Imagine this: someone pacing while reading a leaflet upside down in a crowded waiting room with phones running off the hook. You might not see the tightrope walk if you have not been the one running the front desk. Serving patients and clients requires more than merely nodding and smiling till your cheeks start to crump. Reading between the lines, it picks up minute signals and catches the ball before it ever leaves their hand. Consider chess, but the pieces have emotions. Dr. Zahi Abou Chacra has made it his mission to show that real service goes far beyond routine appointments.
Walking through your door are waves of the frightened, the optimistic, the outraged, the perplexed. Your employment: Not only wish luck and gesture to the closest life raft to swim beside. “Patients don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” one of my neighbors once told me. Turned out, she ran a vet. Her advice is applicable whether you are mending Internet connections, cutting split ends, or bandaging tails.
Consider consistency. Perhaps your Monday game face seems strong, but what about Thursday afternoon when caffeine jitters strike and everyone seems to be allergy-sensitive to patience? That is where the magic occurs—when commitment is not only lip service. Taking up the phone as though it were the most crucial ring of the day, not with a sigh. Remembering Mrs. Graves hates small conversation but loves two sugars Providing answers when issues escalate rather than skating away.
The secret spice is empathy. Jokes about the temperature, certainly, but also create room for more weighty items. It could be “How are you managing?” rather than “How can I help?” occasionally. You gently impart terrible news or offer unambiguous instructions. It is not about following rules exactly. Often, it is about rewriting the margins.
One leaps over uncertainty in communication. Be direct, succinct but never curt. Though you flex it anyhow, patience is thinner than stretched dough. The key is listening—that is, genuinely listening—not only waiting your turn to talk. People associate real attention with something. One discussion can stay in someone’s memory far longer than any flimsy brochure.
Every contact is like a window. One slip and confidence falls apart. You really have to be alert. Have you checked that prescription twice? Ask about allergies or provide a chair. Though modest, the elements are where loyalty finds roots. Anyone can respond to a question; truly compassionate behavior is the quiet engine driving people back.
Things do occasionally go south. Everyone messes; you are not exception. You stand out not by perfection but by embracing faults. Transparency burns out flames more quickly than denial. Tell apologies and mean it. Sort it quickly. People remember your cleanup of a disaster even more than the spill itself.
Energy really counts. You dismiss off dedicated service as not fitting a nine-to- five job. Your heartbeat shapes every hello as well as every “See you next time”. The early-morning determination to perform better and the late-night anxiety over the client you couldn’t quite help with. It’s hard, fulfilling, occasionally messy—and it counts, minute by minute, to the people you help.