Several years ago, my wife was having some issues with her one ear so we finally decided to go have it checked out by a doctor. The clinic quoted us $100 for the visit and although we thought that was rather high we booked an appointment.

Now bear in mind that our family had lived in Thailand for ten years where medicine came relatively cheap and we were accustomed to same-day billing and payment. To give you an idea on medical costs consider that both of our children born there set us back by about $300 which covered prenatal visits, ultrasounds, birthing and hospital fees, and all things postnatal! 

Our doctor's visit went fine. We paid the hundred dollars, met with the doctor for a few minutes and were prescribed a simple nasal spray. Wishing we had simply researched the problem more online and bought the spray at a local pharmacy, we kicked ourselves for throwing away a hundred dollars. (That’s your million dollar tip by the way—just self-diagnose online!)

You can imagine our surprise when we were hit up with another medical bill—this one for the doctor’s fees—weeks later to the tune of several hundred bucks. The doctor, in response to some of our questions, had raised his services to a higher level and charged accordingly.

Now let me remind you how things worked in Thailand. You go in to the hospital, you get charged, you pay…end of story. But not here in America as I have since learned. You go in, get charged, you pay, go home, you get more bills, and you pay some more!

And so not knowing how the system worked here in North America, we decided to fight the extra charge. I called customer service and that’s where the fun began. The local office in Lexington, KY referred me to their office in Louisville that handled payment. They in turn sent me back to Lexington. I was not impressed, and with each automated phone system came multiple menus to navigate until I finally reached a real person (to say my pressure systems were slightly building is an understatement).

Finally, after numerous calls and several months of trying to work this out, I was connected to a person in upper management. Everything changed. This lady was both compassionate and empathetic: “Wow, I can imagine how you felt," she told me. “I would have also been upset had I been told $100 and then received a bill for several hundred more. I'm going look into this more and ensure wrong information is not given out in the future.”

She showed concern, she related to me, and she legitimized my angst. I almost couldn’t pay the bill fast enough! She had talked me off my ledge and had promised to rectify the false assumption that there are no doctor fees in addition to the clinic fee.

So how about you…do you have a positive or negative story with regards to customer service you'd like to share? I'd love to hear it!