And as a customer we hate it when we don’t receive it.
We don’t like to feel that we are being taken for granted.
We hate it when the person serving us is distracted, or inattentive, or simply just doesn’t care.
How are your team members at your dental office?
Are your employees simply going through the motions?
A patient walks in to your office…does your receptionist greet that patient as if they’ve been looking forward to their visit all day?
Or do they glance up, over their counter and their monitor, and say:
“Won’t be too long. Just take a seat.”
When your patient gets brought to the front following treatment are they engaged in a genuine caring transfer conversation or are they simply “attending” this process as a bystander as the dental assistant or hygienist robotically lists the procedures that *she* [the patient] had, not even mentioning the patient by name?
When it’s time for your patient to be brought down to the treatment room, are they greeted personably and warmly by your hygienist or team member or are they simply *called* and told to “follow me….”?
Customers don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care, but if your team members are simply going through the motions then your customers will feel disconnection from your business with a big fat capital “D”.
Mary Kaye Ash said everyone’s walking around out there with a whopping big invisible sign hanging from their neck which reads:
“MAKE ME FEEL IMPORTANT”
Whenever we act in a distracted manner that is less than courteous to our valued customers we certainly are sending them a message that we don’t value their business or want their business or want to *KEEP* their business.
And you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be another business just like yours simply waiting to extend the hand of courtesy to those customers of yours who you have been taking for granted….
And why would they want to stay with you?
When they can easily find a dentist charging less than you that’s going to treat them just as rudely for less out of pockets?
I recently flew from Sydney to the USA and back with a carrier other than Qantas, my regular carrier.
And on one flight I experienced, for want of a better word, a flight attendant who was simply just going through the motions.
Now I’m not sure if this poor old chap had had a bad night’s sleep before coming to work.
But he sure as eggs had very little attention to detail when it came to looking after the PAYING passenger in seat 8A.
Now I know my concerns are purely “First World Problems” but this old guy dropped the ball on not one but four occasions during a flight that involved ninety percent sleep time.
So much so that I really could not recommend flying the friendly skies across the Pacific.
Similarly too, it’s a big thumbs down to the arrogant Delta representative at Newark who spent an eternity looking at a monitor before attending to me and then asking me if I was “Priority or First” when all I needed was for Delta to acknowledge my flight reallocation from United and simply print my replacement tickets.
I know my travel issue that day was not the fault of Delta. But what an opportunity there was for this employee to make a difference…
And he blew it….
Big time.
“Welcome to Delta. We’re so glad we’ve been able to help you with your travels today Dr Moffet. We know you’ll enjoy the Delta experience and we hope to see you again soon….”
were words that never ever passed the lips of this pompous little man, who viewed me as an inconvenience rather than a customer “gifted” to him by United.
What a goose!!
Honk! Honk!
What is it with some people?
Don’t they realise that without customers, there is no business?
And if there is no business, there are no jobs?
******
My upcoming in depth two day workshops will be held in London in August.
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.
Did you like this blog article? If you did then hit the share buttons below and share it with your friends and colleagues. Share it via email, Facebook and twitter!!
I remember a long time ago a dentist asked me something about him having to load alginate into an impression tray…
[I know, it must have been a long time ago…]
And I asked him why he bothered employing a Dental assistant if the assistant was mixing the alginate and not loading the tray herself?
The light bulb came on at that moment for that dentist…
And I see it in dentistry all the time….
I see dentists making up their own matrix bands
I see dentists measuring up their own endo files
I see dentists writing up their own lab sheets
I see dentists opening up steri bags of instruments
I see dentists putting bibs onto patients…
It gets me asking the question:
While the dentist is doing the job that he pays someone else to do, what the heck are those employees actually doing?
They’re sure as eggs not drilling teeth or any of the other one of the dentist’s roles while he’s doing their job.
My parents, later in life, used to have their house cleaned by a cleaner, yet they’d always spend time “cleaning up” their house just before the cleaners arrived.
I can’t see the point of owning a dog and then barking yourself?
What’s the point of that?
What’s the point of doing low skill low enjoyment tasks yourself when you can and often do pay someone else to do these for you?
As a business owner, you should only be performing high skill tasks and enjoyable tasks.
Other than that you’re defeating the purpose of being in business.
By barking yourself when you own a dog you’re performing menial tasks when you could be doing things that require more skills.
And then be delegating the menial duties.
Why are you not delegating those tasks, automating those tasks, or plain just deleting those tasks?
Because to not do so, to not filter your activities, is just stupid.
As a dentist, would you lick your own stamps?
Would you?
It’s like staining and glazing your own crowns…the time you spend being a ceramicist you could have actually been a dentist and treated some more teeth…while you paid someone to be the ceramicist…
The time you spend writing up a lab sheet you could have been a dentist and drilled some more cavities rather than be a lab sheet clerk?
In my travels I see so many inefficiencies in dental practices that are costing the business in time lost forever, as well as in unnecessary stress created.
Time is our greatest resource, and once it’s gone, it is gone forever.
You need to manage your time.
Better.
As best you can.
Having the right people in your Dental Office performing the right duties at the correct moments is what separates the very successful dental practices from the “ordinary” offices.
