Inphonite Blog - Saturday, November 14, 2009

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Recently we were hiring for a part-time receptionist position. While meeting people and reviewing resumes I was stunned by the sheer number of duplicates. Allow me to explain.

For me it was about two things: Resumes and energy. I am going to write about resumes here and energy in a later blog.

Resumes-
Nearly every resume was the same, a plain white page, with a bunch of words. There was nothing to draw the eye anywhere among all the words. There was nothing that really stood out, and rarely a cover letter among the bunch.

Here is how I think a candidate can stand out:

When I am reviewing resumes, the first thing I look for is that a person took the time to write a thoughtful cover letter, telling me a little bit about themselves. It gives me a sense of personality, and any person that works for me, especially a receptionist, needs to be personable. It’s also a sample of writing, attention to detail, proofreading and ability to use spell check, as well as a way for me to determine if a person can create coherent sentences—or at least edit the free cover letter they found online to make it sound like they can!

The next thing I look at is the formatting of a resume. If a resume isn’t formatted in an easy to read way, and I have a hundred to review, I probably won’t take the time to read it. I want to know when a person worked where and what they did there. It’s that easy. I don’t want a list of qualifications or things they think they are good at. I want real world experience. The cover letter is the place to list the things they think they are good at. The cover letter is the place to toot your own horn, the juice, and the first way I want to start to get to know a person. The resume should be easy to read facts.

Personally, I also like it when someone takes the time to use colored stationary. Grays, blues, and the old manila are all good. Nothing with too many designs of course, that would make the resume difficult to read. BUT, I do like it when there is at least a small graphic element on the person’s paper. It really doesn’t take much time to grab some free clip art to make your resume stand out from the rest.

These three things help a person get their foot in the door. They make me WANT to read their resume, and probably interview them.

Next, the interview—

General

posted on Saturday, November 14, 2009 7:41:56 AM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

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Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Successfully Managing No-Shows

by Michael Harris

In “Best Ways to Deal with No-Shows,” Medscape Today, 07/14/09, Elizabeth Woodcock provides tactics on how to reduce no-shows and improve your practice’s bottom line:

•   Let the patient suggest the appointment time
•   Call to confirm upcoming appointments
•   Establish a priority list of patients who will come in if a last-minute opening occurs
•   Track offenders
•   Overbook
•   Charge patients who don’t call to cancel
•   Look within for the cause (Is your practice doing something to cause more no-shows?)

After flying all day from Europe, I once spent an unwanted night in snowy Denver due to overbooking. (A description of the overnight “Essentials Kit” provided by the airlines is probably fodder for another post.) That has soured me to the notion of overbooking forever. (Of course I don’t manage an airline or a medical practice either.) The rest of the tactics above, however, seem to make good sense.

The idea that no-shows can be reduced by having patients suggest their own appointment times is a new one to me, but it follows the logic that whenever someone participates in the decision making process, they have greater buy-in.

Woodcock recommends requesting that the patient call back to confirm an appointment. Reminder software can automate sending a confirmation by creating an appointment reminder call and then allowing the patient to press a number on the phone to confirm or cancel the appointment. Further, the patient can choose to leave a message or to have the call transferred and speak to someone live during business hours.

If you have additional suggestions on reducing no-shows, please share them with us by clicking here.

General | InphoniteVoice | ReminderPro

posted on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 3:14:52 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Exceeding Expectations: The Bonsai Collection at Elandan Gardens

by Michael Harris

Elandan Gardens is located just off Highway 16 near Port Orchard, Washington. The six-acre site that is now Elandan Gardens was once only a landfill created on the shores of the Puget Sound in the 1930’s. In 1993, the Robinson family brought in 30,000 cubic yards of sandy fill dirt and 800 tons of boulders to begin the creation of these impressive gardens.

