Service with a smile

One way or another, we are all in the business of customer service. I have my customers. Teachers have their pupils, their pupils' parents and the wider community. Retailers have shoppers, doctors have patients.

Sadly, we sometimes forget the relationship between customer and provider. Certainly I often wonder whether National Health Service providers ever perceive their patients as customers! I have more than once been given cause to think that they view us only as life-support systems for a pathology.

Then, every now and again, you meet someone who bucks the trend and restores the balance. Today I met a new dentist. I would like to make his level of customer service my goal in my dealings with future customers.

A couple of years ago, I broke a tooth. I went to the dentist who told me it would have to be crowned, which would cost me the little matter of £500. Until today, I hadn't been back to the dentist, in spite of being quite particular about my teeth. In spite of a history of 6 monthly visits. I just knew that £500 was hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles and I didn't have it. So the tooth remained broken.

Since we moved house, we have had to attend the things like new doctors (TBC), dentists, hairdressers, service stations.... all that malarkey.

The dentist I saw today took a complete history and checked out my teeth and gums thoroughly. He commended me for my oral hygiene (the secret is TePe brushes, folks, I can't emphasise that enough) and assured me that the broken tooth could be filled for the comparitively bargain basement price of £80. He agreed that crowning was an option but that, if and when I decided to go that route, it would cost £285 because he would make the crown himself with computer-imaging technology. He talked me through the short, medium and long term goals for my teeth and made sure that I was comfortable with all the options available. We made appointments for two fillings (another filling has gotten chipped in the time since my last visit to the dentist) and told me that he would include a free clean in the price.

So...
I know what I'm getting
I know when I'm getting it
I know how much it is going to cost
I know what my options are in the short, medium and long term
I understand everything that is going to happen
My budget has been taken into consideration
My own personal circumstances have been catered to (I can't have local anaesthetic which contains adrenalin or I vibrate like a guitar string - not conducive to precision work!)

Sadly, he's not with the NHS, but at least he will treat my kids free.

Service with a smile... just what you expect from a dentist!

Service with a snarl

I am holiday with my family at the moment. We decided to push the boat out and do the tourist thing. So we are staying in some beautiful apartments right on the beach on the east coast of Majorca (or Mallorca, of you prefer - it´s the same thing).

When I told a colleague where we had booked, he said that this was the part of the island favoured by Germans. He wasn´t wrong. The service staff at the hotels and shops all have German as their second language. We were warned that we would receive bad service if we were thought to be English - apparently English holiday makers have a bad reputation abroad. This proved true, too. After one night of incredible rudeness, and an accusation of shoplifting, we decided to set people straight. When asked if we are English, we now say, "No, but we can speak the language." This then gives rise to a major curiosity about our heritage, and how did a Swedish man and a South African woman (a) meet and marry and (b) wind up living in England? We have been treated wonderfully well and declared a "very nice family" by several people. We have been given free gifts and all sorts of perks.

Isn´t it weird? We are the same people who were thought to be so deplorable on that first night. We haven´t changed, but the attitudes of the people we meet couldn´t be more different - simply because we are not English. It would be interesting to do a survey on how people´s attitudes are formed and to what extent they are justified. When I think of the English people I know, it seems totally off.

For now, I´m enjoying the sun and the sea, oh and the food and the cocktails...