How does a dental practice move from being a chaotic rabble to become a business run by a powerful team using a seamless sequence of World-Class methodologies?
The processes that a successful dental practice needs to go through to become a POWERFUL TEAM operating under a well-planned sequence of necessary logical processes is one that every dental practice must engage in to ensure that it functions smoothly and with minimal stress.
Otherwise, true success will not happen.
Hoping that true success will happen is just plain fantasy.
But rest assured. Creating a functional powerful team of employees in your organisation is a logical process.
And we do know that every dental practice has the opportunity of creating its own blueprints and frameworks for its success.
We have already discussed that the establishment of a community’s respect towards their dentist can be affected in a number of both positive and negative ways.
Building your business processes on a well thought out framework of WORLD-CLASS METHODOLOGIES will allow your dental practice to function with smoother flow and significantly less stress and this certainly goes a long way towards building that respect from your community.
Relationships.
Of paramount importance in building a successful business is the creation of long-lasting relationships built on trust and respect between the business and its customers, between the business and its team members and between each of the team members working within that business.
It’s all about knowing that there’s always someone who has “got your back” and is working with you and has your best interests at heart, always.
These intertwining and interconnected trusted relationships that are created between the team members, the business, and the customers, are really what goes into determining whether or not a business can truly unleash its maximum potential, or not.
Those businesses that struggle…
Businesses that struggle usually do so because they operate in chaos and have little or no organisational framework.
These poorly organised businesses usually operate with high stress levels and have very disjointed processes.
These businesses usually operate with staff and owners being worried as to whether the business will survive, and this worry is often conveyed [by perception] to customers and clients and patients.
All the relationships are built on tension and stress.
Average businesses… [the hopeful]…
Average businesses, as we know, have a small degree of organisation that allows them to get by because they create an illusion of structure, but the relationships inside of an average business are just as stressful as those in a struggling business.
The business and the staff are working harder, and with longer hours, trying to make ends meet and to have the “occasional” win.
The businesses are still operated with high stress because any occasional wins are used to reduce overhead and are rarely celebrated or shared.
These businesses only get by because they have to.
Average businesses are not building powerful relationships and are still working with HOPE as their primary driver.
Good, competent businesses…
Good, competent businesses do operate with some form of framework.
They feel that what they have in place is good enough, and the relationships within the business, and with the customers, are ok.
They understand that their methodologies are far from complete, but they believe that the relationships within their business are adequate for what they are trying to achieve in their business.
Great businesses… [that are sought after]…
Lastly, the sought after well-respected great dental practices in their communities are where they are because they operate on a COMPLETE framework of WORLD-CLASS METHODOLOGIES that covers everything that can occur in a dental office. And the team are so empowered, and their relationships with each other and with their customers are so strong and so trusted that at any point in time anyone in that team can seamlessly swing into a systematic response that always has the customer in awe of the business’s stress free solutions.
A great business that has the framework of WORLD-CLASS METHODOLOGIES operated by a truly empowered team does not happen by accident.
The well-respected dental practices in your community have established their position of standing in your community due to a number of reasons, and having rock-solid relationships of trust is a very important one of those reasons.
So with that in mind, may I ask you a question…
On a scale from one to ten, how well do you believe that your dental office has ROCK-SOLID AND TRUSTING RELATIONSHIPS, and has team members operating under a supportive framework that consistently produces only the best experiences for each of your patients, every time they visit your practice?
On the scale, a score of one is that you don’t believe your team relationships are up to standard, and a score of ten is a place where you and your team believe unconditionally that there is no other dental practice in your community that operates with such strong relationships as your practice does?
Where do you believe that your dental practice is on that scale from one to ten?
Our unique team building program, Building Ultimate Team Excellence, helps our clients create a World-Class Culture of respect and rock-solid relationships between all team members within their organisation.
Internal respect of team members within your organisation is maintained and grown by your team’s consistent world-class actions.
Building rock-solid team relationships based on respect is the second accelerator we apply to the lever that helps create a powerful team seamlessly using world-class methodologies and to operate more smoothly in a lower stress environment, helping your dental business on its way to unleashing its maximum potential.
*****
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 April 28, 2022 in Brisbane QLD
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.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine [not a dentist] received a phone call from the dental practice he goes to about his upcoming hygiene visit.
The call was made six days before my friend’s scheduled visit.
And this upcoming hygiene visit had been booked and locked in some six months ago.
The phone call went something like this:
“Hi Bob. It’s Rachel from Westwood Dental. I’m calling about your hygiene visit next week.”
“Your hygienist is on maternity leave, and we haven’t been able to replace her, so we need to reschedule your appointment.”