Owner Dan Robinson has been called, “the Picasso of Bonsai” as well as, “the Father of The American School of Bonsai”. Today Elandan Gardens provides a spectacular display of flora as well as silvery dead wood, lichen-covered stone, waterfalls, and a pond. This setting provides the perfect backdrop for Dan’s world-renowned bonsai collection.

During my visits, Elandan Gardens has never failed to exceed expectations:

Each bonsai tree is a living object lesson that overcoming adverse conditions can result in stunning beauty.
Dan is not afraid to challenge traditions in the pursuit of artistic creation. He even introduced the use of power tools to the art of Bonsai.
Although he clearly has a vision and plenty to do, Dan is always willing to take a moment to speak with you personally and answer your questions.

Dan has a passion for nature and the art of bonsai. That passion had its genesis in Korea almost five decades ago when he began collecting Black Pine seeds. Elandan Gardens shows us what can result when one shares one’s passion with the world.

General

posted on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 4:13:50 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

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Ghosts of Memory Past, Present & Future

by Michael Harris

A 32GB flash drive arrived last week in the mail. The cost of the flash drive was only $20. With this in mind (and with apologies to Charles Dickens) allow me to present, “Ghosts of Memory Past, Present and Future.”

Memory Past. Around 1972, just one megabyte of RAM for the IBM 360 mainframe retailed for $100,000. The hardware was about the size of a small refrigerator.

Memory Present. It should not come as a surprise to anyone that today a one terabyte (TB) hard drive has a street price of less than $100.

Memory Future. Holographic Data Storage (HDS) holds the possibility of storing many terabytes of data in a sugar-cube-sized crystal. This would be sufficient to store video of a person’s entire life. Whether one would actually want that is, of course, another matter.

If you would like to share memories of technology past or thoughts on how innovations can be used in the future, please begin by clicking here.

General

posted on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:31:31 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

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Friday, September 25, 2009

What do the ReminderPro Call Statuses mean?

by Rick Clayton

When you are reviewing the Call Session Status Report generated after a session completes, do you ever find that some of the appointment reminder calls are assigned statuses you are not familiar with? Check out our Glossary of Report Statuses article for an explanation of report statuses displayed on the report. It will help you interpret the report!

posted on Friday, September 25, 2009 8:22:07 AM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

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Thursday, September 17, 2009

Telephony Technical Support

by Michael Harris

In a previous post on blog.inphonite.com, Dave Tosi listed eight criteria to consider when evaluating ITSPs (Internet Telephony Service Providers). Allow me add one to the list, “Provides superior customer service.”

One such ITSP is Broadvox. Let me tell you how they provided superior customer service.

Several weeks ago, I attempted to call the office from my new cell phone. I was surprised to hear the “all circuits are busy” message, so I called my wireless provider. They told me that there were known issues with cellular coverage in our part of town. When the issue persisted into the next week, I called again to escalate the matter.

Let it suffice to say that the wireless provider was unable to resolve the issue.

My next call was to Broadvox Technical Support. Instead of focusing on whose fault it was, they focused on fixing the problem. They scheduled a conference call with technicians from the three providers involved. By working together, they quickly discovered that the company in the middle was routing the calls incorrectly. The problem was fixed. Case closed. Huzzah!

If you would like to share an example of a telephony provider that provides superior customer service, please do so by clicking here.

General | VoIP

posted on Thursday, September 17, 2009 11:24:50 AM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

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Monday, September 14, 2009

Superior Customer Service: Bug Zoo

by Michael Harris

As a marketer, my goal has always been to “Delight the Customer”, “Exceed the Customer’s Expectations”, or (a la Seth Godin) create a Purple Cow. As a consumer, however, I find that only rarely are my expectations exceeded.

My expectations were far exceeded last year at the Bug Zoo during a visit to Victoria, Canada. This is a particularly amazing accomplishment given that our other Victoria stops included Buchart Gardens and the Victoria Butterfly Gardens. My daughter and I entered the Bug Zoo and joined a tour that was already in progress.

