Yesterday I had the joy of stacking the woodpile. Down at the farm. On my own.
And while I did, or should I say while I was doing this, I got to thinking how the woodpile was really a metaphor for our dental appointment book, and how many lessons we could learn from the process of stacking the woodpile.
So let’s paint the picture.
Our woodpile in the shed was getting low.
It’s summertime here, so that means log fires are a rarity for a few months now. Though funnily enough, we did pop a fire on on Christmas Eve.
Fortunately for us, our farm has no shortage of trees, and fallen trees, for firewood.
Now, over the springtime, along with a little bit of nagging, we were able to have our farm manager firstly trim up a couple of fallen trunks, and then section them, and finally chop them.
So this Christmas, as he headed off to the coast for vacation, his parting words, tongue in cheek, to us were, “if you’ve got nothing to do, you could always bring up the wood from the paddocks”.
What a joker!
Interestingly, one of the piles of chopped wood was visible across the paddocks from the kitchen window. As a daily reminder. So there was really no way of forgetting his parting “jibe”….
So as I said, yesterday I had “nothing to do”…..
Or more importantly, yesterday was shaping up to be the coolest day, temperature wise, to be out in the hot summer sun gathering wood.
So yesterday was the day…and as I gathered, I got to thinking, that there were lessons to be learnt from my exploits.
Lessons from the Woodpile.
And metaphors.
Firstly, the final woodpile, in the shed, is like the Dental Office Appointment Book.
It needs to be well stocked. And stacked. In an orderly manner.
Not in a mishmash. But in neat rows.
Stacked high, wide and deep. Well stacked.
Where we get the wood from, for the woodpile, well that’s a metaphor for our general population.
Yesterday I had two piles of chopped wood to move.
These are the general population.
The first pile, which I chose randomly, contained lighter wood, chopped fairly evenly and consistently, that was easy to gather, easy to load into the ute, and easy to sort during the loading process.
The second pile was different.
It was a bigger pile than the first. Less evenly split and chopped, and many pieces of curved and twisting wood, making it more difficult to sort during loading.
At one point, while on the second pile, I had to make the decision that I was going to have to take two trips with the ute, to transport the load.
And so the two piles became three trips.
Once back at the shed, stacking the pieces into the woodpile there became a science.
Because some pieces were longer than others. And some pieces were square, while others were flatter, and some others curved.
So stacking required thought. It was like with like. So that the rows were even. And orderly.
Lessons from the Woodpile.
Strangely shaped pieces of wood will throw your stacking out of alignment.
You need to select the wood from the chopped wood pile and place it into the transporter with just as much care and thought as you do in taking the wood from the transporter and stacking it into the woodpile in the shed.
This is our metaphor for our appointment book. The chopped wood pile in the paddock is the general population. The woodpile in the shed is our appointment book.
In order to keep the woodpile in the shed orderly, well stacked, compact and tight, so it holds together, and is an efficient use of space, then we need to be aware that we need to sort and choose the best shapes of wood in the paddock, as we go, to fit the final woodpile.
We cannot just throw any piece of wood anywhere into the final woodpile.
Otherwise, we end up with an unstable jumble of pieces thrown anywhere taking up too much space and likely to collapse.
A well stacked woodpile is full of wood, not spaces and air.
In the same way, we need to be mindful that our appointment book has a template that needs to be followed so that the day runs efficiently and productively.
Without spaces. Without the wrong people in the wrong places. Rather, we want the correct shaped people, and I use the word “shaped” metaphorically, in the best places to make our day as efficient and well proportioned as possible.
Different wood piles will provide differently shaped pieces of wood.
Or different logs will provide different shapes of wood.
On different days the world out there will provide you with different types of chopped wood.
Somedays the wood will be neat, ideal, and much the same as we want.
On other days the chopped wood will be more varied. Complex. Diverse.
It is our duty to sort the wood, as we go, to compile the best possible woodpile we can, in the shed.
