“How Effective Is Your Dental Practice Phone Answering Machine Message?
I’m talking about what happens when someone phones your dental practice and the call is not answered by a real live human being.
For whatever reason….
What does your practice’s message say to your caller?
And what does your practice’s recorded message say ABOUT YOUR PRACTICE to your caller?
Does your recorded message say this:
“We really value your call…”
Or does it say:
“Thank you for your call. We appreciate your call….”
Or does it say something stupid like this:
“If you are hearing this message you have either called us outside our normal business hours, or we are unable to answer the phone because we are busy with another patient…”
When I hear this last message….
I immediately know that I have called DURING business hours [because that’s what I do], and the message often prattles off the office hours, which means the practice doesn’t even re-record a “during the day” message to play. They just use their after-hours message as a ONE SIZE FITS ALL message 24/7.
Which is really poor form.
When I hear that ONE SIZE FITS ALL message during business hours it really is telling me that either the practice is under-equipped for answering multiple calls at one time, or the practice is under-manned for answering multiple calls at one time.
Either way, when this happens when a caller goes through to a message or a server, it sends a message subliminally to the caller that says:
“We do not value your call much at all, otherwise we’d have a real live person here to answer your call, or have a real live person here who is trained to answer your call.”
In the words of Judge Judy:
“Don’t …. tell me it’s raining”
…when really something else is happening.
There are people out there in other businesses who are skilled at answering all incoming calls to their businesses and making all of their callers feel important and valued.
It is a SKILL to be able to juggle multiple calls, and the beauty of a skill is that it is LEARNABLE and therefore it can be taught and learned, and it can be MASTERED.
And…
“If it has been done, it can be done.”
If something has been done, guess what?
It can be done again.
And done again. And done again….
The thing about recorded messages….
The thing about recorded messages in businesses is that most times, the business owner or the person making the recording think that their message is the BEE’S KNEES and is the answer, the one and only ALL TIME BEST SOLUTION EVER to the problem of receiving multiple phone calls at the one time.
When most of the time all that message does is cause the caller to NOT LEAVE A MESSAGE, and to hang up, and to go call another competitor’s dental practice, because the recorded message takes the caller’s loyalty for granted.
And customer loyalty needs to be EARNED.
And not be expected.
Our research shows…
Our research has shown that 38% of calls to a dental practice go unanswered, and with a large number of those callers just hanging up, not leaving a message, and letting their “fingers do the walking” and calling another dental practice, you don’t need to be Einstein to realise that there’s a significant amount of wasted opportunity that is lost by those dental practices that fail to employ sufficient skilled and trained staff to dramatically reduce this number of missed and unanswered calls.
Just do the math…
If your practice could just answer two missed calls more each day, and if those calls were new patients to your practice, that scheduled and attended and then booked and completed their treatment, that would mean that your practice could easily add around 500 New Patients per year to your dental schedule.
And if each new patient was worth [on average] two thousand dollars of treatment to your practice, then potentially those two extra bookings per day would add another one million dollars to your annual dental practice production.
Just two extra calls answered per day….
“Little hinges swing big doors”
Indeed they do.
A small shift in thinking at the beginning can unpack a dramatically different result 365 days later….
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
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.
I cannot believe how many times I get face to face with dental practice owners and they have no idea of their numbers.
And when I say no idea I mean ABSOLUTELY NO FREAKING IDEA!!
Q1: “How much do you produce each month?”
A1: “I don’t know…”
Q2: “How many new patients do you see at your practice each month?”
A2: “I don’t know…”
Q3: “How much is the average new patient two-year value in your practice, and how does this value vary from dentist to dentist in your practice?”
A3: “I don’t know…”
Q4: “How many cleans are being done by each dentist and each hygienist in your practice?”
A4: “I don’t know…”
I recently crunched some numbers for a three dentist practice… the dentists are basically TEARING UP between $1.35M and $1.7M annually by doing their own cleans and not employing a hygienist….
Yes. Really…..
One dentist was cleaning teeth at an hourly rate of $220.00 per hour and doing restorative procedures in the practice at an hourly rate of $1250.00 per hour….
Which meant that the income he was generating in five hours of cleaning could be replaced by simply doing one hour of restorative dentistry [and playing golf for the other four hours!!]
