"Poor customer service at Kirkby Walk In"

I accompanied my mother in law to the walk in centre. She doesn't speak english. Although overall we were very happy with the care and treatment offered by the nurses, I was shocked how poor the customer service was.

After being assessed by a nurse we waited about half an hour. We were called but as we stood up to follow the nurse to the treatment room, the nurse decided that the air con wasn't working correctly/ or to their liking. The nurse then proceeded to turn away from us to face the air con unit whilst discussing the temperature controls with another colleague.

This took about ten minutes, which does not seem long but is a very long time when you don't know if you should go and return to your seat or stand and wait. When the nurse had adjusted the air con temperature and finished the discussion with a colleague they then returned to the treatment room without reference to myself or my mother in law. Only then did the nurse turn and gesture us in which felt like an afterthought to me. I did make comment that I didn't know whether to follow or not, the nurse didn't apologise.

I work in customer service and feel that the staff I came across demonstrated a lack of customer service skills. Greeting and eye contact is poor but worst of all basic politeness and civility appeared non existent to me.

I think that staff need to be advised of 'sign posting' when dealing with customers and to take in to account that not every patient knows the system. As mentioned above we were completely happy with the treatment provided and I appreciate that the staff are busy, but they may find the patients more responsive if they treat them like they would like to be treated.