Hospitality Kit and New Features Added to the LFP Website
November 13, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
Satisfaction and complacency are not words that I know. I am grateful for the stellar reviews of this website, but I want to continue to refine and make this website more user friendly and more extensive in its scope. With that, I am rolling out the beginning of some major additions and changes to this site that will probably take 6 months to a year to complete in full. I have been working on some of these preliminary elements for over 6 months now with my webmaster with a focus specifically to help out-of-town patients get in and get out of Dallas more easily and to make their stay more seamless, enjoyable, and less difficult.
As a huge percentage of my patients come in from out of town, I am trying to help them out. In fact, I cannot remember a day in the last 3 to 4 months that a patient did not come in from somewhere out of town, state, or country. With that in mind, I have aimed to streamline this large percentage of my practice in a unique way through a custom-built “hospitality kit”. I would like to thank Jeff from Chicago who came up with and executed in great detail his idea of a “hospitality kit”, which in short is intended to help the out-of-town visitor truly be able to visit Dallas effortlessly and with less trepidation. He was the $5000 contest winner with his elaborate idea of the hospitality kit, which I am presenting today.
Some of the features of the hospitality kit include 360 virtual tours of the various hotel rooms in Plano and the immediate surrounding area that I personally shot and edited; a video tour through the hotels and attractions as well as my building to familiarize you with the Plano area; a custom-built map that permits you to view Plano and attractions that include restaurants, hotels, laundry services, tech services, atms, banks, book stores, etc.; full menus from area restaurants that feature takeout and delivery focused on the recovering patient; a peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing on travel assistance so that an experienced patient can help a prospective one; a list of DVD movies that you can rent from me including a player for no charge; a new concierge service that is both reasonably priced and offers such amenities as fully stocking your refrigerator with items you request in advance of your stay; and the whole shebang can be downloaded as a single pdf file for your convenience to help in planning your trip to DFW (the pdf feature should be live within 1 to 2 days).
Btw, even though my hospitality kit launches today, it is already in need of an update! I just learned of two new hotels opening in West Plano that I have not had time to explore but look absolutely amazing: Aloft and Nylo. For the first time, West Plano is getting extremely COOL hotels here! I am really excited. I have already made some comments in the new Patient Submitted (in this case I submitted) Travel Assistance section.
In addition, you can now see additional features (that we are still working on at this time) including web tutorials in which I personally navigate you through parts of this website that may interest you but you cannot find given that this website has now expanded beyond 3,500 total pages (I have just finished shooting all those videos last night. My webmaster just needs to upload them and put the page together). An updates section that automatically lists each day what sections have been recently updated (this should be up today or tomorrow). Besides the blogs and forum section, I update many sections almost daily so you might not know, for example, that I added a new video testimonial or photos from Emina’s trip to Tibet (which i just did) but now you will not have to scour the site for those changes. It will be listed with a direct link to the change in the updates section. Many thoughtful visitors have sent an email to me or my staff about problems they were facing with videos, text, pages, etc. not loading correctly. Now, that problem can be sent directly to the webmaster through “Report Bug” in which the problem page is already flagged when the message is sent. (Also, I will be radically overhauling your video experience in the coming months to make some of the infrequent problems much less frequent or eliminated all together.) I hope these changes will make your visit to LFP a much more enriching, educational, and enjoyable experience!
LFP ANNOUNCES 2008 PATIENT SATISFACTION AWARD!!!
October 21, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
I am interrupting my blog for today (the 2nd part on defining culture, which will be postponed until tomorrow but this blog is actually rather on target for this theme) to announce the results from Allergan’s independent patient satisfaction survey and the rare distinction we received for our 2008 Patient Satisfaction Award. Congratulations to all of my hard-working staff members at LFP for their great work and for winning this prestigious award.
We scored almost perfect 5.0s across the board and received incredible written words of support from our randomly selected patients. What is great is Jan, our Allergan rep, said our results look so good that it almost looks as if we “cherry picked” the best patients for opinions. But she witnessed several times how the surveys we sent out were entirely random. Just as a reminder our STAFF satisfaction score last year was a perfect 10: Jan said that was the first time in her 12 year history doing this job that she every saw a perfect 10 across the board from every staff member on satisfaction.