Between these three dentists they were doing sixty cleans a week, robbing themselves of thirty hours of restorative dentistry that they should have been doing ….
And yet dentists will tell me this:
“I tried a hygienist and it didn’t work for me”
There’s a good reason for this.
It’s the same reason as the guy used who said:
“I tried performing brain surgery and it didn’t work for me”
The reason both these things did not work was because the dentist [and the potential brain surgeon] did not seek education and professional help before embarking on their journey.
They both tried winging it.
And they both failed miserably.
When my friend Jack Daly decided at the age of 42 that he wanted to do Iron Man Events and Triathlons, he had one small problem…
He could not swim.
He could run. And he could ride a bike.
But he could not swim.
So, what do you think he did?
Do you think he went to the local pool and dived in at the deep end and just worked out how to swim?
He did not.
Do you think he went to the internet and social media groups and researched how to swim online?
He did not.
What Jack did was find himself a swimming coach who could teach him how to swim and would keep him accountable while he learnt and improved his techniques.
End result:
Jack became proficient at swimming and started competing in triathlons and ironman events. In 2013 he was invited to compete in the World Ironman Championship in Kona Hawaii.
The secret sauce was the coaching.
It also helped Jack to know his numbers.
If you don’t know your numbers:
A lot of dentists who don’t know their numbers are literally tippy-toeing along the cliff edge of financial disaster, purely because they think that they are going OK, when their definition of OK is a long way from being healthy and secure.
Not knowing your numbers is really financial suicide.
If you don’t know your numbers it simply means that every day, every week, every year you are literally wasting valuable money that you are capable of earning and should be keeping, that you aren’t.
And even if you didn’t want that money but were able to donate it to people in need rather than simply just squander it, then maybe you’d be doing more good in the world than you are at the moment, by not watching your numbers.
The numbers tell the story.
Owning your own dental practice and running it profitably allows you the opportunity of reaching your goals much quicker than if you just guess your way through life.
Make a difference.
Put in the effort.
It is worth it.
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
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.
I heard a phone call from a dental practice this week where a woman phoned the practice to ask the following:
“My husband had his wisdom tooth out yesterday. We were just wondering when it was OK for him to start eating?”
As laughable as this situation is, this scenario is indicative of a chronic condition occurring in dental practices.
And that condition is this:
PATIENTS ARE LEAVING THE PRACTICE WITHOUT FULL UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT THEIR CLEAR NEXT STEP IS.
Is this happening in your practice?
So many times I hear of and see patients leaving dental practices not knowing the following:
Why they have to come back
What they are coming back for
How much their next visit will cost
What are the immediate issues of delaying or postponing their treatment
What their overall prognosis is
What their immediate treatment plan will involve and will cost
These issues are all due to a lack of clear and concise communication between dentist and patient, between dental office staff and patient, and between dentist and dental office staff.
Let’s look at the case above:
How did a patient having a wisdom tooth removed not leave the practice without being given written post-operative instructions?
These instructions should have been given to the patient in written form by either the dentist or the assisting dental assistant, and they should have been read through and discussed with the patient to ensure that the patient had a full and thorough comprehension of the treatment that they had received and the subsequent things the patient needed to do and not do over the next 24-72 hours.
Post treatment clarity is a non-negotiable dental office protocol.
It needs to be created and performed for each and every patient and for each and every visit.
Every patient needs to know their CLEAR. NEXT. STEP.TM
Ensuring that patients know this information at the time of their visit dramatically reduces the frustration the patient goes through trying to work out exactly what their next few steps need to be.
And it dramatically reduces the number of “information seeking” calls we receive in our dental office from these confused patients.
When a patient is made to feel confused they also feel belittled.
The act of confusing somebody either on purpose or by accident serves to diminish that person’s respect for the confuser and for the situation.
It is therefore important to strive for clarity and understanding all of the time.
Patients who are repeatedly made to feel confused or inferior because of their lack of understanding will soon leave your office and take their business elsewhere to someone who takes the time and creates that atmosphere of “mutual respect”.
Confused patients are more likely to give up and take their business elsewhere.
They will leave your practice and go and find a dentist who treats them like a human being.
