient there I would probably have looked for a different dentist because she had not been the least bit accommodating. The actions of a receptionist certainly can affect the entire practice.  And this experience has reminded me again of how important it is to make good first impressions, not only as a receptionist, but in all of life's contacts.  

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