03/21/2023
⏰My family woke up earlier than usual this morning and rushed out the door all to help me get to an 8:15 am doctor appointment I've had scheduled for a month.
My in-laws also woke up earlier than usual to receive my son on our unusual timeline.
🏃🏼♀️Despite our best efforts, thanks to a detour, I found myself running late (about 15 mins to be exact).
I saw this happening and began calling the office at 8 am (the Google listing has the opening time at 8 am).
☎️Each of the 10 times I called between 8 am and 8:30 am, I got the same answering machine message.
"Thank you for calling... this office is closed."
😤Well, that's odd cause I have an appointment, and the Google listing clearly says "Open" with hours listed 8 am-5 pm M-F.
(This is the third time in under a month that I've been misled by erroneous business hours on a Google listing!!!)
When I arrived, the door was, in fact, locked.
Shortly after, a woman appeared at the door.
I explained that I had an 8:15 am apt and had tried to call 10 times to let them know I was running late.
She replied, "No. We called you all day yesterday. Dr. Silk isn't here today."
🤔again, that's odd... I don't have a single missed call or VM from your office.
Upon further investigation, it was discovered that my appointment had never been entered into the system. 🤦♀️
So, in fact, as I suspected and asserted, no one had called me numerous times the day before.
And yes... I am confident I made the appt! I always make my next one before leaving the office and move the calendar event forward in time and say it back twice to the office staffer to confirm.
While they got me in today at 9 am (apparently, my doctor IS in the office today), I was not offered an apology for the error or inconvenience.
And now my day, which started early is delayed by an hour.
Now, I do have the flexibility and freedom to accommodate this type of disrespect and mismanagement of customers' time, but many people don't.
Especially when dealing with the health of pregnant women who already face subversive discrimination in the workplace, you'd think the people who are supposed to be on our side - our OBGYN teams - could do better!
Plus, this all happened on the coattails of receiving a customer experience survey from the President of AtlantiCare asking me to rate the service I received at this office.
I would've filled out the survey but realized it asked about direct medical care vs. the w/ scheduling via the admin staff and systems.
Truth, I like my Doctor a lot! It's the process of getting to her that is f*ckin' brain-numbing!
Takeaways...
🕦🕚🕕Respect your customers' time!
🙏😳Apologize when you make a mistake!
📍Honor and keep current your business hours on Google; it's the most commonly used online resource for local businesses and services.
🕵️♀️Look at ALL the customer touchpoints, not just the moments of literal service!