You can tell how excited I am.

I wear glasses. And contacts. I haven’t been to an eye doctor since December of 2006, when I left a job with great benefits. I stocked up on a year’s worth of contacts (which turned into 3 year’s worth) and got a new pair of glasses. Up until now, I had no reason to see the eye doctor.

Now that I’m self employed, I have fancy shmancy state health insurance which offers about 5 different eye doctor choices in western Mass. Woohoo! Thank you, Massachusetts.

I was vacuuming the other day and my glasses must have fallen off 10 times before I whipped them across the room and decided to put my new state bennies to use. I made an appointment to get new glasses and that appointment ended up taking place yesterday.

I should mention that this story isn’t really about glasses, it’s about customer service. Never in my life have I left a doctor’s office so appalled, except for the time I tried to get birth control pills and my doctor ended up giving me an endurance test that involved running laps around the parking lot. That’s another story for another day though.

10:25 AM Tuesday, December 22, 2009

I walk into the waiting room at the eye doctor’s office. I stand at the obnoxious little window and wait for the receptionist to greet me. Side note : What is up with the little window? It is so off-putting! Are they afraid they’re going to get blown away by the next person who walks in the door? Do they get robbed often? “Stick ‘em up. Give me all your medical records before someone gets hurt…”

The receptionist comes to the window and asks my name. I say “Angela Lussier. I’m here for my 10:30 appointment.” She gives me a few forms to sign and then asks, “do you have glasses?”. I responded, “yes”. She then said, “did you bring them?”. I responded with a no and she gave me the look of someone who thinks the person they are looking at is pretty dumb. It was an awkward moment. Should I have felt compelled to bring my old glasses because I was getting new ones? Why would that be important? I wasn’t trying to get the old ones fitted to create new ones, I was done with them all together. She then said to sit down and wait for the doctor.

I sat down with an issue of People’s magazine (it was that or a sports magazine) and started blaming myself for not bringing my glasses. I felt like I should have known that but kept rationalizing that when going to an appointment, the doctor’s office should tell you what to bring, right?

A few minutes later, my thoughts were interrupted by the doctor who said to follow him. At least, I think he was the doctor. He never actually introduced himself. We went into a boring little room and he asked me where my glasses were. I told him I didn’t bring them. He looked extremely perturbed and looked down to write something. He asked me how often I wore my glasses and I said, “at night and in the morning”. He started checking my eyes, backed away, and asked if I was wearing contacts. I said yes, and he asked why I didn’t tell him I was wearing contacts. I told him my old eye doctor would always check my eyes with them in and then without them! He didn’t look happy about this. He followed up with, “So let me get this straight. You came to the eye doctor without your glasses, and you wore your contacts?” I said yes, feeling like the biggest ass in the world. I told him it would be helpful if his receptionists told new patients what to bring to their first appointment, and he ignored the remark. He didn’t even look up or pretend to care!

He asked me if I brought a case for my contacts, and I said no, my old eye doctor always gave me one. He opened the bottom drawer of the cabinet and pulled out a case from under a big stack of papers and phone books. Aren’t doctors supposed to have sterile equipment? Shouldn’t eye doctors have extra contacts cases hanging around? I was starting to feel that I was really getting on this guy’s nerves, so I washed my hands, took out my contacts, and the extremely awkward eye appointment continued. It was so uncomfortable, I wasn’t sure whether to cry or scream.

11:30 AM

He has put so many different drops in my eyes and done so many tests, my eyes are numb and I can barely see. I only went there to get new glasses, but this guy was putting me through the torture chamber. After an hour, he said I couldn’t put my contacts back in to look at myself as I tried on glasses. I’d have to just walk up to the mirror and get really close to see. My eyes were dilated and the light was killing me. Every time I looked in the mirror, it was painful. Not to mention the fact that the woman working there was watching my every move from 2 feet away. I picked a pair, totally unsure of what they look like, and she entered my information into the computer.

With my super awesome state health insurance, I have no co-pay and glasses up to $100 are free. Since they knew this, they pulled out a box of sample glasses from under the cabinet labeled “state”. It was crazy! I didn’t get to pick cool glasses from off the wall, I had to get the lower level ones. My ego was the size of a peanut by this point.

As I was leaving, she said the appointment would be $46.00 because the doctor did a special contact lens test on me which was extra. I was so out of it and unable to see that I accepted the charge, paid, and went out to the parking lot where my eyes practically burned out of my skull. I’ve never had my eyes dilated before and no one in the office thought it would be important to mention that I wouldn’t be able to see when I went outside, nevermind drive. After feeling every car in the parking lot to see if it was mine, I finally found it and sat down in the driver’s seat. I wanted to cry. I was appalled at how rude, condasending, and short everyone was with me. Was this what it was like for people who had state health insurance? Did I catch them on a bad day? Was it something I said?

I’m still not sure why everyone in that office was so unprofessional, but I felt compelled to write this blog because I wanted to reinforce some of the basic rules of customer service. If you are in a position where you are working with people, you might want to keep the following points in mind.

Below is the list of  customer service rules that were broken yesterday:

1. Not introducing yourself to your customer

2. Expecting your customer to bring specific items to an appointment without specifying what to bring

3. Doing additional tests that will cost the customer money without asking permission first (and expecting payment)

4. Not adequately preparing your customer for the next steps (i.e. driving home without eyesight)

5. Belittling your customer by pulling out the dirty box of products from the basement for purchase (and being okay with it)

6. Not communicating with your own co-workers to best serve the customer

7. Disrespecting and not acknowledging feedback from customers who are trying to help

8. Creating an uncomfortable environment by not trying to get to know the customer or at least understand what they want (I was there for glasses, why was he doing contact lens exams??)

9. Setting expectations without communicating those expectations

I could go on all day. Obviously, I will not be going back to this doctor. I’m not going to list the doctor’s name, mostly because I don’t actually know who I met with, but also because I’m not writing this blog to slam them. I really just wanted to point out all the very little things each and every person can do who is in a service role. If you are working with patients, customers, or co-workers, it’s important to treat each person with respect, clearly communicate your expectations, and listen to other’s needs. It sounds simple, but for some people, it’s the biggest piece they’re missing. I believe it actually takes a lot more effort to be rude, so make it easy on yourself and just be nice!

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