“At this stage, we’re booking you in six more months down the track when we know that she will be back.”
“We haven’t been able to find a replacement for her.”
“But if do, and anything comes available before that next appointment, we will phone you and get you in sooner, is that OK?”
We live in interesting times…
At present, in Australia, the employment climate out there is so “up in the air”.
Because of COVID, the Australian employment market has literally been turned on its head, figuratively speaking.
COVID has meant no incoming tourists to Australia, many of whom would have been here on working holidays, and the flow on from this has been that there are less people around to fill all of the jobs out there, so there definitely is a manpower shortage in the labour market.
And that effect has flowed on to a variety of sectors. Hospitality. Service. Travel. Accommodation. Food and beverage….. the list goes on…
And now it seems dental…. as well…
And now it seems the manpower shortage is affecting dental practices.
There are not enough staff out there looking for work to fill all of the available positions vacant within the dental industry.
Does this create a conundrum for Bob?
Bob values his regular hygiene visits. He knows their importance and he knows their value.
Both to his oral health. And his systemic health.
As Bob’s friend, I’ve beaten the hygiene message indelibly into Bob’s thick skull.
“It’s not JUST A CLEAN, Bob. It’s so much more…”
It took me a long time to educate Bob that his hygiene visit was not a “clipping”… it was a necessary regular treatment that the absence of, or delay thereof, would have an immediate effect on his long-term oral health, and also an effect on his systemic well-being as well.
But Bob’s gripe was this:
Whenever Bob has a hygiene visit coming up, his dental office calls well in advance to make sure that Bob is coming, and that he hasn’t decided to delay, or cancel his appointment.
And the dental practice calls Bob often.
And Bob gets it….
After all, when he has a hygiene visit scheduled, it’s just plain rude to have that appointment booked for 180 days prior, just to then go and reschedule or cancel it at the eleventh hour, just because something better came up.
It’s called commitment.
And it’s about reliability.
And so when the boot is on the other foot, the seaming “disregard” shown to Bob by failing to give him a heads-up about the impending hygiene visit possibly [or probably] needing to be rescheduled, has made Bob a little bit antsy.
As we tell our coaching clients…
If you were cooking a special dinner for a couple of friends you know well, and you had the roast in the oven and the vegetables basting, and those friends phoned you up late and said that they weren’t coming, would you be upset?
Would you tolerate that behaviour, from friends?
And would you ask if everything was OK?
Would you want to know a legitimate reason?
…and after all that, what would you do with all that extra cooked food?
The thing is, if you wouldn’t expect or tolerate a last minute “standing up” from a good friend, why should you as a dental practice accept and tolerate that sort of behaviour from a patient?
And if you were a dental practice that didn’t appreciate patients cancelling appointments at the eleventh hour, how do you think your loyal patients should feel if you, their dental practice, starts cancelling and rescheduling them, especially for appointments that they [the patient] have held [and worked their personal schedule around], for a long period of time?
Is this a case of “Do as I say” and ignore what I do?
Golfers are people too…
Years ago, a golfer friend of mine Greg phoned me and asked if I could nominate him to join my golf club.
Greg was a member of another golf club that had a lot of members…. So many members that it was difficult for Greg to get a game scheduled each week on the Saturday morning time sheet.
So Greg used to just turn up early at his golf club every Saturday morning and wait for the inevitable last minute cancellation, sleep in, or no-show, and jump straight in to play in that vacant spot…
Until…
…one Saturday Greg turned up, and the club professional asked Greg whether he had put his name down on the “official” standby list for Saturday cancellations.
Greg politely told his golf club to “go jump”.
And resigned his membership.
Golfers are people too.
There is only so much “being taken for granted” that people will tolerate
There is only so much “being taken for granted” that people will tolerate, as customers, and members, and patients, before they take their patronage elsewhere…
As providers of a service, dental practices need to be mindful that the behaviours that they [the practice] exhibit, will be mirrored and reflected by their customers and patients, as being equally acceptable behaviours.
When in fact, these behaviours may not really be behaviours that the practice is desiring of their patients.
Food for thought?
*****
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 April 28, 2022 in Brisbane QLD
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.
For a dental practice [or any business for that matter] to truly unleash and realise its MAXIMUM POTENTIAL it must strive to operate with processes that flow smoothly for each customer every time, creating a stress-free environment for them to do business with you.
A business that is a pleasure to do business with, where the processes for each customer’s visit, interactions, and transactions are SEAMLESS and flow smoothly and are without stress is indeed a business that consumers will seek out.
Businesses with these qualities don’t just happen by magic.
They are built on a CLEAR AND CONCISE SERVICE VISION that embodies the very world-class essence that the business is trying to create.