The tightest woodpile in the least amount of space.
In the same way, some days we just don’t know what types of patients are going to call each day.
Some days our phone rings with ideal patients, wanting ideal treatment at times that suit our template and the openings in our schedule.
On other days we just get what we get. And it’s our job to sort as we go. Remembering our template, and its purpose. We have to put certain pieces of wood in certain places. Our final woodpile depends upon it.
In the same way, we need to be firm and put certain types of appointments in specific places that maintain the integrity of our dental day.
If you stack the crazy shaped pieces of wood in first your final woodpile will be a mess.
Your job, in stacking the woodpile, is to put the right pieces of wood of the most appropriate shape and size into the best stacked woodpile that you can.
Don’t let the type of pieces of wood control your woodpile.
Have I said this enough?
You are in control of your appointment book and template. Not your patients.
If you want to keep your sanity, you must control your template.
Beware of Joe Blakes.
Finally, beware of snakes. [Rhyming slang: Joe Blake = snake]
On a hot summer’s day, in rural Australia, snakes are about.
Deadly snakes.
Either black snakes, brown snakes, or red belly black snakes.
A snake in your wood pile, in your chopped wood out in the paddock, can throw your day right out.
Ruin your plans.
For the day.
In the same way, with your appointment book, look out for snakes in your wood pile.
Yesterday, fortunately, I didn’t see any snakes. But I was looking…
Every piece of wood I lifted, turned, or picked up, I was mindful that I was in their environment, not mine.
In the same way, when you’re sorting through your calls, be wary of snakes. They’ll wreck your day. Ruin it.
Because one day there’ll be one. And you need to be ready.
Final lesson:
A well-structured appointment schedule, that follows the template, is a blessing to your office.
A well-structured appointment book provides a smooth flow of patients, receiving ideal treatment at the appropriate places during the day.
Results?
Productive day. Smooth flow of patients and instruments. Happy doctor. Happy team.
Leads to?
Happy patients. Making ideal appointments in a well structured appointment book…. Productive day. Smooth flow of patients and instruments…. And so it goes..
So, who’s in control of your appointment book…
Learning how to structure, or template your appointment schedule is just one of the Modules that make up The Ultimate Patient Experience, a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Email me at david@theupe.com
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Every so often on Social Media Forums an old chestnut rears its head.
It’s the question as to whether Dental Offices should look at and engage the services of a certain company that teaches improved phone answering techniques.
A lot of the discussion on these Social Media forums revolves around the marketing techniques that this one company uses to create brand awareness and also to promote product need.
Sadly, if all were right at every front desk in Dentistry then there would be no need for dentists to look for phone answering skill improvements. The company in question, that is drawing all the ire, like my company too, provides just one of the many answers to those many needs that Dental Offices require.
Dan Kennedy says that if you believe you have a product that the customer needs it is your absolute duty to do everything in your power to make sure your customer buys your product from you.
This is the approach used by this company in marketing their product and getting it to the attention of dentists….
Sadly, if Dental Front Desk people all shared a similar passion, then there would be no need for improving phone-answering skills…
Personally, I wouldn’t go hard on any company out there marketing phone-answering skills to Dental Offices. In my experiences, most dental office phones could be answered a whole lot better.
Now, there are many approaches to improving phone techniques.
Real live coaching, either in office or over the phone, is one alternative. And probably the best way. A tape/CD set is another. There are books and manuals as well. There really is no shortage of information and opinions on this topic.
But what I’ve found, time and time again without fail is that unless there is regular accountability, the tapes and CDs and books and manuals will just end up in a cupboard…. to be forgotten about or wondered about, one day….
You see, as part of my appraisals of Dental Offices for their Customer Service Culture I also regularly mystery shop Dentist’s phones…. and it is *PAINFUL*…you would not believe how bad it is out there!!
It’s just plain difficult making appointments. All I’m looking for is a friendly warm voice welcoming me to the Dental Office and making me feel happy that I have made the correct decision in calling that Office….is that too difficult?
