Providing Service With a Genuine Smile

Seumas Tan Nyap Tek
Advocate & Solicitor

The last few days have been rather hectic for me as I have been visiting a close family friend in the Intensive Care Unit at one of the private hospitals located in the Klang Valley. What really surprised me in the hospital was the positive transformation in its service to the patients and visitors. You may call it “good people skills”.

I remembered some 6 years ago, my son was admitted to the hospital for pneumonia and frankly, I wasn’t impressed with the kind of service that we were getting then. This time it was different. The nurses were friendly and smiling. Every “thank you” said was met with “you are welcome” followed by a sweet smile. It makes a lot of difference when you are in a stressful environment. It calms down the patients and puts them at ease. I also noticed that the nurses actually converse, yes, converse with the patients in a cheerful way. It wasn’t a one line answer or question, it was a genuine conversation! Every question, however trivial it may be, was answered patiently and followed with a smile. Sometimes, the nurses would make small little jokes to get the patients’ spirit up. It reminded me of the movie, “Patch Adams”.

Politeness and cheerfulness were not only expressed by the nurses but it also came from the other hospital staff including the cleaners. What a marvelous and polite workforce that this hospital has in its employment! First impressions are always important and this hospital definitely presented the right one. Hopefully, this wonderful work culture which has arrived will remain in Malaysia.

I remember in 2005, my mother had undergone multiple by-pass surgery coupled with a patching of a hole in the heart at a public hospital in Australia. The doctors were excellent but what was equally important was the after care, especially the emotional support given to the patients. I remembered vividly, it was during the Christmas holidays, no doubt, everyone was in the Christmas mood but some patients knew they were not able to spend Christmas with their families, so the hospital decided to create a Christmas atmosphere by decorating the wards and playing soft Christmas music. The nurses would always come in with smiles on their faces and greetings with “Good morning dearie or sweetie, how are we this morning?” and along those lines. The hospital management knew that in order to get the healing process moving quickly, they needed to create a positive environment with an effective work force. The hospital management spared no effort to do just that, training and motivating the staff to get things moving. You may have the ambience of a nice place but you need good people to create a positive environment. At that time, I was thinking how nice it would be if we have the same work culture here in Malaysia. But now we have it! We have a hospital with its work force trained in “people skills”.

Back to the hospital in the Klang Valley. I managed to speak to one of the nurses about her training and about how impressed I was with the service. She told me that the hospital had no shortage of nurses as it has its own nursing school. Therefore, the training received by the nurses in the hospital is uniform, so to speak. Since everyone has the same type of training, they work very well with each other as they understand each other better and support each other much more effectively. When I asked the nurse about the politeness that I encountered with the “cleaner makcik” earlier, the nurse laughed and said that the management is well aware that the hospital is a service industry and made it a point to train the staff to be courteous at all times. The “cleaner makcik” was taught to say “you are welcome” in English. After spending valuable minutes talking to me, the nurse excused herself to attend to other patients. She gave a genuine sweet smile before leaving, a nice way to end a conversation.

Knowing your industry is important. As a medical service provider (i.e. hospital), healing is the keyword. The healing will come faster if the patient feels comfortable not only physically but emotionally. As a service provider, the hospital will need to have these healing catalysts present – i.e. a positive environment with a polite, courteous and dedicated staff. Just as the old saying goes, “A picture paints a thousand words” whereas here, “a patient’s experience in the hospital will remain for the rest of his or her life”. Therefore, how the hospital treats its patients will reflect on its future business and reputation.

This article is dedicated to Aunty Aini who is recovering in the hospital. Get well, soon!

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Seumas Tan practices in the area of Employment Law covering issues dealing with human resource matters. He practices under the name and style of Messrs S. Tan & Co. and may be contacted at Seumas@STanLawyers.com.my.