Mystery Shopping Case Studies
Medical City Dallas Hospital: From Good to Exceptional
Medical City Dallas Hospital, a 660-bed tertiary referral center for the HCA North Texas Division, had a goal of achieving exceptional customer service. They chose mystery shopping as a tool to help them get there. The feedback and analysis included in Devon Hill Associates’ report of a first wave of calls and visits were catalysts for significant change in the areas that were assessed. Read more »
Mystery Shopping Motivates Medical Clinics to Immediate Action
Management of a chain of health centers knew they had a problem when complaints were increasing about long waits to schedule appointments, long waits for scheduled and unscheduled appointments and unfriendly, discourteous and/or impersonal staff. At the large, busy centers, in particular, significant pressure on staff to move people through quickly was leading to poor service and unhappy patients. Read more »
A Retirement Community: A Product Awareness or Sales Issue?
A beautiful new retirement community was failing to meet its occupancy objectives. Was it an awareness, acceptance or a sales issue — or some combination thereof? The owners decided to let a “fresh pair of eyes” assess the situation and selected Devon Hill Associates to conduct a marketing audit for them. Read more »
St. Peter’s Hospital: A Dramatic Rise in Patient Satisfaction Scores
St. Peter’s Hospital is the sole adult acute care hospital in Helena, Montana. In spite of its sole provider status, hospital management is always working to achieve a level of service excellence that will ensure that every person who calls or visits the hospital or one of its physicians is treated with kindness, respect, sensitivity and efficiency. Read more »
Clinics: How Mystery Shopping Uncovered Dysfunctional AVR, Telephone and Scheduling Systems
Management of a system consisting of a hospital and multiple clinics had been hearing numerous complaints about long waits for appointments and discourteous, disinterested staff at their clinics. The organization decided that mystery shopping would provide the needed information from which to best validate the patients’ complaints and make improvements. They solicited several proposals and chose Devon Hill Associates to conduct the telephone mystery shopping project. Read more »
Through the Eyes of Patients: Snapshots of the ED and the Floors
Management of a 250+ bed hospital was committed to improving the patient experience and overall patient satisfaction. In addition to HCAHPS reimbursement implications, the hospital wanted to be recognized as a place with a passion for making the healthcare experience an outstanding one. Management viewed mystery shopping as a next step — a way to look at the hospital’s current level of service through the eyes of patients, and to identify where improvements needed to be made. Read more »
Saint Michael’s Hospital: Improving Patient Satisfaction
Saint Michael’s Hospital, Stevens Point, Wisconsin, is a 181-bed hospital that is part of the Ministry Health Care network of hospitals, clinics, long-term care facilities and other programs and services located in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Patient satisfaction is a top priority at Saint Michael’s Hospital. Recent patient satisfaction scores were not acceptable to management. The hospital looked to mystery shopping by Devon Hill Associates to provide an unbiased evaluation of service in its problem areas. Read more »
A Midwestern Hospital: A Statistically Significant Increase in Patient Satisfaction Scores
The area’s significant economic distress, a too-small and, at times, overwhelmed Emergency Department, plus the diversity of a Midwestern public hospital’s patient culture led to an erosion of the hospital’s customer service and resulted in behavioral, communications and systems challenges. Hospital patient satisfaction scores were heading down rather than up. The hospital chose mystery shopping to help identify specific opportunities for improvement. Read more »
Download our
capabilities brochure.
View Devon Hill Associates
client testimonials.
For information on mystery shopping and other services, call Barbara Gerber at +1-858-456-7800.