The choice is simple.
Seek advice on what you are doing well in your office, and on what you could do better.
There’s always a better way….
******
My upcoming in depth two day workshops will be held in London in August.
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.
Did you like this blog article? If you did then hit the share buttons below and share it with your friends and colleagues. Share it via email, Facebook and twitter!!
Have you ever been to someone’s house as a guest and wondered what’s behind a certain closed door?
There’s a lot of intrigue associated with “finding out” about places that seem to be off limits.
Does this come from childhood inquisitiveness?
Or is it simply just a fear of missing out [FOMO]?
In a Dental Office, there’s a lot of opportunity to show all when it comes to letting patients know what we do and where we do it in our office.
A colleague of mine even had the mantra in his dental office that there should be “No Back Stage”.
By this, what he meant was that there should be no mudrooms.
He said there should be no areas in the Office that we would be embarrassed for our patients to see.
His words were that every part of our practice should be able to be shown to anyone and everyone such that we should be proud of our practice and every inch of it.
And in so having that pride we should maintain the office in such a way that it is always “open for inspection” at all times.
So what exactly does that mean to you?
At any point in time, can you take a patient into your steri bay to see exactly how your infection control works?
Could you show your patients your staff room where employees relax and eat their lunch in a tidy environment?
Or what about your doctor’s private office?
Is it a room where your doctor would be proud to have patients see how he works on the back end of the business?
And your lab? Is it tidy or is there plaster and stone everywhere?
I recently visited an office where the concierge was proud to offer all new patients a guided tour of their facility.
It was my honour to tag along with one patient during a tour, so I was able to see the practice being presented, and how it presents to the new patient.
This was a real eye opener!!
This is because the tour needs to be presented in such a way that the patient only hears the WIIFM message.
[WIIFM = what’s in it for me?]
The tour should not be a grandiose presentation about the practice that has very little relevance to the new patient.
What the tour does need to be is a delivery of information that has the patient saying to themselves:
“This is my kind of place.”
“I’m so glad that I’ve decided to come here.”
“These people know their stuff, and are happy to show it”
Here’s what a new patient is looking for on a guided tour:
1. Happy smiling faces
A new patient is looking for employees who love what they do. They’re looking for people who enjoy working there.
2. Cleanliness
New patients want to make sure that your dental office is clean, and efficient.
It’s like those restaurants where the kitchen is on show and visible to the diners…we’re looking to see that they are preparing our food in a clean orderly environment where everything is in its place.
Nobody likes to see the buckets of cleaning products out in full view at a restaurant.
We just want to see clean.
3. Tidy organised office space
We want to see that the people running the dental office are working in an orderly manner, and a clean office shows us that everyone is on top of their game, and are not getting behind on anything.
Piles of paperwork tend to imply a lack of control.
4. Family photos of the dentist.
Patients are not looking for certificates and degrees.
They assume that if you have a dental office, that you have the paperwork.
They don’t know the difference between a BDS and a DDS and a DMD.
Patients certainly don’t know the difference between a MAGD or a FRACDS or an FPFA.
Or a CSP for that matter….
What they want to see is the dentist and his family in a happy, professional portrait.
Real people looking beautiful.
It’s amazing what sort of message a professional photo sends.
So rip down your degrees and certificates and pop up a family photo or two.
And not a photo taken with a blackberry with poor background lighting….
5. New technology
I’m not sure that patients understand what a row of laser machines and CAD-CAMs actually are.
But they seem to be impressed with a CBCT or OPG machine.
Those are kind of hard not to miss….
And a milling machine in action looks impressive too…
6. Your infection control area
It’s nice to be able to show your patients where you do your washing up.
And that the area is spotlessly clean.
Now I know some dental practices are hesitant in showing patients this area.
But this is an opportunity for your Dental office to really shine.
Have you ever seen the workshop at a European car dealership where clients’ cars are serviced?
They’re immaculate. In a way that puts your local corner store grease monkey to shame.
We should strive toward that same sort of image in our dental office.
I know some dental practices are hesitant to take patients into steri in case there are some bloody instruments and trays on show.
But those are rare.
And really, it’s simply about having a protocol for those moments so that those instruments and trays are dealt with quickly, so that we can keep the steri-bay on show.
Like I said, patients want to know that you’re clean, and that you practice clean…
7. Simple language
Resist the temptation to baffle the new patient with jargon and technology during a tour.
Talk to them in simple language that they understand, and of course, rather than just state facts, as much as possible follow each statement with the simple to understand explanation:
“…which means for you….”
*
The new patient guided tour is a simple to implement point of difference to separate your Dental Office from any other practice that your patient has ever ever visited before.
Simply because most other practices are never doing them.
And that means the dentist down the road…
And so when your patient returns to work and says to his co-workers:
“You’ll never guess what I just had at my new dentist?
A guided tour of their practice!”
Guess what the co-workers will say?
“My dentist never does that!”
Easy to do…
Easy not to do…
Be the point of difference….
******
My upcoming in depth two day workshops will be held in London in August.
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.
Did you like this blog article? If you did then hit the share buttons below and share it with your friends and colleagues. Share it via email, Facebook and twitter!!
