Medicine vs. Management

I just came back from a doctor’s appointment. [I’m fine… thanx for asking.] I invested 2 hours for the adventure, which includes 30 minutes round-trip travel time, 10 minutes with the doctor, 10 minutes with his assistant, and the rest… you knew this… was waiting. Brought my Kindle so I was engaged, but that doesn’t change the fact that waiting was the biggest consumption of time, perhaps the most important depreciating resource we have. We’ve all been there, so I’m not looking for sympathy. It’s another data point for a conversation my wife and I had about doctors: there is less to set them apart in the quality of the medicine they practice, and far more in how they run their practices. I think it’s more the reason people switch doctors than anything concerning their health. The late Ron Zemke used to say that “customers don’t bitch; they switch.” Do you? And in your business: do you invite feedback, even hard-to-hear feedback, or do you silently watch customers turnover?