I don’t think we were in the Bug Zoo for more than 10 minutes before I was holding an Emperor scorpion in my hand! After that, I was hooked. (OK, not literally.) Later in the tour, I found myself volunteering to have a 400 leg millipede placed on my forehead. One of the children on a previous tour commented, “It feels like a dancing toothbrush!” Luckily the cockroaches and the giant tarantula remained safely in their respective displays. Cockroaches are too fast and this particular tarantula was too big and fragile to be handled safely.

We expected our visit to the Bug Zoo to take about an hour. We were still happy to be there over two hours later. What made our Bug Zoo visit extraordinary was that our guide, Steve:

Got us involved by allowing us to hold almost all of the bugs that were on display.
Was very knowledgeable on the subject of bugs (insects, spiders, and other arthropods).
Took time to answer every question
Clearly loved his job.

If you would like to share an example of a product, service, or organization that has exceeded your expectations, please do so by clicking here.

General

posted on Monday, September 14, 2009 5:34:25 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

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Thursday, September 03, 2009

Running ReminderPro Over the Labor Day Weekend

by Rick Clayton

Will you be making appointment reminder calls over the Labor Day holiday weekend? To help you configure ReminderPro to run over weekends and holidays, we have prepared a Knowledgebase article to offer instructions for automating ReminderPro for a few days. See our Running a Multi-Day Call Session article for more information.

And have a great (and safe) holiday weekend!

ReminderPro

posted on Thursday, September 03, 2009 9:54:31 AM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

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Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Advantages of Reminder Software

by Michael Harris

"The Advantages of Automated Appointment Reminders," written by Bob Young, appeared in the August/September 2009 edition of the call center magazine ANSWERStat. Bob’s premise is that automating appointment reminders can provide health care providers with a competitive edge by:

• Saving time and expense over manual phone calls or reminder postcards
• Reducing no-shows (thereby increasing the associated revenue)

• Easing staff workload

• Improving patient care and patient relations

Bob also points out that automating the creation and sending of appointment reminder messages removes potential errors associated with manual execution.

Let me provide some additional ideas for your consideration:

• Under the HIPAA Privacy Rule, appointment reminders are considered part of an individual’s treatment and, therefore, can be made without an authorization. However, HIPAA requires that reasonable requests for alternative means of receiving health communications be accommodated (such as a placing a reminder call to a work number instead of a home phone).

• In addition to reminder phone calls, appointment reminders can also be sent via email or SMS text messages

• Offering automated appointment reminders in multiple languages can result in an improved level of patient care.

The article states that the payback period for an automated appointment reminder system is a few months. Your mileage may vary, but our experience shows that such a system can usually pay for itself in a matter of weeks.

If you would like to add your comments, please do so by clicking here.

General | InphoniteVoice | ReminderPro

posted on Thursday, August 27, 2009 7:23:44 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Internet Marketing and Your Medical Practice

by Michael Harris

Yesterday I gave a presentation on this timely topic at the Central Tucson AzMGMA meeting. There was great audience participation and good questions asked.

If you have recommendations on a medical practice that does a great job on social media or has a great website (whether it’s your practice, or someone else’s), please post the URL in the comments below. There is still time for me to add more examples of great Internet Marketing to the presentation.

I hope to see you there!

Click here to sign-up for the meeting.

--
Internet Marketing and Your Medical Practice
Speaker: Michael Harris, President, Inphonite, LLC

AzMGMA Monthly Meeting - North/Northwest Tucson
Amber Lights Retirement Community, 6231 N Montebella Road, Tucson, AZ 85704
Date: August 18, 2009
Time: 7:30 am

What is Internet Marketing and how does it affect your practice? Michael Harris will discuss key topics in Internet marketing such as Search Engine Optimization, Blogging, and Social Media, as well as provide real-life examples from medical practices with successful Internet marketing campaigns.

General

posted on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 4:42:19 PM (US Mountain Standard Time, UTC-07:00)

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