And as for cancelling appointments? You would not believe how easy it is to cancel a New Patient appointment…why is that?
Companies teaching phone skills to Dental Offices all identify that this phone-answering problem is a huge Money Suck from Dentists. Dentists spend large amounts of money on marketing and attracting patients, yet allow poor phone answering skills to just keep burning people away.
It’s really quite ludicrous!
In any other business, in any other company, when you come to work for them, you do things the way that company says to.
But in dentistry, for some reason, this crucial role of phone answering is allowed to be conducted by anyone in any manner they feel they should.
With little or no accountability.
It wouldn’t happen at McDonalds?
A script is a script is a script.
But for some reason, in a Dental Office, we allow personalities to change our scripts.
“Oh I could never say that…”
“That comes across too pushy…”
Well those approaches and comments are downright *WRONG*!
Hire someone to teach your team the best way to answer the phone, not twenty six hundred different ways.
And hire someone to keep your phone answerers accountable.
Jack Daly told me there’s hardly anything that goes on in a sales call that you couldn’t be prepared for.
And that’s what an incoming phone call to a Dental Office is. It’s an inbound sales call.
They have a dental issue; they’ve rung your office because they want you to solve their issue.
They haven’t rung for a Pizza.
It’s your Front Office Person’s duty to help solve their issue.
An outside agency helps you develop your scripts and your systems for answering your phones as best as you possibly can.
And when phones are answered as best as they can be guess what happens?
More people make appointments.
The Dental Office gets busier.
More patients means more money spent at the Dental Office.
More money spent by patients means more money to pay staff and bonuses.
More money spent by patients means the Dental Business is more profitable.
More profitable business makes for happy Dentists.
Happy Dentists makes for Happy Team…
And it doesn’t take much… if your average New Patient is worth $3000.00…. and you can increase your New Patient bookings by just two per week…. well that’s 100 new patients per year, or $300,000.00 extra income per year to the Dental Office.
Multiply that number by twenty years?
How would an extra $6,000,000.00 in your pocket at the end of your career make you feel?
All for an extra two New Patients per week?
What about the numbers on just four New Patients per week….
Still think it’s not worth hiring a professional to keep your Front Office phone answering accountable….
Correct phone answering techniques are part of The Ultimate Patient Experience, a simple easy to implement system that I developed that allowed me to build an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Email me: david@theUPE.com
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You see, when we bought the farm, we needed to furnish it, so we needed to have *double* the furniture.
And we love our cast iron King Size Bed so much that we thought it would be great to just have another one.
Now the remarkable thing to this story is that our bed at home, along with a single bed that belonged to my daughter, were both made in the nineties some nineteen years ago by a chap who came highly recommended…
And both those beds have stood the test of time.
So when it came time to buy for the farm, well it was just a matter of calling up Phil, who made those two beds way back then, and to see whether he was still in the business?
And he was…or is.
So last year Phil made up bed number three for us. Another king size bed. For the farm.
But more remarkable than that, was the fact that when it came time to take delivery of bed #3, Phil personally came to the farm and installed and assembled the bed frame himself.
The reason this is so remarkable, is that Phil’s operation is probably about an hour’s drive from our Sydney home. Which probably means that he’s about two and a half hours at best from the farm.
Each way!!
So last year, when he came to the farm to assemble bed #3, Phil was surprised to see the single bed that he made for my daughter some nineteen years ago. And I think he was impressed with what great condition it was in…
So fast forward from last year to now…we’re sitting here [at the farm] Sunday afternoon before Christmas. And a car, or more specifically, a wagon pulls up in our driveway.
It’s Phil. With bed #4.
Now the remarkable thing about this was, that Jayne and Phil hadn’t arranged a specific time for the delivery of this bed.
No. Not at all.
All that Phil knew was that we needed it before Christmas and that we’d be arriving the Saturday before.
