First Posted: 2/17/2015
LIMA — In a world where efficiency and technology are becoming increasingly more valued, customer service may be hard to preserve.
That’s where Linda Saunders comes in.
Saunders, founder of Census Solutions, a company that works with the senior health care and housing industry, came to Lima on Tuesday to offer a continuing education class on customer service to senior health care professionals.
“In the health care field especially, and in senior living, there’s that sense of a return of back to the basics, where people just want to be surrounded by solid customer service,” Saunders said.
The Senior Resource Network, an organization for professionals working with seniors, hosted Saunders at its monthly luncheon. Her presentation counted as a continuing education credit for some professionals.
The luncheon focused on what Saunders calls the “personal touch” and how they can infuse that into the senior living and caregiving industries.
“As people try to be more efficient, we want to make sure they don’t lose that,” she said. “It’s a challenge right now because everything’s changing, and it’s changing on the turn of a dime.”
As people begin to need more care in the senior living realm and attention to detail increases in importance, it’s important for care providers to focus on providing services at the lowest cost possible, Saunders said.
“We’re always going to have our challenging, noncompliant patients but some of them are going to be that way because we get them off on the wrong track,” she said.
Saunders encouraged the attendees to be responsive to patients, pay attention to detail, have active listening skills and try to have a connection with patients.
Linda Smith, who works at Wilson Memorial Hospital in Sidney, attended the event and said working with technology and still trying to practice good customer services is a “balancing act.”
“It’s merging the two and the customer always being first,” she said. Technology has also helped improve her patients’ experience because of the availability of electronic medical records, Smith said.
The presentation was a “refresher” for her and helped her remember that “these are skills you need to apply every day,” she said.
