Arik Hanson is a hugely talented social media and PR mind. He’s also a great dad. Last month, Arik discovered that his three-year-old daughter had a gigantic hole in her back molar. Big problem. The larger problem: His daughter is terrified of the dentist. Won’t even open her mouth. He was left wondering, “What should I do?” Arik shared his dilemma with me as we were walking out of a meeting last month.

I saw Arik earlier this week and asked how his daughter was doing. His reply – and his daughter’s story – revealed a few patient experience lessons, and I think they are instructive for all of us. (And you won’t even have to face a dentist’s drill).

Arik was lucky to have a variety of medical options when it came to his daughter’s care; some of which are nationally renowned. For what turned out to be a surgery requiring general anesthesia, he wound up at Children’s West in Minnetonka with his daughter.  His family had a fantastic experience.

Why? Because Children’s does an incredible job of focusing squarely on kids’ (and their parents’) needs–every step of the way.

Here are four lessons Arik shared with me, along with bit about the experience that make these lessons so clear:

* Focus on the experience around the experience. The actual medical experience (what happens as a patient prepares for, has, and comes out of a clinical procedure) of a hospital visit is never fun. But Children’s makes sure the experience around the medical procedure is entertaining and positive. For most kids, hospitals are scary places. Children’s tries to reverse that thinking. Waiting rooms are full of toys. Kids pick out chapstick flavors to color the inside of the anesthetic mask so it’s less “scary.” Care teams show how an IV works by demonstrating on a teddy bear. Over and over again, they make the emotional experience around the actual clinical procedure fun for the kids.

* Sweat the details. At the walk-through before the surgery, Arik and his daughter had a chance pick out a video to watch after the procedure. You name it; they have it – from Toy Story to Dora to Star Wars. They also have stickers, freeezie pops and teddy grams. Every last detail prepars kids with a specific, realistic but un-scary picture of what their actual surgery day would be like.

This pre-surgery detail is the “TRY” step of the customer experience – where the patient is imagining what life will be like on the other side of a commitment to a procedure – done very, very well. After the surgery, these details are a great example of Children’s West anticipating the needs of this little patient and her family.

* Alignment from employees AND partners is critical. Patients and parents at Children’s interact with a lot of different people. Greeters. Financial representatives. Nurses. Anesthesiologists. Surgeons. More nurses. Specialists. Some are Children’s employees—but some are not. But, according to Arik, all live the Children’s brand values, assuring a consistent and positive experience.  You see it doesn’t matter to Arik or certainly to his daughter that these surgeons and specialists are not employees. They don’t care.  All they know is these surgeons and specialists are caring for their child under the Children’s Hospital roof.

The lesson here is to ensure everyone who touches your patients or customers shares your vision and mission; lives your values day after day after day. Whether you’ve outsourced part of your experience, rely on partners, or deliver an experience through employees that don’t often meet or communicate with one another, your customers don’t care. Your patients or your customers only have one experience with your product, brand or organization.

* Your people make the most difference.  At Children’s, Arik had contact with a greeter, a financial representative, a nurse, an anestheologist and a dental surgeon. To a person, I heard him say nothing but wonderful things about these people. In fact, the proportion of time he talked about people versus the processes or trappings he experienced was huge by comparison; in spite of his “sweat the details” lesson above.  And while it’s clear to us that Children’s focused on the non-human elements of this patient experience too, Arik’s perception wins. For him, people make the biggest difference.

This reminded me of another lesson, this one from Maya Angelou:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

What about you?

So, what can Arik’s experience mean for your company? Certainly it means each personal interaction matters. It means you must proactively design both what happens AND how people feel as they learn about you, try you out, commit to a procedure, solve the problem …and evolve to a new need over time. Can you see your customer experience from start to finish through Arik’s lessons?

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Arik’s blog, Communications Conversations, is definitely worth your time. Crisp, fresh thinking there!

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