Seems that on this Sunday, Phil had decided that would be the day he’d make the two and a half hour trek to install and assemble our new bed.
But unconfirmed!!
Apparently he’d been ringing Jayne’s phone on his way down, but for some reason, on a Sunday, she’d not thought to check it….
So Phil had arrived at the town, but he still wasn’t sure of the exact location of the farm. After all, he’d only been here once before…
So he stopped at the pub and asked….and directions were given.
And the bed was delivered.
And so endeth the story….
Lessons learned from this story:
Customer-seller relationship.
How’s that for a buyer-seller relationship? How strong are your relationships with your customers? Even on an item that you would think would be a one off sale, the strength of the buyer-seller relationship was so strong that it encouraged repeat business.
Is your business front of mind? When it comes to buying Dental Services, is your product the only one that your customers and clients think of exclusively?
Go the extra mile.
Would you personally drive a five hour round trip to personally deliver your product?
Are you such a great customer that you would have one of your suppliers do the same?
Are you such a great dentist that your patients would drive such a great distance to see you?
Blind faith, or trust?
Would you drive two and a half hours to an unconfirmed appointment, the way Phil did?
Is your buyer-seller relationship strong enough to create such faith?
How well are you known in your community?
Even as newbies to a small country village, we were easy to find. Phil had no trouble locating us.
Flipping that, how well known is your business in your local community?
Hopefully we’re not considered the Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert of our community…
Merry Christmas!!
As 2013 draws to a close, I’d like to take this opportunity to say Thank You to all my loyal readers and visitors, and to wish you all a safe and joyous Christmas…. and may 2014 bring you renewed vigor and enthusiasm as you continue down life’s journey.
Learning the art of how to Build Strong Relationships is just one of the benefits of using The Ultimate Patient Experience, a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Email me at david@theupe.com
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My wife had been mentioning a strange smell in her car. I’d not noticed it the times that I’d driven it, which is mainly to the car wash and back.
But the other day, as we were heading out to get our Santa Photos taken, as I jumped into the front passenger side seat, I dislodged the floor mat and underneath, guess what I found?
Water!
Well, actually, wet carpet. Sopping wet!!
So immediately I thought there’s a hole in the undercarriage allowing water to get in.
Or a door seal leak.
Because although it doesn’t rain much here in Sydney, the car regularly visits a high-pressure car wash.
And the car is also now six years old…
I even thought it might be a windscreen seal leak, or a leak from the tray below the front windscreen…
Anyway, as wives do, we needed to get this water problem seen to….immediately.
So Jayne phoned the dealership Service Department, who immediately diagnosed the problem….then and there over the phone…..
Air conditioner hose leak!
Now who’d have thought that??
Who knew there was an A/C hose right there?
Not me. Not Jayne.
My point is this.
As amateurs, my wife and I had no idea where the leak was, and what was causing it.
Just because we owned the car, didn’t automatically make us experts on that car, just because we drive it.
It took an expert to instantly diagnose, and fix, our problem.
And if we’d left the problem, and let it go untreated as we either tried to find it and fix it ourselves, or just tried to find time to get around to finding and fixing it, well, we could have allowed a great deal of damage to happen to our car and to ourselves.
So what’s my point?
The same thing that happened here to my wife’s car is happening every day to every business.
And the same plans of diagnosis and repair are killing people’s businesses.
I’m talking Internet and social media and websites.
Just because you own a business, have a website, use the Internet yourself, and have a Facebook page doesn’t make you an expert in Online Marketing and Social Media.
Period.
Yet I see so many businesses out there doing themselves a disservice, a disgraceful disservice, by putting out an old and dysfunctional web presence, and an amateurish at best Social Media campaign.
Just because you post your food photos on Facebook doesn’t make you an expert on Social Media.
So now, as we turn the corner into the new year of 2014, today, you need to review and sharpen your pencil about your business’s current online presence.
In particular, we’re looking at your online reviews, your Facebook presence, and your website.
