Why Your Doctor, Lawyer & Accountant Suck at Service

Have you ever felt like your doctor’s office missed the mark on service? Let’s face it: they’re probably just as bad as your accountant and lawyer. 

Here are the top four reasons why the majority of businesses in the medical, financial, and legal industries are so archaic in the client experience they deliver.

1. Abundance of technical education 

It takes a great deal of formal technical education to get a license in these professions but it shouldn’t stop there. There is a constant demand for ongoing technical education for people in these professions. This doesn’t leave them with much time to focus on strong business practices, building a strong corporate culture, or creating a world-class client or patient experience.

2. Ego

Doctors, lawyers, and accountants are highly educated professionals who can appear arrogant. They know that their patients or clients need their expertise and this leads to a growing ego. For decades, professionals were able to charge premium fees for their expertise which were considered rare and valuable skills. 

With the advent of the internet, we’ve seen a commoditization of professional knowledge and technical brilliance. The value of expertise in many professions has been dramatically reduced and commoditized. Much of what customers called expert knowledge in private banking, consulting, or even engineering can now be found easily online.

3. Lack of soft skill training

It’s not just frontline employees who need to increase their service aptitude through soft skill training. Accountants, financial advisors, consultants, lawyers, programmers, and doctors have much stronger technical skills than people skills, causing a void of human empathy and an inability to make emotional connections and build rapport. Therefore, these industries need to train not only in technical skills but in non-technical and soft skills as well to increase their service aptitude.

4. The need for non-technical senior leaders

Due to the abundance of technical education and the lack of soft skill training, 100% of these professionals’ educations were spent on their technical training. Therefore, lawyers, doctors, and accounts shouldn’t be the only ones in charge of business operations. The best entrepreneurs and CEOs build their leadership teams with people who have the skillsets they are lacking. 

However, most of the senior leaders and partners at law firms, accounting firms, and medical practices are lawyers, accountants, and chief medical officers. Hence, there need to be non-technical senior executives helping run those businesses. These industries need to realize that it’s not about a trade-off between IQ and EQ but the marriage of both.

For more information and resources on why your doctor, lawyer, & accountant suck at service, check out The Customer Service Revolution podcast. If you’d like to listen, head over to Episode 061: Why Your Doctor, Lawyer, & Accountant Suck at Service.