One of the most important things about maintaining a World Class Customer Service environment in your Dental Office is about coming up with more and more ways to excite and impress your customers.
Being able to surprise your customers in ways they would never expect is a sure-fire way of keeping those people as customers.
Because everyone else out there in your marketplace is doing *NOTHING* to WOW their customers.
Nothing.
So being able to stand out in the crowd with “something” is way way better than nothing when it comes to wanting to be noticed.
So how do we as dentists go about doing this?
How does your Dental Office make itself appear as “different” to others?
That’s easy…
Appearing Different in the Dental Marketplace is EASY!!
The reason it’s easy to appear different to our competitors is because, simply, nearly all our competitors out there are doing sweet nothing at all when it comes to “marketing” to patients.
Nothing.
Zip. Zero. Nix….
Nothing.
So based on this, anything will get you noticed.
Anything!
Most Dental Offices out there aren’t even taking the time to improve the “internal” marketing in their office.
Most don’t have a Customer Service System.
Most don’t know about the benefits, multiplied over and over, of implementing an Ultimate Patient Experience protocol in their Dental Office.
And what that protocol will return to them, in spades, if they were to implement!
They’re clueless….
INTERNALLY
Language
The language you use in your Dental Office can make you stand out compared to your competition.
Actually, the language you use *WILL* make you stand out period, against nearly all other businesses out there! Of all types!
Always speaking courteously and politely to your patients and to each other rather than using “street talk” will set your Dental Office well apart from all other businesses around.
Gifts
Small physical gifts cost very little.
If your clients are truly of value to you, then showering them regularly with small, thoughtful gifts will make them feel special.
And because of the Law of Reciprocity, they’ll be more likely to stay with you and less likely to leave you if they’re regularly reminded of how thoughtful you are by the arrival in their mailbox of small tokens, thoughtful personalised tokens, of your appreciation of them, and their business.
Articles
Always be on the lookout for newsworthy items, articles and stories that you can clip, copy or download and print to either give, or send to your patients.
If sending, I’d send them something physical in the mail firstly, then follow that up with an email copy or link a week or two later, to make it a double “touch”.
Phone Calls
Have you ever thought to go and pick up the phone and call someone and say hi to them?
A friend you haven’t seen in a while?
Have you ever received a call in a similar manner?
It feels great!
Imagine how your valued patients will feel when they receive a phone call from you out of the blue, just to say “Hi, how are you?”
Regularly making contact with your clients beyond their regular visits to your Dental Office will establish a bond, a connection far stronger with them than just “being their dentist”.
So that when it’s time for them to recommend a friend, or when someone asks them whether they know a good Dentist, your name is always front of mind.
Better still, when they’re automatically telling their friends “Oh, you’ll never guess what my Dentist sent me yesterday”, their friends will naturally want to know who that Dentist is.
Because no other Dental Office around is doing this.
In fact, no other businesses around are doing this!!
The Ultimate Patient Experience is 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.
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I’m surprised how many dentists make decisions about their future without looking at the numbers.
Some dentists make decisions that are often irreversible about advertising, marketing, lease rental, and even practice purchasing based on little more than a whim.
Other dentists never make decisions despite the fact there is good numerical data supporting their actions. They let gut feel and other people’s opinions sway them away from making a scientific logical decision.
I suppose it’s just a case of horses for courses, then.
In my new graduate days, I had a friend, a fellow new graduate, who was the ultimate procrastinator.
He’d put off making decisions like there was no tomorrow.
He’d um and ah and um and ah until the cows came home.
And all to his own detriment.
Truly.
Even about non-dental decisions.
Which was sad.
He suffered paralysis.
And I don’t even think it was paralysis through analysis.
It was just plain paralysis by procrastination.
His procrastination saw him miss out on the Sydney Real Estate boom of 1987-88, a period where I myself bought and sold a property with an 85% increase in value in a twelve month period.
My friend, who had told me he was looking and suggested I do the same, failed to act.
He just sat there, looking.
On the flip side though, because of his hesitancy, he never made a decision he regretted, or a decision that went south.
Because he never made those decisions.
And in his case it may have just been fear that held him back.
Sure, for those of us who have sometimes dived in at the wrong time and without sufficient due diligence, there have been times where a little bit more thought would have been more prudent.
Like buying a practice without looking at the fine print about transitioning the principal out, for example.
I see a considerable number of new practice owners stuck in agreements with selling dentists staying on where the selling dentist is still mopping up the gravy that is meant to belong to the new owner.
And that creates some animosity.
It’s often better to have an all possibilities pre-nup agreement in writing before the sale rather than trying to write one after the arrangements have begun.
Similar horror stories abound about dentists buying Dental Practices from retiring dentists, but having the retiring principal as their less than gracious landlord.
Again, consider the possibilities, all possibilities of what could happen, and get an in writing scenario of what will happen in each possible case.
When it comes to marketing and advertising, dentists just seem to be suckers for spending more than they should.
