Last Monday I sprained my lower back while playing tennis. If you’ve ever tweaked your lower back to the point that getting in and out of a chair requires grit, you know the pain and discomfort I’m talking about.

For the rest of Monday and all day Tuesday, I pretty much followed the basics for this type of injury: ice pack, lay on my back, simple stretching with leg extensions, and moderate walking on a level surface. So far, so good.

The problem was that by Wednesday morning, I wasn’t feeling much better than Monday night. Concerned, I phoned my HMO to seek a referral from my primary care physician to see a specialist. I’m aware that protocol dictates that one must first schedule an appointment with his or her primary care physician in order to then receive a referral to a specialist but, since I’ve had the same physician for a number of years, I expected to receive a referral following a phone call—as I’ve been able to do in the past.

When I called, I entered my health record number as requested and was placed on hold for a couple of minutes which is pretty standard. When the call was picked up by an HMO rep, she asked me to verify some information and then told me that, since I did not have a primary care physician, I’d have to be transferred to the physician selection line.

Confused, I said, “I have a primary care physician. I’ve been seeing the same doctor for the past four years.”

The rep then informed me that my primary care physician had transferred to open a new facility and I would need to choose another primary care physician before scheduling an appointment to receive treatment. She informed me that the physician selection department was currently not open and provided me with a direct line to contact them after 8:00am.

Okay, so I waited until after 8:00am before calling the physician selection department in order to select a new primary care physician so that I could schedule an initial appointment to receive a referral to see a specialist who could do something about the pain in my lower back.

When I called this number, I received the following message:

“Hello and thank you for calling (HMO). You have reached the physician selection service department. Our business hours are from 8:00am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday. If you have reached this message during these hours, we are currently assisting other members. Your call is very important to us. Please leave a message with your name, phone number, and medical record number, and we will return your call no later than the next business day. Thank you so much for calling and we look forward to serving you.”

After calling back several more times hoping to get a rep on the phone, I left a message with the information requested shortly after 8:00am on Wednesday. Today is Thursday (“the next business day”). It’s noon and I still have yet to hear back from the physician selection service department who “looks forward to serving me.”

Each month, I pay $1,100 for my family’s health insurance and, fortunately, it’s an exception when I need to call upon health services. But this week, I’m in need of medical attention and have not been able to identify a new primary care physician—let alone get scheduled to see one.

At this rate, the soonest I’ll be able to see my primary care physician is tomorrow, Friday, assuming he or she has availability. Until then, due to the nature of my injury, I’ll get by with the home remedies listed above and Advil.

The author, Peter Glen shares an amusing tactic to get the attention you deserve as a customer when you can’t locate employees or are otherwise feeling ignored and underserved:

“…when you find that you can’t get help, just stand there and scream the word (“HELP!”) as loud as you can. You will see people come running who haven’t moved in years. You will be serviced, solicited, fawned upon. They will sing to you, if that’s what you want, or anything else you want, as long as you don’t do that again. You have embarrassed them by reminding them of their jobs, and they are also afraid someone else might hear and want the same thing.

Screaming HELP at the top of your lungs…confronts the situation, calls a halt to routine, and starts alarms ringing everywhere. You get attention, suddenly and completely. You have just staged a small but specific revolution.”

So maybe I should drive to the HMO clinic, enter the lobby, and shout, “HELP! HELP! Is there a doctor in the house? HELP!” But somehow I think the doctor they would refer me to would specialize in something other than back pain…

Let’s do a word association. You know how these work: I’ll name a word and you, off the top of your head, identify a set of words that you associate with that word. Ready?

The first word is indifference. What words immediately come to mind?

The second word is enthusiasm. What words immediately come to mind?

When I perform this activity at my seminars, participants’ associations with “indifference” are words like: apathy, don’t care, unimportant, don’t matter, etc. and their associations with “enthusiasm” are words like: lively, energetic, smile, radiant, etc.

Consider this statistic: 68 percent of customers quit doing business with a company because of perceived indifference towards them as customers.

In other words, lots of customers feel as though employees are apathetic and don’t care, and that, as customers, they are unimportant and don’t matter to the company.

What could be leading customers to feel this way? Everyone’s experience is unique but definitely interpersonal communication effects this perception. When employees don’t smile, make eye contact, or add a bit of enthusiasm to their voices, customers notice.

But here’s the good news: When employees do smile, make eye contact, and add a bit of enthusiasm to their voices, customers recognize that too. And because it’s a change from the indifferent service that most customers have come to expect, it stands out as refreshing, unique, and memorable.

Recently, I was reading the book Love Your Patients by Scott Louis Diering, M.D. and came across the following passage:

“Everyone is important. Every person you meet is very, very important. Every patient’s problem, every concern, every appointment, every minute is very, very important. Everything is important to someone. All we need do is recognize that importance. Enthusiasm is the easiest way for our patients to know that they are important.

When we act with enthusiasm, our patients will know that we truly take them seriously. We must ‘get into it.’ Many of the techniques and suggestions (referenced above) show our enthusiasm: We nod our head, make eye contact, and listen intently. We do these things to show our patients that they are our biggest concern.

It does not matter how many other more urgent problems we have to deal with. It does not matter that our last patient and our next patient are dying. What matters is, while we are with this patient, we are not distracted, bored, uninterested or unconcerned…

The best ways to show our enthusiasm are to thank our patients, to ask some non-healthcare questions about them, and to let them know that we are glad to see them…

Someone may criticize this view. They may say small talk distracts us from real patient care. They are wrong. Our business is people. The more we know about our patients, the better we can serve them.”

Many job roles, regardless of industry, become process-focused and routine over time. Service providers systematically go about their tasks and may unwittingly convey indifference towards the customers they serve.

Always look for opportunities to convey authentic enthusiasm: smile, make eye contact, add enthusiasm to your voice, ask engaging, non-routine questions and let your customers know that you’re genuinely happy to serve them.

In doing so, you will be expressing your uniqueness by adding personality to an otherwise routine and indifferent transaction. Best of all, you will be seen by customers as memorable—which certainly beats the alternative.