By Jay Juffre
I recently was asked to be a guest on a podcast. The topics ranged from successfully navigating COVID-19, to customer service strategy to employee engagement. During the discussion I was asked how my company manages to do what we do in such a unique way as compared to the others in the industry. Without pulling out a transcript, my answer was quite simple, that is because we rarely compare ourselves to the industry we are in. It is a strategic question your organization should always ask itself: who do we want to be compared to? Do you simply want to be the best as compared to your peers in the region or business segment you are in? Or do you want to be seen as best in class across multiple industries. If companies outside of the healthcare space adopted the former approach, Apple, Tesla, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A and other giants would not exist in their current form. They may have evolved into very good computer, automobile, coffee shop and fast-food companies in their space, but there is no way we would have seen their transformational impact on the world. You see companies like this flawlessly mix customer service, customer experience and overall employee satisfaction in a way that it is nearly impossible to figure out where one aspect ends, and the others begin. These companies also implement key initiatives which thoughtfully drive all three. So how is your organization’s current “mix?” Does your team enthusiastically deliver both the fundamentals and the above and beyond patient experience? Are you perhaps settling for best of industry standards? If your mix is not where you’d like it, consider looking to the companies who do it best in other industries. You’d be surprised what you can learn from the best in class, even if it is a little different from what you (and your peers) do now.
Jay Juffre is Executive Vice President, ImageFIRST. For more information on ImageFIRST, call 1-800-932-7472 or visit www.imagefirst.com.
