DESIGN PROCESSES THAT FIT

When my family first moved to our current city, we found ourselves in urgent need of a primary care physician for a sick family member. Needless to say, I wasn't familiar yet with the doctors in our area, so I asked a good friend for a recommendation. Here was our experience.

Doctor 1: Recommended

After calling the office of this doctor, I spent 20 minutes on hold before reaching a live person. The woman who finally answered the phone was fairly abrupt and matter-of-fact with me. Because we were new patients, I was told my sick family member would be required to make a 30-minute “new patient” appointment (as opposed to a regular office visit) before he could be seen for anything else. For that intake appointment, we were asked to show up 30 minutes early to fill out all the new-patient paperwork. At this point, the receptionist checked the intake appointments for the next schedule before informing me that the doctor was fully booked for two days! When I objected, stressing the urgency of the situation, she referred me to the local urgent care clinic. I thanked her and hung up.

Doctor 2: Found Online

I found the second doctor online. On calling his office, I spent about three minutes on hold before I was connected to a very pleasant lady, who was friendly and sympathetic; more important, she acknowledged my sense of urgency. She quickly found time in the schedule when our sick family member could come in—just a few hours later that day. She treated the ...

Get The Hidden Power of Your Customers: Four Keys to Growing Your Business Through Existing Customers now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.