Jarrod Shapiro, DPM
Practice Perfect Editor
Assistant Professor,
Dept. of Podiatric Medicine,
Surgery & Biomechanics
College of Podiatric Medicine
Western University of
Health Sciences,
St, Pomona, CA

Customer Service:
When It All Goes Wrong

Have you ever had one of those days when you're dealing with customer service from some large business and it all seems to fall apart? I always treasure these moments when I'm dealt a poor customer service experience (not really – this is actually the single best way to make me angry). Once I calm down from the anger and frustration, I look at the service part of medicine in a slightly new light. I had one of these "eye opening" experiences just a few days ago.

It was about 9:30PM and my wife and I wanted to watch a particular cable television show on the internet. The only problem was this required a special login (the one for my cable TV carrier), which, of course, I didn't have. In order to acquire the login, I had to call my cable carrier.

Here is where it all went off the tracks.

The wreck started when I called the cable company, a large national provider. I waited on the phone for about 10 minutes listening to that horrible elevator music with my pulse accelerating (heart rate 80 and rising). Finally, I was able to speak with an actual person. The first person on the phone – note I said the "first" person – seemed to know what he was doing. He set me up with a new password. Like the idiot I am, I hung up BEFORE trying the new password (duh). And, like clockwork, the password did not work.

RESIDENCY CRISIS in PODIATRY –
How Does This Affect You Personally?

Currently, there is a shortage of residency training programs to meet the required demands of our graduates. Interested and capable podiatrists in practice have many reasons to develop programs. Above the altruistic reasons there are direct personal benefits in starting residency training programs which may be significant. The following short video presentation will give you valuable insight and information.

VIEW the video below for a BRIEF PRESENTATION by Edwin Wolf, DPM
SUMMARIZING the issue and where it currently stands

Ediwn W. Wolf, DPM, MS - National Residency Facilitator

Follow this link or click on the image above to launch the video above.

Heart rate now 90.

I tried the password again.

Heart rate 95.

I restarted my computer and attempted to log back on

Heart rate steady at 95. Blood pressure rising.

I call back. After another 10 minute wait – I'm now tachycardic somewhere around 110 bpm – I finally start speaking with person number two. Unfortunately for me, this guy must have started working for the company five minutes ago, because he had no idea what to do and kept putting me on hold between every point in the discussion. I could actually hear him reading the script options to himself!

Heart rate now a strong 130 bpm.

To make matters worse, this guy is painfully polite, even obsequious. I almost would have preferred someone rude at this point, because my voice had risen, and I was incredibly close to yelling. I was mumbling a quiet stream of expletives under my breath.

Heart rate now 140 bpm. One can only guess what my blood pressure was at that moment.

After about 25 minutes on the phone with this goofball, he came back on the phone and said, "Sir, I spoke with my supervisor, and he recommends you call back tomorrow to the customer service line."

"This IS the customer service line!!!" I shouted. If my heart rate wasn't 180 I'd be surprised!

Since I'm about to reach through the phone and perform a tracheotomy on this fool with my fingers, the last reasonable part of my mind – now mostly nonfunctional through a haze of rage – told my hand to hang the phone up.

After I calmed myself and brought my vitals down to a reasonable value, I realized this is the universe teaching me a lesson. I'm not sure what that lesson is, but I'll do my best to interpret it. Perhaps the universe was trying to say, "Hey, Shapiro, make sure this type of thing doesn't happen to your patients." Or maybe the universe was instructing, "Train your staff appropriately so they can handle patient problems effectively." Of course, the universe could just have been saying, "Fool, calm down. Next time hang up the phone before you give yourself an aneurysm." Hmm, maybe I should listen to the universe more often....Nah.