We’ve all heard of the proverbial doctor that is described as, “Great, but not much of a bedside manner.” Hopefully, none of you have been subject to a visit to your doctor’s office with an experience like that.
The problem with some doctors is with all the specialized schooling and knowledge they acquire that enables them to add the “Dr.” prefix to the front of their name, they often also acquire a superior and less-than-respectful attitude toward mere “civilians.”
This can, and unfortunately sometimes does, result in an office visit that might resolve any medical issues you may have, but also leaves you feeling aggravated and insulted.
Everybody needs a doctor once in a while, and every car needs a service once in a while.
Follow along as I describe a typical visit to a doctor’s office:
- You show up for your scheduled appointment, right on time. The receptionist has you sign in on the patient log and then has you fill out a clipboard full of other papers that you already filled out on your last visit.
- After thumbing through a year-old “Today’s Modern Yachtsman,” “American Home Quilting” or some other dog-eared magazine that you would never consider reading in any other situation, the doctor’s assistant calls you back.
- First thing is, she always has you step on the scale — and it is always 20 or so pounds higher than what you thought it would be.
- She mutters under her breath “Hmm…”, and jots something down on your chart. You are pretty sure she had a tiny, disappointed headshake going, but you can’t be sure.
- When you say excitedly, “Let’s try it again; I know I can do better!” she gives you a sad little smile and says, “That’s not necessary. Let’s step right in here,” as she leads you into the examining closet — er, “room.”
- “Have a seat right there, please,” she says, and then opens up your chart (Wow! There are a lot of colored bars and writing in there.) and starts thinking real intently about what she is reading.
- “OK, looks like your weight is up a couple pounds — try to watch that OK?” You return that with a lie, “Yeah, I just started my new diet today.”
- “OK, open wide and say ‘Ahhh,’” and then she sticks that wooden tongue depressor so far down your throat that you feel like a circus sword-swallower. You know they are fresh one-use sticks. But you imagine you can still taste the faint remnants of grape popsicle, and you start to wonder where exactly they get these sticks.
- Next, she wants to check your blood pressure, so she wraps the cuff around your arm, and she says “It’s gonna squeeze a little, nothing to worry about.” As she puts her stethoscope on your arm under the lip of the cuff and looks at her watch, she starts to pump up that cuff like it’s an Olympic sport or something. At first it’s not unpleasant, but then it starts to get a little tight. “Don’t remember it being that tight last time. No big deal; I can handle it,” you say to yourself. As she makes a studious face and watches the dial, she keeps pumping that thing like she’s operating the bilge pump lever on the doctor’s previous yacht — the one that finally sank. Her casual, “Just relax,” of course, has the exact opposite effect on you. Now you are beginning to think that you know it is not possible to squeeze any live human being’s arm that much without turning your fingers into little blood-shooting squirt guns. Your thoughts suddenly flash to remembering that new lube tech trainee from last year who thought the word “Full” would be at the top-end of the scale of the tire pressure gauge and just kept on filling up that tire. As your mind races and you imagine the horrible image of your arm looking like that poor shredded Hyundai tire, she finally releases the valve, and the cuff mercifully loosens up, allowing normal blood flow throughout your arm again. Casually — very casually — she says “Your blood-pressure is a little high.” “Oh really!” you think. “A little high. Of course, it is. If my arm was made of coal, you would have just turned it into diamonds!” you say to yourself.
- Of course, she hasn’t asked you a lot of questions yet, and now she wants to check your temperature, so she sticks the thermometer under your tongue. And then she asks you all the questions she needs to know, as you mumble out the answers as best you can with the thermometer stuck under your tongue.
- After asking a bunch of other questions and writing some copious notes down in your chart, she stands abruptly, smiles and says, “The doctor will be right with you.” And, she’s gone, closing the door behind her.
- Apparently, “right with you” means at least 15-20 minutes in medical jargon, and after you have finished reading all the wall charts in the examining room, you have come to the conclusion that you do indeed probably have gout, as well as hoof-rot and something especially scary called “the grip.”
- While you are rifling through the cabinets looking for latex gloves, you hear the doctor rustling around outside the door for a few seconds, conveniently giving you just enough time to get back on the butcher paper, plastering your best “Who, me?” innocent look on your face.
- The doctor walks in, gives his best smile and warmest greeting, with his mouth full of gleaming white, perfectly straight and very expensive-looking teeth — teeth that you are convinced you footed about 90 percent of the bill for. He is much more pleasant than that mean old assistant of his. No medieval torture devices for your arms.
- He asks a few innocuous questions: How’s the kids? The job? You sleeping OK? You’re cutting down on the smoking, right?
- And then, he hands you a prescription, tells you how often to take them, says he will “check that mole on your back” again on the next visit, smiles and walks out.
- That’s it!
OK, all joking aside: The kernel of truth in the above humorous story is that the doctor doesn’t need to really ask you any info, because all the info he needs to make a decision is in the chart.
He did go to school for eight years (or longer!) after all, just to learn how to read symptoms, determine diagnoses and prescribe treatments. If he wanted to, he probably wouldn’t even have to actually come into the examining room and talk to you at all. He is probably perfectly capable of looking at your particulars on your chart, combined with the info the assistant just gathered and making a perfectly accurate and reliable diagnoses and treatment prognosis, all without ever actually seeing the patient, which, of course, is you.
But how would that make you feel? Probably not too good.
Like a good doctor, a good automotive technician is always treating two “patients”: The customer and the vehicle.
That is where the term “bedside manner” comes in. The doctor can be thought of as having two patients every time you come in: Your body and your mind. He uses his schooling and years of training in medical knowledge to treat your body, and he uses his “bedside manner” to treat your mind. He must possess skills in both areas, if he is to enjoy a long and successful career as a popular and well-liked doctor.
Likewise, if you want to be consistently successful in your role as a lube shop manager, operator and/or owner then you, too, must possess an effective “bedside manner” with your “patients” — otherwise known as your customers. Being a skilled and accurate technician is not enough in our business. If all you aspire to be is a great vehicle mechanic and have little or no interest in the customer-service portion of the business, then you are in the wrong business, my friend.
A successful and popular quick lube facility requires skillful employees and management, but that skill must be two-fold in equally excellent amounts: You must be a good technician, possessing the skills to correctly perform the various services you normally offer your customers. And, you must also possess a great “bedside manner” — that ability to talk to your customer without talking down to them or making them feel like their opinion is unimportant.
Talking in encouraging and positive tones and accentuating the positive aspects of doing a service is the primary detail that builds confidence in you and your recommendations for your customers.
Skills with the car aren’t good enough; you’ve gotta have people skills, too. That’s the “bedside manner.”
Get to work; your “patients” need you. Make it happen, and see ya’ next month!