I’m really hoping that I’m preaching to the converted here.
Because in 2014, if you’re not on your game, you’re putting your business way behind your competitors when it comes to presenting your dental office as a credible place to receive dental treatment.
You see, the public, all the public, want the latest and greatest.
Look around. Everyone is carrying an iPhone or a Smart phone of some sort.
And a tablet. Or an iPad. Or an iPad mini.
And they’re reading books on eReaders.
They’re using their phones and their tablets to keep up to date. News. News channels. Newspapers. News services.
It’s not just about texting anymore.
And if you don’t embrace this change, and be present in the now, and in the future of presenting your business in this modern world, well guess what?
The public will leave you behind.
They’ll toss you out like an old rag doll in a modern day world of robotics and electronic toys.
Because who wants to be provided for, when it comes to health, by a dinosaur?
And it doesn’t matter how great your knowledge is, how many courses you’ve been to, how great your customer service is, or how many CADCAMS and Cone Beams you have…
If the public don’t perceive you as modern, if they don’t see you as cutting edge, if you don’t present your dental business as modern, well, as one of my friends so aptly put it, you may as well be winking in the dark.
Because you know what you’re doing, but nobody else does.
And you’re being left behind.
So how is your online presence?
How is your online presence really??
And in particular, your Facebook, your website, and your online reviews?
Now I’ll be frank here.
Handling your own online marketing is like doing your own brain surgery. Or dentistry. Or car repairs.
It’s possible. But not really very smart.
In 2013, and 2014, more than ever, you need specialist help with your online marketing presence.
Because, it’s a jungle out there.
And the only businesses that are going to survive are the ones with the best and most up to date online marketing.
Because they’ll be the ones with the modern day presence. The modern day accuracy. The modern day image.
And the public won’t tolerate the weak, and the amateurish.
They don’t want them doing their teeth.
They want quality.
And they’ll choose quality by the quality, and currency of your online marketing.
And I’m not just talking about attracting new patients.
Your existing patients will be looking at your online presence to justify their choice of staying with you.
Your current patients will be using their smartphones to recommend your dental office to their friends. Whether you like it or not.
So here are some simple things you need to be on top of when you’re presenting your business online.
Website suitable for any size screen.
In this day and age, nothing shows how out of date you are more than a website that does not fit and adapt to a Smartphone screen.
If your online visitors need to expand your website and toggle around each page because your website does not adapt to their mode of viewing, then you may as well just post a Landing Page with a T Rex on it!
You’re immediately telling those visitors that you ARE NOT up to date!
Collecting Google reviews
Depending upon your state jurisdiction, collecting and displaying testimonials on your website may not be allowed.
If that’s the case, then the Google Reviews, which are independently gathered, need to be cultivated….and there is a way….
Facebook business page
Your business needs a legitimate presence on Facebook.
The public are now using Facebook as a directory, just like the Yellow Pages was used thirty years ago.
So if you’re not in it, or looking amateurish, your business is sending out another great big DINOSAUR message!!!
Keeping them up to date
So you’ve got time and knowledge to manage all these media yourself?
Yeah, right!!
And I haven’t even mentioned blogging, Twitter, LinkedIn….
Personal Facebook page
You need to keep a tidy relevant personal Facebook presence.
This is your 2014 external image.
It’s a great way of showing the public what a great person you really are…and that you really are real.
Photos of family, sports, food and places are in. The public want to identify with you.
Pass nice comments about great books you’ve read, movies you’ve seen, and places you’re visiting. And keep them current.
And avoid comments and photos that are negative, and politically incorrect.
Because Facebook is here to stay.
And not having a Facebook presence tells the world you have something to hide….
Make it your New Year’s Resolution for 2014 to bring your Online Presence up to date.
With the help of an expert.
Merry Christmas, and enjoy the break.
Happy times.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple easy to implement system I developed that allowed me to build an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Email me: david@theUPE.com
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In the 1997 Movie “As Good As It Gets” Academy Award Winner Jack Nicholson tells Helen Hunt that being around her changes his persona.
