It pays to empower employees to do the right thing

One of the examples I frequently use working with clients involves a medical practice that allows their team to give small gifts as service recovery or just to say thank you.  

That story came from my friend and FiveFour co-founder Matt Jensen.   

Matt recently wrote about this idea, and I asked Matt if we could share it with you. He was kind enough to say yes. Here you go:  

Good leaders make the right thing to do, the easy thing to do. 

One of MJM’s clients is so committed to this concept that the company – in this case, a multi-location medical practice – allows every employee to spend up to $100 to brighten the day of their patients, colleagues, or a vendor partner. The practice wanted this to be frictionless, so they avoided making it a bureaucratic process heavy on checks and permissions.   

Your mind went right to how much that costs, didn’t it? Let me allay your fears: across 300 employees, none of them have actually spent $100. For our client, empowering their team to make a difference on the spot has generated so much word-of-mouth marketing that they’ll never stop making the right thing to do, the easy thing to do.  

It all began with training and practice, both of which set expectations for how this team would treat everyone from patient customers to co-workers to the delivery drivers. Without those, their daily interactions become a series of missed opportunities.   

Like this one from my personal life. Last January, I had a medical appointment that fell on my birthday. (Not the same practice as the one above.) I was the first patient of the day, and I optimistically showed up ten minutes early hoping to get in and out a little sooner. However, since it wasn’t quite 8 a.m., the receptionist, whom I could see talking with co-workers, dodged eye contact and let me wait at the check-in counter until exactly 8 a.m.  

When she did greet me, it was with “date of birth?” She could have easily guessed at my name given the early hour or added a simple “good morning.” She didn’t, and even after giving my birth date, she continued to mechanically click computer keys with no eye contact. It never dawned on her that the date I’d given was THAT day and my birthday.   

Did that receptionist hate birthdays? Does she love greeting people by their date of birth? Not likely. It’s that nobody trained her to lead with another greeting – to set the tone and make a positive first impression. No one made it an expectation that she pay attention to the DOB because sometimes you’ll have an opportunity to make someone’s day. In this case, the right thing to do WAS the easy thing to do, and they missed it.   

Regular training and practice provide invaluable insight. It reveals when customers are overwhelmed, when your message is muddled, and places where your expectations need to be recalibrated. It also reminds us to be empathetic to our customers – they rarely come primed to hear everything we want to share. It’s crazy what we expect of them!   

One final note about making the right thing to do, the easy thing to do: celebrate team members who do it. This reinforces your sincerity and commitment to upholding this value for your company and providing a positive experience for everyone your team interacts with.     

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Love it! Thanks Matt.  

If you want to talk more about how to empower your team, and make it easy to do the right thing for your customers, give me a call, drop me an email or book a time to chat.  

Talk soon.  

NS