Is there a difference between “common practice” and “best practice”?

Evidence-based project medication errors. | NURS 6052 – Essentials of Evidence-Based Practice | Walden University

Yes, there is a difference between “common practice” and “best practice”. Common practices are those that are accepted and used by the majority of people as the standard way of doing things, while best practices go beyond this by finding ways to improve upon existing methods. Best practices strive to be more efficient, effective, or both than common practices. For example, in customer service best practice would be to resolve customer complaints or inquiries quickly and efficiently while avoiding any type of negative experience for the customer; whereas common practice might just involve providing rudimentary levels of service with little attention paid to customer satisfaction.