Beware the doorbell effect when you make clients wait

The Marriott Corporation spends roughly $10 million a year on market research, according to CEO J. Willard Marriott Jr. "We believe it is absolutely essential to know the markets we serve and what our guests want from us," he says.

Your veterinary practice could learn something from the hotel chain. For example, Marriott Hotels asked 27,000 frequent travelers which hotel services they ranked most important. What would you guess it was: Housekeeping? Room service? Checkout? Concierge service? Reservations?

Try none of the above. Travelers ranked "express check-in" as the most important service. And now that the hotel chain's managers know that, they can take steps to address their customers' concerns. After all, without knowing which services are most important to travelers, management can only guess how to best train their employees to achieve customer satisfaction.

But why was express check-in the most popular answer? Wait time is a pet peeve for most travelers, as it is for most veterinary clients. How committed are you and your team to providing on-time appointments for your clients?

In The 10 Faces of Innovation (Doubleday, 2005), author Tim Kelly uses the term "doorbell effect" to refer to the uncomfortable lag between the time you push a doorbell and the time the door opens (or doesn't). It's hard to know whether someone is coming to the door or whether there's no one home. Worse yet, you might not even be sure the doorbell rang. After what seems like a reasonable amount of time, you'll probably have the impulse to ring again, or perhaps knock loudly on the door.

The same thing happens with many service businesses, Kelly says. They leave people hanging—uncomfortable and uninformed. The wait may seem reasonable to you and your team members, but it seldom does to the person kept waiting. Even a little information at the right moment goes a long way. Think of how much easier it is to wait for an elevator when you can see what floor it's on. Or how much better you feel when you're told, "Your call will be answered within the next three minutes."

You can't always keep up with your appointment schedule, and delays will happen. But don't leave your clients wondering when the wait will end. A little information goes a long way.

Veterinary Economics Editorial Advisory Board member Bob Levoy is the author of 222 Secrets of Hiring, Managing, and Retaining Great Employees in Healthcare Practices (Jones and Bartlett, 2007).