It doesn't hurt to be inefficiently nice
The phones ring madly here. Theres no escaping it. We have stubbornly clung to the policy of having a team approach to answering the phone (usually with about five people), rather than having a single receptionist or voicemail handle most of the calls. Patients especially love it, because our staff is entirely cross trained, so unless it’s a very specific billing question that only our financial expert can handle, most callers can get their problem solved by the person who answers. Some days, if it gets too overwhelming, we might have to rely more and more on that dreaded voicemail (or just as likely, hire more people), but for now, we’re holding strong. Not all calls are from our established patients or from prospective patients. So because we answer most of our calls, we have to deal with the occasional telemarketer asking if we’re happy with our long-distance plan or teenage prankster asking how he can donate his sperm. Sometimes, we get legitimate calls from women who are already pregnant and find us because I’m listed in their insurance plan as being a board-certified OB/Gyn. We have to explain to them that we don’t deliver babies. There have been times I’ve walked by the nursing station and happen to overhear one of my staff patiently helping these types of callers by assisting them in finding an obstetrician. She even went to the trouble of looking up the phone number of an OB and giving them our inside opinion on how much we like that particular OB. I curiously asked my staff member what that call was about and she told me, almost apologetically, adding she probably shouldn’t have spent so much time helping someone who was not our responsibility to help. It was a typical hectic day and she acted guilty as if she was caught slacking off at a time when we were swamped. Shyly, she added "I know we were busy, but she sounded so lost. She was so happy after I helped her that she said she really wished she could come see us for her pregnancy." I’m not sure if my staff member was expecting to be reprimanded, but instead, I praised her action. This was just one of the instances in which maybe it cost one of our established patients a bit of inconvenience in having her call going to voicemail and being responded to 15 minutes later rather than get her issue solved instantly, but in return, a good deed was done and I got further (unneeded) reinforcement on just why I was so proud of the caring girls who work with me. Now if you are expecting me to make this a great story by adding the twist that the pregnant caller whom she helped wound up sending us five of her friends as patients, I wish I could, but it hasn’t happend that way to our knowledge. Oh well. =)