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
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.
I talk to a lot of dentists and phone a lot of dental practices.
And if there’s one thing in common amongst these dental practices it is the fact that they operate with very few systems in place.
And those systems that they do have in place are not followed.
Most dental practices operate under the MUSAWGA Principle.
It’s a very common principle and it is a principle followed by a lot of dental practices.
Sadly, it’s a principle of business that leads nowhere.
Because it’s based on the concept of disorganisation and doing “Sweet Not Much at All.”
Sadly, that’s how a lot of businesses operate.
They wing it.
They wing their successes and they scramble to their failures and disappointments.
The MUSAWGA Principle is simple.
It’s the principle based on Making Up Stuff As We Go Along.
Which is a really DUMB THING to be doing.
McDonalds Corp would never allow it.
Imagine turning up at McDonalds and telling them that you won’t be following their systems because you know how to cook burgers YOUR WAY and that’s what you’re going to be doing.
You’re not going to follow their processes….
You have your own methodology, and your burgers taste just fine.
Would that work?
Not for long.
You’d be ceremoniously shown the door very very quickly, and be told to never come back.
Putting it simply: you can’t do that!!
But at a dental practice…. Heck…. New staff come to work at a dental practice and get given the reins and get told to “do what they seem fit” to try and get results.
And that’s mainly because the dental practice has no systems, no parameters, and no KPIs.
They just settle for what they get.
And the owners say:
“We seem to be going OK.”
But the owners have nothing to compare their dental practice to.
They just think that things at their dental practice “FEEL OK”
When in reality, “OK” is actually going nowhere.
And going nowhere very fast.
And five years down the track what we see is that that practice has dropped $250K per year because they have no systems, and all of a sudden the dentist is $1.25M lighter in his retirement fund because he felt he was doing “OK”
When his business was really doing “Sweet Not Much at All.”
Owning a Dental Practice Is A Gift:
Owning a dental practice is a gift that allows you as the owner to determine your own destiny, if you run that practice as a business.
Owning a successful dental practice gives you choices:
It lets you decide:
Where you want to live
Where your children go to school
Where you vacation
When you retire
Where you retire to
If you don’t want to run your practice as a business, then sell it and go and do dentistry for a government entity or a charity, where your charitable actions will make a difference.
But….
Don’t spend your time as a practice owner meandering through life without a plan, without systems, making stuff up as you go along and WISHING things would be better for you.
Because things don’t get better by wishing.
Things get better when you have good systems.
Systems do work.
And the correct systems work brilliantly in getting you to your end result quicker.
Have you ever watched a Formula 1 Motor Race?
The pit changes on an F1 Grand Prix race are systematised to maximise efficiency and results in as short a time as possible.
The pit changes are not made up as they go along.
F1 race results are more often determined by the speed of the pit crews, rather the skills of the F1 drivers.
One thing that F1 teams do not do is they do not let unskilled and untrained people into their pit crews…. It messes badly with the results and it messes with the “product” that the viewing consumer is receiving.
Are you letting unskilled and untrained people into your dental practice to mess with the results that your valuable clients, customers and patients are receiving?
Are your phones being answered PERFECTLY?
Are your customers and callers being spoken to courteously and politely, all of the time?
Are your visiting customers and patients being treated with courtesy and respect by every team member, each and every time they visit?
Are your team members motivated to achieve successful results for your business?
Or are they just plodding along, making stuff up, and breezing on by?
In life, in society, we expect and we see our police, and our armed forces and our uniformed members of society wearing their uniform as a badge of honour.
With pride.
Are all your team members wearing your uniform from your dental practice with that same honour?
If some are not, why are those people still on your team?
It’s your business.
It’s up to you to make all those systems work and work well.
And make all the people work well, too.
Now get out there and fix things…
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LIVE Workshop: Dr David Moffet and Jayne Bandy:
“How To Easily Run, Maintain And Grow The Ultimate Dental Practice In 2022 and Beyond”
If you’re sick and tired of drilling all day long, and not having anything close to what you deserve, to show for it… or if you’ve ever wondered, “What can successful dentists POSSIBLY know, that I don’t?”… then register for this LIVE workshop Thursday November 25, 2021 in Sydney, NSW.
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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