“You make me want to be a better man”
And it’s true.
Hanging around with nice people makes us be nicer people ourselves.
Now we can easily apply and use this principle in our day-to-day dealings with everybody we come in contact with when we’re out and about.
You see, one of the best ways of giving great customer service is to practice being a great customer yourself when you are out and about doing your day-to-day businesses.
By consciously *being* the customer, or the “ideal” customer, and having that ideal customer mindset at front of mind gives you the opportunity to learn how to encourage and entice the great customer behaviour we would like to see in our very own customers, clients and patients that we are dealing with at our dental office on a day to day basis.
However, getting the *nice* out, and keeping it out at all times, can be a difficult task as a consumer.
You know what it’s like. You have things on your mind. Other things.
You’re mind is worried about those other things. And you’re distracted by those other things from giving your full attention to the task at hand, which is really just another person doing their own day to day routine and procedures.
Sometimes it’s true distraction, but sometimes it’s just plain old inattention. Sometimes we just haven’t thought about the words we use as a customer, and whether those words we use could be improved upon to really, and I mean *really*, make the day of the person who is serving us.
And it’s not that we’re rude people….. sometimes we’re just too busy to stop and think ourselves as to whether there IS a better way that we could say things to make this person feel more important?
Is there a better way I could have asked for something that would allow me to appear to be more endearing to the person serving me?
Now sometimes, it doesn’t matter whether our words as a customer are dripping with butter and sugar and honey.
They fall on deaf ears, or the person we are being served by does not have customer service radars….
Or we just think they don’t?
But what if today is the day?
What if you, as a customer, are *THE* customer for that person that changes their whole way of seeing things? That changes their whole perception of the world?
What if you are *THE* Customer for that person who magically switches the light on for them?
How would you feel; how would it make you feel, if the roles were reversed?
Wouldn’t you just love to feel special, or to be made to feel special?
Here are a couple of examples of how I’m thinking…. now maybe you might think that I’m just over the top here, but ask yourself this… If you were the person doing the serving, would you notice the difference?
For example, next time you’re out with a group at a restaurant, watch out for, or listen to, the language or words that your friends and dining companions use when ordering from the waitperson.
What you’ll find is that most of them will order like this:
“I’ll have the lamb for a starter and I’ll have the beef for my main…”
Now just for a minute think if that order could have been put more pleasantly…
“For my starter could I *Please Have* the lamb and for my main I’d like to have the beef…”
Or at the delicatessen: You’re placing an order for some smallgoods…
“Give me a half a pound of king prawns and six pieces of bacon”….
Replace that with “Could I please have a half a pound of….”
Now doesn’t that sound so much more pleasant?
And it’s that simple…if we start looking out for ways to improve our own message as a customer, then we start to look out for ways to improve and perfect our own messages that we send out to our very own customers as well.
And by doing that, by crafting our words, we certainly do lift our game. We lift it up notches! Not just one notch, we lift it up several.
And by lifting our game, we become more pleasant to do business with. And by becoming more pleasant to do business with, guess what?
Word spreads…word gets out…AND it will!
Wouldn’t you rather your customers be talking about how nice you are?
Rather than how un-nice you are?
We’ve all heard our friends discussing how rude someone was who served them…and yet I’m sure nobody, not even the Soup Nazi, sets out to be rude on purpose…
So try it. Go out there and consciously lift your vocabulary.
And you’ll find two things happen.
You’ll find that you start to lift your game. And repeatedly, you lift it more often and you lift it further.
And you’ll find that what you give out will come back at you.
And come back at you in some of the strangest places…
And who knows? Your better words, your new outlook, might just be the one thing that changes somebody else’s day…or their whole life…
Learning how to be Customer Service focused is easy when you consider it’s just one of the many simple to implement modules that comprise The Ultimate Patient Experience, a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Email me at david@theupe.com
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