One of the things that always amazes me when I visit Dental Offices to consult is the apparent willingness of dental team members to leave patients unattended for no good reason at all.
What the heck is involved in this sort of thinking?
Who would think that this is appropriate behaviour?
And who would allow this behaviour to become a Standard Operating Procedure in a Dental Practice that they manage?
I’ve seen patients left alone in dental treatment rooms for absolutely no good reason whatsoever.
The dentist is called away from the patient they are treating to do a hygiene examination in another operatory.
And so the dental assistant disappears and leaves the patient on their lonesome and goes off and does I have no idea what.
What could be more important than to spend time with a valued patient while the doctor is absent, and to “visit” with them and let them feel that our practice values them and is interested in them as a person, rather than them simply being a tooth and a credit card.
Because when we leave them on their own what are they left to be thinking about?
They think:
“I’m just about to go and hand over four grand large for this dental work and this dental assistant has just run off and left me here looking at a blank old wall….”
Or would it be better if the patient thought:
“I can’t believe how nice it was that the dental assistant sat and talked to me about my grandchildren while the dentist was off doing a check-up in another room…”
Is the second example a win or is it a win?
How can the first case scenario even be allowed to continue?
It’s simply a case of “arrogant neglect”.
Every time we ever leave a valued patient unattended during their visit to our Dental Office we allow their mind to wander away from the important and the positive and become occupied with the unimportant and the negative.
And when we allow that to happen we have to work extra hard to restore that wandering mind back into the mindset that it needs to be in to move forwards.
We have to work harder than we ever needed to because we have ourselves permitted the patient’s mind to wander.
It is much more important to always keep the patient “occupied” with a team member so that their mind is not allowed to drift into the negative.
By negative I mean:
“I can’t believe they’ve left me here on my own when I am about to give them so much money….”
“What exactly am I spending my money on and do I really need it?”
“I wonder if I can get this done elsewhere for a lower price, and quicker?”
There are other times in the dental visit where the patient is left unattended.
Patients may sometimes be left unattended after treatment but before checkout because the dental receptionist is “busy” and unable to process the departure immediately.
The receptionist may be with another departing patient.
Or she may be answering an enquiry on the office telephone.
Or she may be doing some administrative duties.
A World Class Dental Receptionist will know when a departing patient is coming out to see her and makes sure that she is ready and waiting for that patient.
Nothing should ever get in the way of a patient about to hand over some money.
And that patient must be made to feel as if our receptionist has been waiting for and looking forward all day just to be seeing them.
Have you ever gone to a retail store or outlet and been turned off by the length of the line and the delay in being served, especially when you know exactly what you want, and you know exactly how quickly your transaction should be processed?
Well our valued dental patients will feel very much like that themselves if they are “parked” out the front to be processed by an overworked dental receptionist.
We need to ensure that our customer departure processes are completed as quickly and easily as possible.
Maybe your valued patients are simply “parked” in a “waiting room” when they arrive until it is time for them to be brought down to the treatment room?
Could that process be improved upon by having more staff-patient interaction?
The more we interact with our patients at their visits the more they appreciate the attention.
And the more attention that we lavish upon them the more devoted and loyal they become.
And we know that loyal devoted patients accept more recommended treatment, and are happy to pay our fees that we charge.
And they are more than happy to refer their friends and families.
So ask yourself this?
Could I be making a difference by having my staff give more attention to my patients?
*****
My next public speaking presentation showing Dentists how to grow their Dental practices will be in Melbourne Australia on Saturday 1 April 2017 with Jayne Bandy and Wolfgang Hofbauer.
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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One of my favourite Eddie Murphy movies is the picture “Coming To America”.
In this film, the character Akeem Joffer, played by Eddie Murphy, courts and seeks the heart of Lisa, the beautiful daughter of widower Cleo McDowell, played by John Amos.
Cleo McDowell owns a fast food restaurant named McDowell’s. He spends a significant amount of his time explaining that his restaurant is better than a McDonald’s restaurant.
There is a scene in the movie where Cleo McDowell is seen pouring over the McDonald’s Franchise manual, studying it intently, obviously with the intention to duplicate.
I think too, that in the movie, this McDowell’s restaurant is located very close nearby to a McDonald’s restaurant.
Being in business is crazy like that.
No matter what type of business you have, there will always be some parasite that wants to ride in your jetstream and suck off some of your success, claiming their results as being self-made, when really all they are is a plagiarist and a copycat.
We see this in the food business all the time.
There is nothing to stop an ex-employee starting up a similar restaurant to where they used to work, right there in the same neighbourhood of their previous place of employment.
With the ideas and the knowledge that they learned at their previous place of work.
And we’re talking food here.
Although dining is an “experience”, in twenty-four hours, or sometimes less, Elvis has left the building, and life goes on for the customer.