The essence of any business that wants to truly be the best it can be must be built on a sound foundation of Customer Service Principles and Actions, and WORLD-CLASS METHODOLOGIES.
When James McManemon, General Manager of The Ritz-Carlton was asked:
“If you were starting a new business, any business, and wanted to make customer service your value proposition, what would you do first?”
He replied:
“The first thing I would do is create the Service Vision for the Company. Be crystal clear with what the company’s vision is, and be able to articulate that extremely well. Then I would hire talent based on that same belief, only adding employees that share those service values, and finally create the processes and training to achieve that Service Vision.”
What McManemon is talking about here is the establishment and the fostering of a superior INTERNAL CULTURE. He’s talking about team members all working together with the same beliefs and mindsets and VISIONS, using methodologies that are indeed truly WORLD-CLASS that totally eliminate chaos, allowing every member of that team to function smoothly and seamlessly and as one, as a truly empowered team.
Successful businesses achieve their success by focussing all of the processes in their business and all customer interactions on logical sequences of WORLD-CLASS METHODOLOGIES delivered seamlessly and systematically without fuss or fanfare in a stress-free environment.
Being able to create and maintain that INTERNAL CULTURE of a powerful team using logical systems based on that well thought out sequence of WORLD-CLASS METHODOLGIES is one of the defining actions that sets your dental practice apart from all of your competitors.
Your existing patients and your new patients will greatly appreciate the thought and care that has gone into the creation of these sequences of methodologies all delivered by a powerful team with a very strong and precise internal culture and belief.
Taking a dental office from being a business that operates in chaos, and that appears to makes things up as it goes along to being a well-structured and well-organised entity following LOGICAL SYSTEMS, will truly have your practice enjoying smoother flow and less stress during each work day.
With time this allows you to unleash the true maximum potential of the business that you have created.
As I’ve said before, for your dental practice to truly achieve well-earned respect within your community, every person working in your entire organisation must certainly believe that your dental practice is THE ONLY DENTAL PRACTICE in your city that is so highly empowered by its internal culture as to ALWAYS work with their patients for the one hundred percent best outcomes for those patients.
The well-respected dental practices in your community have established their position of standing because of their powerful team, their rock-solid internal culture and the World-Class Methodologies they seamlessly deliver, and deliver, and deliver, due to a number of complex reasons.
*****
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 April 28, 2022 in Brisbane QLD
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.
Does your dental practice sometimes have people phone hoping to come in using an “Offer” that may have expired?
An “old” offer that your practice had out there in the marketplace as an enticement for new patients to come and see your dentist and become patients of your practice?
Has that ever happened?
Have you received a new patient enquiry where the caller wants to redeem an offer that has since passed, or expired?
It may be an offer that the caller saw, but has failed to take action on before the “end date”?
Or it may actually be an offer that has expired that for some reason or other is still running “live” on social media channels, because someone hasn’t realised that the advert needed to be taken down.
What does your office do in this situation?
It is awkward….
It’s like a “Did someone say KFC?” type of moment.
I’ve seen some interesting responses in this type of situation.
Some of those responses are really quite illogical.
“That offer is no longer valid!”
This first response from your office is more like a “How dare you ask!” sort of retort… kind of like “You know that this has expired. You should have come in earlier!”
This sort of response belittles a new patient calling before they have even met the dentist and is a behaviour that has no logical explanation, except that the person uttering these words could be some frustrated teachers college dropout who likes to boss people around.
There’s a fair chance that a caller hearing this response won’t turn up for any appointment they might make, and there’s also a good chance they will be so upset at how they were spoken to that they won’t even bother to phone and cancel…
And there’s a good chance they’ll tell a few friends about what was said to them…
And you could hardly blame them.
2- “I’ll just have to check whether we will still honour that offer…. You are aware that it has expired”
This line is a very close second to the first line [used above] when we look at them side by side on the insult-ranking scale.
Again, the use of this line and it’s tone, reeks of unjustified arrogance.
“How dare you even ask?”
The use of the words “still honour” imply that the offer is a PRIVILEGE and that the caller needs to beg for the offer in the way that the accused at the colosseum used to beg for forgiveness from the Roman Emperor.
3- “That offer has expired…. But I’ll let you use it this one time.”
Again, how privileged is the caller meant to feel about being allowed this one act of grace?
When should the caller bend down and kiss the receptionist’s foot?
It really is another unnecessary powerplay that should never be uttered.
4- “That will be fine. I’m glad you’ve called us, and that you have this offer…”
This should be the first and only response each and every time that a caller asks for an expired “New Patient Offer”.
After all, what is the New Patient Offer all about?
