Credibility is one of the most precious assets a professional has. Like virginity, it can only be lost once. Whereas one’s sexual coming of age can lead to grand adventures, deepening spirituality and a lifetime full of emotional rewards, losing one’scredibility can rapidly transform someone into a personal and/or professional pariah. Contacts – and contracts – can dry up very quickly. In a relatively short period one’s career can disappear down the drain because of a perceived lack of integrity.
Suffering severe setbacks due to a loss of credibility may not be a particularly fatal blow in politics or the entertainment industry. But in a profession like medical transcription it can be the kiss of death. Despite the very best of intentions things can – and will – go
Trust is a key element in any relationship – whether it be marriage, a domestic partnership, or a business contract. Without trust, the relationship is on very shaky grounds. People will bend over backward to forgive you if you tell them the truth (especially when the truth is a viable answer). But if you keep lying to them – and if your supervisors or clients ever catch you in one of your lies – it’s going to be very hard for people to trust you again.
In the business world (where so many people succeed by telling lies), it’s extremely important that you have the courage to tell the truth during a crisis. A report was lost because someone failed to save a file properly? Say so. Blanks were left in a report because no one could understand the esteemed
Four years ago my company faced the kind of crisis which could give a small business owner a seizure. Today, my partner and I can look back and laugh at what happened. But when the crisis was erupting, there was nothing very funny about it. Nothing at all. We had just started making plans with our vendor (Versatile Information Products) to upgrade our Digital Voice dictation system. Plans were underway for them to build the system and deliver it in several weeks.
As luck would have it, our digital dictation system started doing very strange things -- and the timing could not have been worse! It was the Thursday prior to the Labor Day holiday weekend and we were up against a wall. When we called Larry Houston (the sales rep for Digital Voice who had been with us from the time we started our business), he wasn’t sure what could be done but promised to get back to us in a little while.
Luckily, Larry had a loaner machine available that could be shipped to us from
Why? We did not want to inconvenience our doctors during business hours (if possible). And, since we knew of situations where musicians routinely purchased an airline seat for their cello (rather than take the risk of having the instrument get damaged in the belly of the plane), we thought itwould be best to purchase a “seat” for the computer, strap it in for the flight, and then pick it up from United in the passenger terminal that evening. Since Tom was flying in from
Just before leaving for the airport to meet Tom, I sent an e-mail to all of our clients explaining the crisis, assuring them that we were on top of it and telling them that even if they could not dictate for several hours, we expected everything would be fine in the morning. Shortly after that things startedto go horribly wrong. Unbeknownst to us (or to the person who dropped the computer off at United), something happened at the
Tom’s plane arrived early from
Fearing that the box may have been too big for a seatbelt to reach around it, we took the gate agent’s advice and headed down to the baggage claim to see if our computer had arrived with the
Were we having fun yet? You betcha!
As we explained the gravity of the situation to the airline personnel handling lost baggage claims, we pleaded for United to contact their personnel at the
So off we went in a taxi to the giant hangar where United stored its freight. By this time, it was nearing
By this time, Tom was crashing from jet lag and I was way beyond cranky. Were we having fun? Not on your life!
It wasn’t until
At about
Our experience taught us some very important lessons. First of all, trust your vendor. If he ships lots of computers by Fedex, have trust in his judgment and in Fedex’s track record. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Your vendor knows what works best.
Second, your clients will not be afraid of the truth. All they want is some information. If possible, send them periodic updates on the status of the crisis. In those moments when you cannot come to the phone (because you’re talking with tech support – or are pacing the waiting room of an airport freight facility), let voice mail record their messages.
Last, but not least, your clients may shock you with their loyalty. The biggest surprise we got was a phone call that weekend from a physician who was a notorious pain in the ass. He called to make sure we had gotten through the crisis all right and to express his concern and appreciation for the work we did for him.
Our crisis had a certain kind of Keystone Cops frenzy to it. Others are more sudden and severe. Forces of nature (often classified as “acts ofGod”) can have a dramatic impact on a medical transcription service’s ability to transcribe and deliver dictated reports. When hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards and/or torrential floods strike a region, they place a severe strain on local medical facilities. In most cases,
A lack of electricity, however, can be a real bummer. Residents of the
There are certain crises which clients will accept without question.
But what about the truly bizarre crisis which brought part of India’s medical transcription industry to a halt for several days? On
For business owners in
My guess is that many physicians would have had severe misgivings about knowing that their work was being sent to a foreign country whose cultural values could suddenly -- and so arbitrarily – compromise the quality of patient care for no good reason.
But, as Dennis Miller would say, that’s just my opinion!
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