In this post, we turn over the controls to Michael Cusimano, a colleague with deep experience in practice management and an MBA. In addition to this article, we have some specific, usable survey templates that we'll get added to the tool kit in the very near future. Of course, if you have any questions or need additional information, contact us.
To survey or not to survey, that is the question.
Most, if not all dentists and orthodontists aim to provide their patients with a great in-office experience. The most common motivation to providing a great patient experience is that most doctors understand the value of a referral and realize that the key to a referral is great customer service. The question offices struggle to answer is, "Do our patients think we're going a great job?" Often times, in order to gain insight to what kind of job they are doing many dental offices decide to implement a customer satisfaction survey. You know, those 3 to 5 question post-card sized surveys that ask "how'd you like us?" The problem is that after a great deal of staff time, a sizable amount of money spent, and a decent amount of surveys completed, the unfortunate truth is that not much is learned.
In this blog post I'll point out the major problems with the typical postcard-sized customer satisfaction survey a large number of practices use to evaluate customer satisfaction. I'll point out 4 pitfalls in detail below. However, the core problem with producing or purchasing a customer satisfaction survey is that many offices do not have the resources to properly create and administer a customer satisfaction survey that will generate valid and reliable data that produces actionable information. Furthermore, the expense and effort involved in developing a useful survey is often not necessary for many dental and orthodontic practices.
There are 4 basic pitfalls/warnings related to simple postcard sized customer satisfaction surveys:
1. Data collected provides no real statistical validity or value - A doctor might spend hours on the design of a customer survey card, choosing the perfect questions and graphics and even managing to fit it all on one side of a postcard. The problem, though, is the validity of the data captured by the customer survey is most likely quite poor for several reasons. First of all, there are probably not enough questions being asked on the survey to be able to draw any statistically significant information. For example, assume that on a survey there is a question that asks, on a scale from 1 to 10, how likely would the patient to be to say they were happy with their visit to the office today. Let's further assume that there are 100 responses that the patients were unhappy with their visit. What does that mean? In reality all the doctor knows is that 100 of his patients used the survey to indicate that they were unhappy. On its own that information is not that valid or valuable. What if all of those 100 patients have a past due balance? Does that make the survey valid? What is important is knowing what made them unhappy and how strong they feel about the cause of that unhappiness. It's a near impossibility to tease that sort of information out in a simple 5 or 10 question survey much less a survey that fits onto one side of a post card.
2. Survey design and analysis is a science - Designing a survey is much more than coming up with a handful of questions asking the patients if they are happy. Administration of the survey, randomness of the survey sample, number of surveys offered, demographics of those responding to the survey are a few design considerations professional survey design firms take into account. Then, after the survey data is collected, proper analysis of the data requires intense computations and analysis. The point being that the survey design and analysis process is a complex one not to be taken lightly, after all, that is the reason there are professional survey firms such as Gallup and Pew Research.
3. Simple surveys do not give any actionable information- Even if a practice has designed a statistically relevant and truly random survey and administered that survey in an ideal environment, the question that remains is what can be done with that information. Furthermore, even if the office knows what to do based on the survey results how will they know what they are doing is actually producing positive results to correct the problem the survey highlighted as being 'bad' in the first place. The answer to those questions are that they are probably not going to be able to take effective corrective action. A professionally developed survey, at least an initial survey, is typically designed only to point out that there is a problem, not necessarily WHAT IS the problem. To actually get to the heart of the problem, believe it or not, you’ll need another survey. Then, if the office gets around to correcting things, guess what, it takes another survey to properly evaluate if they are doing any good correcting things. Seems like a lot? Well it can be.
4. Responses to surveys requires a reasonable response - Let's assume an office ignores the previous three pitfalls of “comment card surveying” and they charge forth with the survey. One thing that they must be willing to do is to follow up on the responses received to the best of their ability. For example, if an office gets 100 negative responses saying that the air temperature in the office is "too cold", then they better be able to make to office climate warmer. Too many offices think that just asking if the customers are happy with the office experience is enough. It's not. They need to be able to respond to the customer's request or complaints to keep them happy. If you aren't willing to or can't respond to your customers' requests then it is better not to ask.
Despite the pitfalls associated with the simple customer satisfaction survey there are some benefits that can be realized from a simple customer response survey. However, the benefit is not necessarily as a tool to gauge the level of customer service. One variation on the customer satisfaction survey I've witnessed was an office using the "survey" as more of a marketing tool that an information gathering tool. What the office did was to use something that looked like a customer survey postcard but was instead an announcement for a new product offering. In this case, the post card had two questions and a comments section where the survey respondent could write out suggestions or list complaints. One of the questions on the survey asked if the patient had heard about a "teeth whitening" special promotion the office was running for the summer. Even though it wasn't my idea I had to admit it was great way to market the practice’s whitening services.
For the large majority of dental and orthodontic practices the overall the time and expense involved in developing a valid customer satisfaction survey probably exceeds the benefit received. Moreover, in an earlier MPE blog Bart pointed out five key statistics an orthodontic practice can use to monitor how the practice is doing. If you have not read that post go and read it now. In that post Bart demonstrates how to use the indicators to get a true picture of how your practice is doing. These indicators combine with effective surveys to assist you in achieving your goal of high quality customer service. Eventually, you won't have to ask you patients if they're happy. They'll tell you.
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