Service Quality in Health Care - Essay Example

?Service Quality in Health Care Introduction: When something goes wrong in a service delivery i.e. service failure, the act or process of correcting it is called service recovery. It is not completely possible to eliminate all the failures in a company. However, there are ways to effectively respond to these failures when they occur. The company tries to rectify these failures, and avoid recurrence to make sure that the customers get their desired outcomes (Segelstrom, n.d.). Good Service Recovery Features: In organizations, especially banks, where customer interaction is very frequent, it is very important to have a good service recovery failure. A few of the features mentioned below are excellent ways to manage a service recovery. When a service failure occurs, it is important to first identify the problem of the customer. A few steps are to be followed to recover the failure after the problem has been identified. The first step is to apologize. This would simply show that the problem of the customer has been acknowledged, irrespective of who is at fault, the company or the customer. Moreover, this will also avoid any fights, as apologizing would show that the company is willing to make sure that the customer gets best of the services (Zemke, 2000). Another important factor is that the apology made should be timely. The company should not wait to find out why there is a problem and how it was caused. The sooner the company apologizes, the better it would be as it will calm down an unsatisfied customer (Performance Research Associates, 2011). The next step is to deal with a distressed customer, before the solving the actual problem. The reason is that, more often, the customers react emotionally and it becomes difficult to fix the problem over the emotional chaos. After dealing with the customer, problem has to be solved effectively and skillfully. One of the ways to do that is to listen to the problem. This allows the customer to take out frustration or rage over the failure of the service. Moreover, listening will identify the causes and reasons for the problem more quickly than arguing with the customer right away (Performance Research Associates, 2011). Listening also creates a way to communicate effectively, hence avoiding any misunderstandings (Belak, 2004). Along with listening, understanding is an important factor, as sometimes the customers, particularly upset customers, are unable to explain the problem they are facing clearly or completely. Questions should be asked if anything is not clear. Once the notion of the problem is grasped, it is important to repeat to the customer to make sure that what has been understood by the company is the actual issue (Michel, n.d). Once the problem is completely understood, and it is a similar one, the solution should be offered right away. However if the problem has less obvious solutions, then the customer should be presented with several possible solutions; their preferences should be asked as to know which one would be the best for them. According to LeBoeuf (2000) “A typical business hears from only 4 percent of its dissatisfied customers. The other 96 percent just quietly go away and 91 percent will never come back”. Hence, the purpose of service recovery should not only be to satisfy the customer, but also to keep the customer, or gain the customer’s loyalty. In order to do that, fixing the problem is not enough. A process called symbolic atonement is important; it is a way to provide an extra touch to tell the customers that they are important to the company (Performance Research Associates, 2011). Moreover, keeping the word is also important. As a failed service means that a promise has already been broken, it is important to make sure that during the recovery process, promises made, like calling back, should be kept (Business-Building Information). After the problem is fixed, it is also important to follow up by calling or contacting the customer after a few hours or days to make sure that the problem has really been solved (Thomas & Sasser, 2001). Benefits: For a recovery to be beneficial for an organization, it is important to analyze how effective the recovery is to the customer. A weak or bad recovery may lead to the customer rating the organization poorly, adding to their disadvantage. An effective recovery can prove to be beneficial for an organization. It depends on three processes i.e. satisfaction, purchase intend, and word of mouth. This is based on the equity theory (Maxham, 1999). This theory focuses on cognitive and motivational processes of the weighing investments against rewards and making a comparison of similar experiences with one another. It is important where a process of exchange takes place in any domain, because it is believed that inequity in any exchange process will be perceived by one or both the parties. This theory is acceptable in a service failure context, in condition that following a service failure, the consumers often perceive it as inequitable. This has a huge impact on shaping the perception of customers with regards to satisfaction, perception, and word of mouth. There have been numerous researches that have employed this theory to explain consumer responses when they experience service failure and recovery. These studies generally argue that, once the failing firm has offered a fair recovery, the consumer ratings of that firm will increase, thus being beneficial for the firm (Maxham, 1999). Given the perspective of the equity theory, researchers have studied the behavior, and reports show that there is a positive relationship between the fairness of the recovery received from the firm and the satisfaction of the consumer after the consumption of the service and after the recovery efforts. It shows that as the failed firms recover in a fair manner, the perceptions of satisfaction among the customer will increase. The satisfaction will fluctuate with the level of recovery efforts made (Maxham, 1999). Another factor that influences the effect on the level of recovery efforts is the purchase intentions of a customer. According to the perspective of equity theory, by effectively resolving a consumer’s perceived inequity due to failure, a firm can restore low purchase intent perceptions. If the manner of recovery service is fair and effective, the purchase intentions of the customer will remain stable and may even increase. Similarly, if the recovery is not effective, the customer’s intentions to purchase from the failing firm will be reduced. Word of Mouth (WOM) is another factor that has an effect on the firm’s business. Equity theory suggests that a propensity of the consumer to spread positive recommendations about the firm can be restored by providing a fair recovery to the inequitable service failure. Similarly, by perceiving an unfair response to the failure, the customer can spread negative WOM, which will possibly reduce the number of customers the firm has, having a negative impact on the business. The individuals who