When You Can’t Bring Mohammed To The Patient
(I work for a group practice that has four different surgeries and almost twenty doctors, most of them foreign, and quite a few from India and Pakistan. Because many of our doctors have names that are nigh-unpronounceable for the very un-diverse, rural area I live in, many doctors are cool with patients calling them by their first names. However, that leads to this happening far too often:)
Patient: “Hello, I’d like to make an appointment, please.”
Me: “Sure. Do you have any particular doctor you would like to see?”
Patient: “Yeah, I usually see doctor… Mohammed?”
Me: “We have three doctors by that name. Which one would you like to see? We have [lists off the surnames].”
Patient: “Oh… I think it’s the Asian one?”
(Usually I end up giving them a random one, and I’ve never heard a complaint yet!)
Question of the Week
Have you ever met a customer who thought the world revolved around them?
