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December 09, 2003
Doctor, heal thy customer service
This flu season looks scary. So, a flu shot was in order this week.
A call to Advocate Health Care yesterday to confirm flu shot vaccines were available. No problem, they said. Come on in to our Lincoln Park center.
Today, at the center, the first bad sign: As Jackie and I wait in line at the receptionist desk, one of the receptionists rolls her eyes as a frail and elderly woman with a walker asks her to call a cab.
Receptionist: "We don't call cabs for patients. You have to go to the security desk out front." When the elderly woman asks again, the receptionist makes a big production out of her distaste for calling a taxi, embarrassing no one but herself and Advocate Health Care's hiring and training practices.
Second bad sign: We can't have a flu shot, another receptionist explained. The shots are just for people who are high-risk. Yesterday's confirmation call was for naught; "I'm just a temp," she says. "They changed the policy yesterday, I think."
When our receptionist asks the Big Production receptionist for guidance about our situation, we became invisible. "Tell them we just ran out and we're stockpiling it for the high-risk people." We're standing three feet away from both of them.
Not being high-risk candidates, we can understand that position. However, this center did not exactly have a line of flu shot customers out the door. A customer-focused organization -- whether it's health care or retail -- would have apologized and said, "You were told to come in? Well, sign here and we'll take care of you. When it comes to this flu, the more people who get vaccinated now, the better. Again, I'm sorry about the mix-up."
I have been a customer of this Advocate Health Care Center a few times, but not anymore.
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That was an unfortunate experience. They are putting health care and business on a same ground, which is a bad idea. Health care suppose to take care people not just for the purpose of earning profits. When will this end? We don't know when.
