Cornering Overcommitters

In a series of studies, Dr Suraj Bassi of professional services company BDO and a team from the NHS Bedfordshire in the UK have been testing ideas to try to get people to turn up to NHS appointments (found here).

One of the ideas tested was to get people to repeat back the time and date of their appointment. Another, along the same lines, asked patients in face-to-face interactions to write time and date of the appointment on a piece of paper. A third was to add a message saying that the majority of people do turn up and on time to appointments.

You can count on it

The first two very simple measures yielded an impressive 18% improvement in show-up numbers. Adding the third, the improvement rate went up to 31%.

In the scuffle for better attendance, the worlds of NHS and corporate internal training converge. Not the fancy, five-star hotel, externally provided training, but when you provide internal voluntary workshops on performance management or on writing a development plan: what are your show-up rates?

There is something to be learnt from these little tricks. First of all that we could similarly test for pragmatic techniques in our own organisations. Second, that part of the trick is to turn signed-up participants to active rather than passive partners to the service. Most people, by the way, do take a note of such insights.