Too often, many companies pay lip service to quality customer service but they have no metrics on defining customer satisfaction. Here at LFP, customer service is job #1 and we have proved our merit with the 2008 survey results, which I have published in their entirety. Also, watch my video log summarizing the results.
Learning to Say No
October 2, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
I have learned to be much more selective in what projects I choose to move forward with. In the past, whatever someone asked me to do, I would invariably say yes. In fact, up to about a month ago, I fail to remember whenever I said, “No.” That has led to a devastating compression of my personal life to zero.
In the past month alone, I have said, “No” three times. I was asked last week to write another chapter in the book, Master Techniques for Rhinoplasty and Nasal Reconstruction, on alar-base reduction because the editors loved my first chapter that I had already submitted. (Perhaps they loved the fact that I was one of the few authors to get the job done on time and done well.) I said, “No” to my distinguished colleague and friend who asked me to fly out to China as an honored guest speaker all expenses paid for his Rhinoplasty Workshop. I also said, “No” to my colleague who asked me to write yet another book. That is a world record for me. Not Michael Phelps but at least a personal milestone.
I don’t say no to everything. I said, “Yes” to my colleague who asked me to be the course director for a hair transplant workshop in St. Louis next year but I have reasons for saying yes. First, I am very interested in the project, since this will be a unique platform to advance hair restoration in a hands-on cadaver workshop that I think has never been offered before. Second, I like being challenged to be a course director, which is something that I don’t have a lot of experience with. Third, I have already finished the entire syllabus and speaker list in two short hours on Saturday. Efficiency is something that I am known for.
I assumed the Editor-in-Chief position last year for a consumer’s guide for facial plastic surgery, entitled, The Face Book (don’t worry, we copyrighted the first edition before facebook.com), which was something I really had no interest in doing. I did it because a senior member in the Academy basically asked me in front of 20 board members, “Sam, please do this. You are the only one that can do this.” I was honored and also in my state of never saying no last Fall. However, the project has now morphed into something that I think will radically alter the landscape of my field in that it is no longer targeted for surgeons’ reception areas (which is an untenable and antiquated concept) but now I am seeking a literary agent to push this into the mainstream and making it a major (hopefully) blockbuster.
My friend Robert said, “Sam, a wife and kids will be the worse thing for your career.” I think he may be right. However, I believe that our passions can remain unmitigated but we can choose what we want in life by following those passions and not following every opportunity presented to us simply because it was presented to us. I will never give up my passions, but I have learned to choose projects more wisely and I have learned to say, “No.”
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! MY MOM IS ONE YEAR’S OLD
August 15, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
Well, it’s been exactly one year since I did my mother’s fat grafting. On the eve of her 69th birthday, I think she looks pretty good. My favorite line that my mom gave me this past year is that she forgot how to put makeup on. When the convexity and shape of the face are returned, little concealer or makeup is necessary. That is what is so great about creating the right facial shape. Remember fat grafting is not to fill in lines or plump lips up (which is what every other surgeon is trying to do and failing consistently). It is simply to create a better contoured face that resembles that of a younger individual. Her hands have held up well too. Happy Anniversary (so to speak). See you next year.
2007 Patient Surveys Posted
August 13, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
We have been running surveys for a few years in order to improve our services for you. I just finished reading a book entitled, Selling the Invisible, which discusses how to better communicate with prospective clients. I am always working to communicate more effectively with my patients, established and prospective. The book stresses the importance of publishing written survey results as proof of service quality. Accordingly, I have done so.
Oftentimes many surgeons pay lip service to good service but have no metrics to establish what those service parameters are and what they have done to improve upon last year’s service deficiencies. In posting 2007′s survey results, I have laid out the warts and all to show what were our strengths and what were our deficiencies and how we went about rectifying those flaws.
I am very proud of not only what I do as a surgeon/provider but more importantly of my team. They are the true source of my pride. They deliver and out deliver my competition not by small strokes but unimaginable strokes. They are the Michael Phelps of a Plastic Surgery Team. Sorry, couldn’t help but throw that in. Have been watching the Olympics.
Here is the link to our patient survey results.