Orthotics/Prosthetics

I just returned from the Texas Association of Orthotists & Prosthetists annual meeting in San Antonio. It was at the Hyatt Hill Country Resort & Spa. Nice place. Very nice place. If you haven’t been there, I highly recommend it.

I work with the association and one of the things I do for them is plan their annual meeting. That means I need to get there a couple days before the meeting starts to set up, meet with the hotel staff, go over the arrangements — standard procedures for any O&P meeting. Ordinarily it is a lunch and a walk through with the catering manager and maybe the sales person. Not at the Hyatt Hill Country.

Meet and greet

We were scheduled for a 9 am pre-conference meeting on Wednesday. I met the catering manager in the lobby and we were off to our meeting. As I headed down the hallway to the boardroom I noticed that the hallway was lined with staff, some of whom I recognized from the site visit the year before. I started to feel like the president of the United States.

	© iStockphoto.com

Everyone was lined up to shake my hand and introduce themselves. The head of engineering, director of sales, vice president of sales and others awaited me as we headed into the boardroom. More people! There were eight or 10 other people at the boardroom table. Rooming, audio visual, accounting, food and beverage, meeting concierge and on and on. It was pretty impressive and sort of overwhelming. I am used to having to remember a handful of names and faces for the duration of an event.

Match names with faces

The meeting started on Thursday and ended Saturday evening. We had a casino night welcome reception, 16 workshops, a full day of general sessions, a Friday night reception and a golf event. My point? I came into contact with almost every single one of the people at the pre-conference meeting during our event and although they were wearing name tags I would be hard pressed to tell you anyone’s name or their job description or function. Too much information and no handout to go along with it.

As part of my post-conference feedback I will suggest that the Hyatt put together a “facebook” of all the staff related to the event. I would have been able to refer to that when I needed to speak to Jean from food and beverage or Justin from A/V and let me tell you, that would have been helpful.

	Elizabeth Mansfield

What does that have to do with O&P? Consider your first time patient or customer. You may think you’re being helpful by introducing them to the receptionist, accounts receivable staff, customer service contacts, techs and assistants, but it can be overwhelming, especially if they’ve never been there before or had contact with your company before. How about a one page sheet that shows everyone’s face and their title and job description? Make a real “facebook” and use it to help alleviate stress, familiarize your customers with the staff and literally make it easier to put a name with a face.

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Elizabeth Mansfield is the president of Outsource Marketing Solutions. She can be reached at elizabeth@askelizabeth.net.