And that’s a case again of not really doing our sums and our homework as to what’s really available out there, and at what rates and prices.
The simple answer is, that in all decisions involved in the business of dentistry, there’s sufficient evidence out there already of what you should do and what you should not, along with data available as to what will work in a short time, and what may take a little longer.
You’re not Robinson Crusoe.
There are answers there if you do your homework. The right homework.
But make sure you ask the right people.
If I’d have hesitated on real estate in 1987 like my friend did, and followed his lead, I’d have missed the boat.
There’s plenty of really good advice out there.
Find it, and take it.
But make sure that the person whose advice you’re taking is well credentialed.
The Ultimate Patient Experience is 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.
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In the Best Dental Offices, the Handovers are the most critical events in the day.
A great handover is like a perfect 4x100m track relay baton change.
It is seamless and graceful with maximum efficiency.
There is no slow down, no stop, no restart and no re-go.
It’s all one efficient, fluid event.
And it’s meant to be exactly the same in the Dental Office.
The most crucial Handover in the Dental Office is the Handover of the patient following treatment once they have been brought out to the Front Office.
This Handover is best done by the assisting Dental Assistant, rather than by the Dentist. When the Dental Assistant is doing the Handover, the instructions and explanations that she will be re-telling to the Front Office Person will have been told to her, in front of that patient, by the Dentist down in the operatory a few minutes earlier.
The patient then gets to hear these messages an extra time in the process of their Treatment Cycle, and by so doing, this adds to the patient’s process of assimilation so that they understand more fully what treatment they have had and what treatment they still need to complete.
There is no downside from having the patient hear this information more than once.
None at all.
Where there is downside is when there are incorrect and inappropriate phrases used at the Front Office Handover.
Probably the major purpose of a great Front office Handover is to create sufficient concern for the patient so that their attendance at their next dental appointment becomes of vital importance to them.
And not “just another visit”.
Softening words and flowery terminology should never be used at the Handover.
Sadly, Dental Hygienists can be our worst culprits sometimes when it comes to doing Handovers.
“Everything’s wonderful.”
A dental hygienist who exclaims this phrase to the Front Office Person at the post–treatment Handover is not doing anybody any favours at all.
You see, the last I looked, the mouth was a hostile environment!
A very hostile environment.
There’s bugs and debris in there.
Acids and all sorts of bad stuff.
And forces? Forces being applied in there that can tear flesh from bone and open plastic bags, and bottles….
So it’s not wonderful.
It’s a time bomb waiting to explode.
There is always at least one are of concern that needs to be mentioned to the patient as a reason for them to return.
At least one.
That requires our expert opinion and treatment.
So no.
Everything is NOT wonderful…
“She’s All Good to go!”
Here’s another softening statement that does absolutely nothing to add value to today’s appointment and creates a lower urgency for re-booking and maintaining that next appointment.
Sure, the appointment for today is over.
But the handover needs to be the place where the patient hears exactly what and everything that was done for them today.
Everything.
Not some flowery summary.
The only thing good to go about someone using the phrase “Good to Go” is that that person using the phrase is identifying themselves as maybe they are ready to go…and work somewhere else…
The second thing about this phrase that is so grating is the use of the pronoun “she” in front of the patient.
All of a sudden our client has become a nameless “she”, rather than being “Mrs. Jones”.
If you want to drive your customers away with insensitivities, then refer to them by “he” or “she” in front of them.
It’s just so wrong.
“SHE, is the cat’s mother”, my own mother used to say.
There is no place for pronouns at an Ultimate Patient Experience Handover.
“Not a problem” and “No worries”
These are two phrases from the vernacular that should be eliminated from use.
By firing squad if necessary.
What do they actually mean?
They have no true purpose.
Why not substitute “You’re very welcome” or “It’s been my pleasure”
These two phrases instead have a meaning and a purpose, reflecting to the customer that you have enjoyed being of service to them.
Whereas the other two phrases, by mentioning negative words like “problem” and “worries”, through implication, infer that the patient has been an interruption to us.
“not a problem” and “no worries” have absolutely no place in a World Class Dental Office.
“The Usual”
I once heard a dental hygienist tell a front office person to book the patient in for “the usual”.
What on earth is that?
If that sort of instruction is being given at a handover, it’s no wonder indeed that Dental Offices are having difficulties with cancellations and reschedules and no-shows.
A directive like this gives no compelling reason to return for the Front Office Person to emphasise and cement in the patient’s mind.
There is absolutely no “Usual” when it comes to Dental treatment.
And that thought or message should never be conveyed.
There are a lot of things being said and done in the Dental Office that undo some of the great Customer Service being performed by other team members.
Either deliberately or by accident.
Nonetheless, eliminating these phrases mentioned above from your team’s vocabulary will go a long long way towards raising the bar in your Dental Office when it comes to creating a better experience for your Customers.
An Ultimate Patient Experience….
The Ultimate Patient Experience is 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.
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