Customer Disservice and Alienation - Why Nobody Talks to My Clients Except Me

I still don't have the tooth pulled, but as of late last night, it seemed like the antibiotic had finally caught up to the infection, and the pain went down a lot over a couple of hours. It still hurts, even with pain killers, but it's not like being actively and continuously stabbed any longer. I'm going to try moving down to the Vicodin the general dentist gave me today instead of Percocet, and maybe I won't be quite so out of it, so maybe I can write something.

This whole experience has been a real eye-opener in another way - exactly how bad alleged customer service really can get. It's a confirmation of my policy: Nobody working for me is allowed to talk to my clients. They are allowed to take a message, and they are allowed to answer simple questions where there is reason to believe the client will probably be happy with the answer. They are not allowed to call my clients without direct specific instructions that I just don't give them. Other than that, there are many reasons why every client gets my cellular number, and is encouraged to call me directly, and this article is going to talk about one of the many disasters this prevents.

My tooth had started hurting on Monday, and so I'd gotten a dental appointment on Thursday, but late Tuesday afternoon, the pain basically exploded. Unfortunately, by the time I could call the dentist, the office was closed for the day, but the dentist gave me a pain-killer and anti-biotic first thing Wednesday. Being a general dentist, Vicodin was the strongest thing he could give me, and it just didn't do more than take the very worst of the edge off for a couple of hours, and I had to wait six hours between doses. But to remove this particular tooth, he had to send me to an oral surgeon. Meanwhile, the infection kept getting worse.

By the time I got to the oral surgeon's office on Thursday, I was literally crying with pain despite the Vicodin. They gave me prescription for Percocet, but said they needed medical clearance from my cardiologist and my regular primary care doctor to pull the tooth. They were also worried about the blood thinners I'm usually on. My cardiologist sent back an answer to them promptly that said it was absolutely fine to pull the tooth, and I could stay on the medications as well, or the dentist could take me off for as long as he felt necessary. Basically, according to her, there was no need for any special precautions, but she was happy to go along with anything the oral surgeon wanted.

This wasn't good enough for the dentist's office staff. No, no, no - they had to have the cardiologist say exactly how many days I had to be off the blood thinners before and after surgery. She responded once again by saying that the answer was "zero days" as far as she was concerned. She gave clearance for the dentist to take me off the blood thinners if he thought it advisable, but she did not see such a need for me to stop those medications from a cardiologist's point of view.

Despite being the answer any reasonable person could have hoped to get, this was not a response the dentist's office staff was prepared to accept. I do not know if this was a programmed answer or if the dentist himself directed it, but I have no evidence whatsoever that the dentist was involved in any of these discussions. No, according to these bozos (remember, these are office staff - not nurses, not dentists, not even dental assistants as far as I'm aware), my cardiologist had to give a number of days before and after that I was going to be off those blood thinners before the tooth could be pulled. Keep in mind that the cardiologist - a very sharp young lady with an advanced medical degree and several years experience applying it - had twice said that this was not required. And she was being refuted by office staff. This went back and forth for two days, and I'm still in increasing pain the entire time, including the possibility of increasing complications as the situation is allowed to build.

Matters did not improve when my primary care physician finally responded, saying that she wanted me to be off the blood-thinners before surgery. Then the dental office staff went really berserk, trying to say that since there was a contradiction, both physicians had to consult with each other and issue a joint letter. I tried very hard to explain to them that they were dictating terms of practice to not one, but two highly qualified medical practitioners, and that the terms of both instructions could be satisfied by simply doing what the more stringent of the two had asked for - and since I'd stopped them on my own when this whole issue first started, that was already accomplished by this point, so how about scheduling me for that tooth extraction?

No, no, no. That wasn't acceptable at all to these little tin-pot dictators. And at this point, my willingness to put up with any more of their nonsense basically evaporated. Keep in mind that I had been at home, in pain, unable to eat anything solid, for two full days since they had made their demand, and it's 4:00 Friday afternoon, so we're looking at three more days of pain and lost work before I can even schedule an appointment, never mind actually getting to that appointment or the aftermath. Meanwhile, whatever is going on in my jaw continues to get worse. Buddha only knows what complications this delay is going to cause. I asked for the supervisor, then for the dentist. The supervisor was part of the problem, and they wouldn't let me speak to the dentist, nor have him call me back.

Ladies and gentlemen, part of the reason and necessity for any licensing program at all - and this principle applies just as strongly to agents and brokers as it does to dentists and doctors - is that you have shown qualifications and a sufficient understanding of the thing you are professionally licensed in to make decisions and accept the normal decision-making responsibility of that practice. If you are not willing to accept that responsibility, or have willfully insulated yourself from it, then you are not worthy of your license and definitely not worthy of my business. I did manage to go back and get another referral from my general dentist, but the first oral surgeon's office staff refused point blank to return my medical records - in violation of state law - claiming that "office procedure" was not to release those records. Let's see: "office procedure". I don't intend to try it, but do you think a realtor might get away with claiming "office procedure" to defuse an accusation of breaking state law or RESPA? Let's say you get pulled over for speeding. How well do you think telling the officer that "office procedure says I'm not allowed to do less than 80 mph" would work in getting you out of a ticket, or do you think the officer might be justified in doing something more than merely writing you a ticket in such a case?

Not only that, but by failing to turn over my doctor and my cardiologist's existing letters, they prevented the second oral surgeon from extracting the tooth yesterday, therefore, the pain continues, as well as everything else involved. By refusing to turn over the X-ray that my general dentist took, they were keeping records they had no rights whatsoever to keep, as they had taken it in the first place under pretense of being willing to extract the tooth, they explicitly added to the cost of the replacement for the job they agreed to do by accepting it - but didn't. Both the state dental licensing authority and the insurance company are going to get complaint letters detailing these facts. I can hope to put them out of business, or at least to cost them all of the clients they might have gotten from my insurer, and my general dentist certainly isn't going to send anyone else their way.

What is the lesson here, the applicability for my own business? Well, it's one I already knew, but it's been quite a while since I encountered jokers who were so determined to exercise their own petty power to the utmost. This is why I want to handle all client communications, and why an agent that doesn't is setting themselves and their customers up for a bad experience. Yes, it means I can't accept quite so many clients as I could if I were fobbing off as much as possible on an office staff - but I'd rather make a little bit less money and have clients that are 100% satisfied, making it much more likely that they will come back to me or send others to me. Because anyone who isn't 100% satisfied is poison to my business, and they're not likely to come back or send me anyone else, which makes letting office staff insulate me from my clients is far more costly that the somewhat lowered earnings ceiling of handling all customer communications myself.

When choosing an agent or loan officer, you want one who tells you to call them, not the office staff, and who handles your calls personally, not by telling someone else to call you back. It's perfectly fine to have staff handle communications between agents or offices or service providers. But someone who's too busy to handle your concerns and issues themselves also can't keep track of what those issues and concerns are - and it's likely to bite them and you. Considering the dollar amounts involved in real estate, I don't want to be bitten and I will do anything I can to keep my clients from being bitten. Be careful that any agent or loan officer you choose acts the same way I do.

Caveat Emptor

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