Does the customer think of the consequences of purchasing from the newer upstart establishment as opposed to dining at the original restaurant?
In the business of retail selling, like furniture, or carpet, I imagine it can be very much the same deal.
Furniture is a commodity, and as such, the purchasing decision for the customer often comes down to ticket price.
Yet furniture stores, that all look the same to me, seem to pop up around each other in clusters.
What distinguishes one bedding firm from another? How does the consumer know the history of each store?
Does the consumer ever know the struggle of establishing one outlet, only to have some parasite come and set up right under their nose?
In dentistry, we’re seeing this sort of thing happen right before our very eyes.
An over-supply of dentists is now resulting in a proliferation of start up dental practices popping up in neighbourhoods where the dental supply has been comfortably stable for a significant amount of time.
The oversupply of dentists is also fuelling the corporates who provide employment in big centres that then take market share from older established smaller dental offices.
In dentistry, I learned about a small dental specialist group, who took in a young specialist to work in their practice. They gave him patients referred to them, the principals, and allowed him to treat patients referred by newer referrers to the specialist practice.
They offered the young specialist advice about setting up his own rooms in a different part of the city.
And then the young specialist goes and opens up rooms of his own around the corner from the kind-hearted older specialists who had taken him in and mentored him.
This sort of deceiptful behaviour makes me sick to the bone.
Some people don’t mind how they make their money.
I prefer to think that there exists an honesty amongst men.
But maybe, sadly, I might be in the minority.
Is this a dog eat dog world at the expense of ethics and morality?
Is the call of opportunity, at the expense of morality, really so magnetic?
There will always be dirty mongrel dogs.
You choose whether you want to be one of them….
*****
My next public speaking presentation showing Dentists how to grow their Dental practices will be in Melbourne Australia on Saturday 1 April 2017 with Jayne Bandy and Wolfgang Hofbauer.
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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My blog post last week recounting the careless way that a Dental Specialist’s Office answered its phone drew a large number of comments and replies.
In that article, I explained how poorly the Specialist’s phone was answered in this instance, and I added my comments and thoughts about the best way to answer the dental phone, regardless.
And here’s what you should do:
Regardless of whether you are busy on another call, busy with a patient sitting or standing in front of you, or busy doing administrative duties, you need to answer that phone in such a way that the caller feels that you have been waiting on their call all day, and that you are so pleased that they have rung and that you are now going to be able to help them and solve their problems.
Remember, that you only have one chance to make a great first impression, so why not lead from the front foot and answer your Dental Office Phone with the best that you have?
Rather than average?
Or second best?
The words that I used in the article last week were the words that we used at my Dental Practice from 1999 to 2014 when I left.
During those years, we grew the collections nine fold [yes, nine times!!] in a twelve year period.
And certainly a big part of that growth was due to the first impression created upon that first phone call.
It’s interesting, because one of the comments that I received to the article suggested that the verbiage we used took way too long to say.
This writer suggested replacing:
“Thank you for calling Dr Smith’s Dental Office. This is Jayne. How may I help you?”
With
“Dr Smith’s Dental Surgery, this is Jayne”
The writer suggested that there was no need to say “thank you for calling” or words of welcome, because the welcome is in the upbeat welcoming tone of the receptionist’s voice.
The writer also suggested that there was no need for redundant verbiage such as “how may I help you” or “how may I direct your call”.
I think that these comments from the writer showed that they are working in the business business, and not the people business.
The writer added that:
“This method is very welcoming, professional, & saves a lot of time.”
I say, that when a business is in the people business, the business of making money flows automatically.
It is the theory of abundance.
When a business is only in the business business, they look more towards efficiencies to save time and cut costs, without looking at the efficacies of spending time as an investment.
When we consider TIME as an investment, then we can consider R.O.I. on our invested time.
And a lot of business owners forget this.
I measured the time it took to speak out his phone greeting compared to mine.
The difference?
A whole 2:01 seconds. [4:76 seconds v 2:75 seconds]
WOW!
Based on a call in factor of say fifty new calls per day, the shorter greeting would earn the business a whole extra one minute and 41 seconds each and every day.
It’s really not that big an imposition then to use the extra phrase is it?
The writer then went on to finish with this statement:
“The single most important word that the caller hears last is the receptionist’s first name … that encourages the caller to offer their first name.”
Well I beg to differ.
I’m sure that the average caller will pick up the receptionist’s name, even if the receptionist follows the saying of her name with the words:
“How may I help you?”
As I have written previously and I repeat myself BECAUSE this is so important:
This phrase is the most important part of the three-part greeting.
This is because it is telling the caller that we are ready for them to let us know what is wrong with them and to let us know about their situation.
By saying these words we are giving the caller immediate permission to start letting us know why they have called.
Remember that whoever is asking the questions during the phone call is the person in control.