use service recovery benefit from the compensations or extra service provided to them due to the firm’s failure to satisfy them (Maxham, 1999). Service Recovery in Health Care Organizations: Even though the healthcare organizations plan well for clinical problems, however, the service problems often go unanticipated. There is an incorrect assumption that the promise of the service will be kept and the delivery system will function as designed. There are times when a patient’s expectations are not met. For example, the patient comes on time for his appointment but he is informed that his appointment is cancelled and he would have to make another one. S/he will feel dissatisfied and could even turn angry. This identifies the concept of service failure in a healthcare organization, and to keep the organization’s reputation good, it must perform service recovery efforts in order to satisfy the customer (Fixing Healthcare Service Failures, n.d.). A few strategies are present for the health care organizations to manage the service recovery: Some organizations use preventive strategies to prevent a failure of service from occurring. However, they use the outcome strategies along with many others to recover after a failure has occurred. In outcome strategy, one way to handle dissatisfied customers is by simply asking them about their condition, or by providing toll free or 800 phone numbers to former patients to report their complaints. A brief questionnaire is also given to the patients while they pay their bill (Fixing Healthcare Service Failures, n.d.). There are also Employee-Driven Strategies, where the employees are trained to creatively solve the problems as they occur. One of them is to do something quickly. The basic principle requires a recovery to be positive and quick. A further step is to address the root problems. This requires the employees to tell their manager the failure that occurred even if they have solved it. This will help the manager see the overall statistics of that failure occurring, which will enable him to look at the root cause of that failure. This will help him eliminate the root to avoid recurrence (Fixing Healthcare Service Failures, n.d.). Besides these strategies, all employees should be trained to apologize for the failure that has occurred and listen to the problem of the patient regarding that situation, which will allow the patient to relax to some extent and release his or her emotions. Differences and Similarities between Healthcare Organizations and Other Industries: The goals of healthcare organizations and other industries are almost the same for the service recovery. They want to satisfy the customer in order to keep their loyalty and maintain their good reputation through the words of customers. Moreover, their goal is also to continue their business profitably, for which service recovery is a very important factor (Rousseau, 1999). The strategies applied for successful recovery are also almost the same for healthcare and other industries, for example, apology, listening, or offering a quick solution to the problem. The benefits of service recovery to the firms and the users are also almost the same. They both have a boost in their company’s reputation and the satisfied customers also tend to gain some benefits or compensations from the company by becoming loyal to them. However there is a huge difference in health care and other organizations for the seriousness of the failure and the possibilities of recovery, as both organizations have entirely different tasks. In a healthcare organization, they have to be extremely careful as there are lives on the line, and making a serious service failure may be dangerous to the patient. They do not have much space for recovery after something serious has occurred. However in other organizations, there is plenty of room for recoveries, as the problem does not lie with the customer itself, but the product or service that has been purchased, which can be made up for easily. Effects of Generational Differences of Service Recovery: Generational differences can and do have an effect on the service recovery. Looking at the older times, it can be seen that the ways the customers could file their complaints were very less in number and the ways to communicate, aside from face to face, were quite slow and inefficient. The companies even had to manage the complaints through loads of paper work, and the feedback from the customers was also slow. Moreover, the customers also got late responses for their problems. Now, due to the advancements in technology, the service recovery has become more efficient. The companies are now more active in handling recovery, as the customers have more ways to influence the company’s reputation. Customers can blog about their bad experiences with the specific companies and can go on different social networks like Twitter or Facebook to share their views. This makes the companies monitor such sites daily for any views that might harm their reputation. Besides that, a company can easily get a complaint or a feedback on their website or through emails and they can handle the problems quickly and more efficiently. Conclusion: Hence, for any company to flourish in the long run, it must be made sure that they continuously strive towards, not only satisfying the customers, but also to make them loyal by providing exceptional service quality. Even if a company has a 100% satisfaction level, the improvement process should never stop and keep going to gain 100% loyalty as well. As Horst Schulze, president and COO of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel company says: “If you have 100% customer satisfaction, you have to make sure that you listen just in case they change… so you can change with them” (Thomas & Sasser, 2001). References Belak, T. 2004 How to Handle Difficult Behavior in the Workplace [online] Available at: [Accessed 27 April 2012] Business-Building Information [online] Available at Fixing Healthcare Service Failures, n.d. [online] Available at: [Accessed 27 April 2012] Maxham, J. G. 1999, Service recovery’s influence on consumer satisfaction, positive word-of-mouth, and purchase intentions, [online] Available at: [Accessed 27 April 2012] Michel, S., Bowen, S. & Johnston, R. n.d., Service Recovery Management: Closing the Gap between Best Practices and Actual Practices, [online] Available at: [Accessed 27 April 2012] Performance Research Associates, Inc., John Bush, 2011, Delivering Knock Your Socks off Service, [online] Available at: [Accessed 27 April 2012] Rousseau, D. M. 1996, “Changing the deal while Keeping the People”, Academy of Management Executive, Volume 10, Number, 1: 50 Segelstrom, F. & Howard, J. n.d. Understanding service recovery, [Online] Available at: [Accessed 26 April 2012] Thomas, O. J & Sasser, W. E. 2001, Why Satisfied Customers Defect? Harvard Business Review, One Point Article Zemke, R., Bacon, T. R., Pugh, D. G. 2000, Knock Your Socks Off Service Recovery, 26 April 2012. 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