A look around: Mayo Clinic and Munnabhai

Today, I was reading about Mayo Clinic and its exceptional customer service. At Mayo, “patient’s needs come first” and “the interest of the patient is the only interest to be considered.” These things are easier said than done. It is one thing to frame these sentences and hang them on walls and a completely different one to live these values as an organization. In my opinion, it definitely takes more than a smart, service oriented business motive. It takes intrinsic alignment with the principles and a genuine desire to care. Agreed that better service leads to customer satisfaction, which leads to customer retention and loyalty, which leads to repurchase and positive word of mouth and a high lifetime value of the customer. But imagine Mayo’s case where many of their customers, despite the best efforts of Mayo staff, have very little lifetime left! Mayo clearly doesn’t treat the customers who will live, and thereby spread positive word of mouth, any different from those who have little life left. (As the 80:20 rule or the CRM principles might suggest – “Focus on your most profitable customers!”). In fact, some of the most famous incidents relate to seriously ill patients. What then is the motivation here? Of course, the patient’s relatives may spread positive word even if the patient doesn’t live, but I hesitate to believe that this fact is the basis of Mayo’s service.

This brings me to the fundamental question that was discussed a lot during the first trimester of the MBA program. “What is the role of corporate social responsibility in business? Is it just to do good or is it aimed at helping the business in some way?” Even beyond this, “Are the interests of employees, shareholders and customers always conflicting? How do you reconcile them?” I think Mayo provides a good answer. Look at the possible reasons why Mayo may provide excellent service:
1) Better service leads to differentiation, superior brand and profitability (shareholder motive)
2) Desire to be the best in class - just for the sake of it ( personal achievement goals of top management or organizational )
3) Desire of employees to serve the people and help the society (they choose people for this attitude)
Any one or more of these may be the actual reason, all reasons get taken care of, creating a wonderful win -win situation for patients (customers), employees and shareholders.

Mayo also reminds me of the bollywood movie “Munnabhai MBBS”. Munna, a bully enters a hospital and medical college with the desire to become a doctor. His ways clash with the dean who believes that emotional attachment with the patient is a doctor’s weakness. In his own strange ways, Munna transforms the hospital into a loving, caring unit, sometimes even bringing miraculous medical results, purely through care and attention. This film shows many aspects of leadership and management such employee appreciation and motivation (the scene where Munna thanks the sweeper), understanding and catering to patient’s needs (getting the boy, who has eaten poison, admitted without registration), going above and beyond the call of duty ( what he does for a patient called Zaheer), using the knowledge of customer’s preferences to better serve them ( what he does for a patient who likes to play carrom) and creating a tangible action to represent and inculcate the values ( the famous hug – referred to as ‘jadu ki jhappi’ in the film). Although, he or the hospital has nothing to gain financially, and he is just following his values, were director Rajkumar Hirani and producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra thinking “services business” when they made the film? Or was it just plain–simple “do good”? I think it’s the latter. Well, whatever the case may be, hats off to them for such an entertaining film which also has an important message!