So we need to open service with a question.
The beauty of this question is that although it asks a question, what it really is saying to the caller is this:
“I’m here to help you.”
And this is the phrase that sets your dental office apart from all others around.
The writer, who was obviously a seasoned consultant, wrote:
“Many clients over many years can attest to its effectiveness & efficiency.”
My thoughts would be that his suggestions are effective and efficient, but significant improvement in results was only a few extra words away.
Measuring results gives us trackable data.
The beauty of this story is the untold story.
And that is that prior to 1999 at my office we used to use a shorter greeting.
As I have written, our measured improvement in results was palpable….
Worth a go? Worth changing?
You be the judge.
Remember, this is cold hard concrete proof from a long established dental office in working class western Sydney.
And it worked gangbusters for me.
*****
My next public speaking presentation showing Dentists how to grow their Dental practices will be in Melbourne Australia on Saturday 1 April 2017 with Jayne Bandy and Wolfgang Hofbauer.
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!!
One of the challenges of running a small business is getting the people who work in that business to all get along together well enough and for long enough for that business to function at its best.
This is difficult to do.
Because not everybody gets along well with everybody else.
We tend to “tolerate” people some time.
And it’s not the same as a barbeque or a cocktail party, where you can simply walk away from those you do not like and hang out with others.
In business it seems that every two person combination of employees is really like a mini arranged marriage, isn’t it?
For eight hours per day, four or five days per week, each combination of two employees need to behave and interact together in an optimal manner for the best results for our business and for our clients.
Yet the people we are “made” to work with are chosen for us, and often not chosen by us.
They are picked and selected for us by someone else, because of some “promise” of magnificent pedigree and outstanding future performance.
But who really knows what is going to happen until we actually get down to the nitty gritty of working together?
And just like with performance cars and drivers, some combinations work and others do not.
Sometimes a racing car driver will not perform well with one type of car, but put him behind the wheel of another marque, and watch that baby go!!
Sure, a great jockey should be able to extract the best out of each and every racehorse that he rides, but there are times where great football players blossom with a new team and a new coach, after they had previously struggled before with what seemed like a great club.
And it is the same in a small business.
Unlike a family, which grows up together, our working family is constructed for us.
And also, unlike a family, where we all have to get on for continued harmony, the work environment is easy to walk away from if someone so chooses.
So the conditions in a business are quite different.
In a large business, there is usually a well developed corporate culture in place, so a new employee is inducted into a mantra of “this is how things are done around here”.
In a small office sometimes we only have maybe three employees or not many more. And so there is potential for change and adaptation within the small firm each and every time a new employee comes on board.
If our small business has great leadership and specific systems, then the possibility of disruption caused by a new personality are far less than for a small business that simply just sails with the breeze.
Mutinous behaviours from disruptive team members that unsettle the status quo within a small business can be like a cancer eating away at the intended growth of that business in the marketplace.
Business owners need to be aware of these possibilities and need to be ready to act if they feel this sort of carcinogenic behavior is developing within their company.
I heard today about a dental practice where the office manager made it her sole goal for the day to find disruption and to undermine team harmony, even if it meant fabricating and/or magnifying the disruption.
In that office, when other team members felt that the day had been successful, this office manager would successfully rain on everyone’s parade.
This sort of behavior from the office manager can be considered a form of onboard terrorism.
Onboard terrorists are a cancerous blight on any business and need to be jettisoned immediately upon discovery.
Excision is the only cure for an onboard terrorist.
Similarly, we need to watch out as business owners that we do not develop our own seagull style of management.
Author Ken Blanchard described seagull management:
“Seagull managers fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everyone, then fly out.”
This sort of behaviour from a manager has little or no upside. The seagull manager behaves this way to try to assume some form of importance for themselves, but they make very little contribution to the solution of the problem.
The seagull manager only interacts with employees when they deem a problem has arisen. This shows that the manager is untrained or inexperienced, in the main part.
A business supposedly led by a seagull is really going nowhere.
The common purpose of a business is to stay in business.
And make a profit.
And surprisingly, the bigger the profit, the better chance that business has of staying in business.
When everyone who works in this business comes to the realisation that the very best way to stay in business and the very best way to make the biggest profit is for all employees to work together harmoniously for the common good, on all occasions, then and only then will the business grow uncontrollably, in the manner that it should.
While ever there exists veins of disharmony and disunity between employees within a business, then that business will always be operating with some degree of handbrake on, continually holding it back from optimal and ultimate performance.
It’s like purposefully dropping dumbbells onto your own toes.
It’s not a very clever thing to do…
*****
My next public speaking presentation showing Dentists how to grow their Dental practices will be in Melbourne Australia on Saturday 1 April 2017 with Jayne Bandy and Wolfgang Hofbauer.
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!!