Why has our practice advertised a New Patient Offer in the first place?
Why has our practice advertised a New Patient Offer in the first place?
Question:Why has our practice advertised a New Patient Offer?
Answer: Because our practice wants more new patients.
Question:How many new patients does our practice want?
Answer: [Probably] As many as they can get.
Every dentist worth his salt will know the Average New Patient Dollar Value in their practice.
And every dentist worth his salt will also know the cost of acquisition of a New Patient depending on which marketing medium has been used.
And so when we know that the New Patient acquired is worth considerably more than the cost of acquiring that new patient, then it makes sense that continuing the acquisition processes that are working is indeed a very logical thing to do.
Scolding a caller, or speaking to a caller with a “higher than thou” attitude is just so, so wrong.
And that’s why you need to have your phone calls recorded.
This sort of thing goes on all the time and goes on undetected most of the time, because dentists don’t believe that it would ever happen on their phones…
Well guess what?
No matter how well you think your phones are being answered, or how poorly you think your phones are being answered….
It’s always worse.
Always.
The aim of every incoming phone call:
The aim of every incoming phone call is to solve the caller’s problem, and to have that caller hang up feeling so happy that they have called our office, feeling so pleased they have spoken to our wonderfully helpful receptionist, and that they are so looking forward to their appointment.
So much so, that they hope our receptionist will phone them and bring their appointment forwards if the opportunity arises.
This should be the goal of every new patient enquiry phone call.
Nothing less should be acceptable.
*****
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 April 28, 2022 in Brisbane QLD
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.
One of the key factors or accelerators for your business to unleash its maximum potential is for your organisation to be known for being ZERO RISK to do business with.
ZERO RISK is an ideology that your business lives by that if ever anything could possibly go wrong or array during a customer’s visit to your business, that the customer can rest assured that this error will be rectified, as quickly as possible, no matter what it takes for your business to make this happen.
And that’s the point:
Although your customer may be disappointed with how your business has failed to meet their expectation, they will be in AWE at the way your business SEAMLESSLY swings into its SERVICE RECOVERY MODE to make things right for the customer, no matter what.
And so a business that operates like a well-oiled machine will have a complex blueprint of logical systems and processes that cover exactly what needs to be done, whenever, during every step or stage of the customer’s visit to that business, as well as covering exactly what needs to be done TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT whenever anything sometimes does not go exactly to plan.
And a great business will know what each of those possible service defects are….
A well-oiled machine following logical processes will always operate more smoothly than a business that flies by the seat of its pants with only a few and sometimes no processes at all.
Having all of the logical systems in place to be ready to swing into Service Recovery Mode without having to “check with the boss” when something needs to be MADE RIGHT quickly and immediately helps that business to be known for being ZERO RISK to do business with.
And ultimately that helps the business to maintain its “goodwill” in the community, and helps the business to keep operating profitably at a successful level.
As hard as a business tries to be error proof, there will occasionally be errors.
And knowing what each of those errors are and can be, and knowing how to rectify each one of those errors quickly and surely, and WITHOUT BLAME, is what sets the truly World Class and Five Star businesses apart from the rest of the pack.
Good customers understand that errors and defects can happen from time to time.
The best customers will understand and appreciate a great business’s efforts to seamlessly rectify any service defects quickly and efficiently.
World Class businesses will have thoroughly analysed each and every stage of their customer’s journey through their practice, and will be ofay with all and everything that could possibly go array, and will be alert to the need to enact any necessary Service Recovery Processes should those needs arise.
This is because these businesses have established complex blueprints of clear and logical systems and processes for their day-to-day operations, for when things go right, and for whenever any small thing could possibly go wrong.
So with that in mind, may I ask you a question…
On a scale from one to ten, how well do you believe that your dental practice is known for being ZERO RISK to do business with in your community, where if something does not go to plan and fails to live up to your patient’s expectations, your practice will go to ABOVE AND BEYOND levels to make things right for the customer, no matter what?
On this scale, a score of one is where you don’t believe your practice has any form of logical systematised SERVICE RECOVERY, and a score of ten is a position where you and your team believe unconditionally that no matter what can happen in your dental practice, there is always a ZERO RISK PROCESS that can seamlessly swing into place to make things right for the patient, no matter what.
Where do you believe that your dental practice is on that scale from one to ten?
Our signature program, The Ultimate Patient Experience, helps our clients create and deliver the necessary processes to create all of the logical Service Recovery systems they need for their practice that helps each of our clients to improve how smoothly their practices are able to operate.
A dental practice that operates as smoothly as a well-oiled machine does so because of its logical systems and Service Recovery processes that it is able to deliver consistently.
And those systems and standards determine the strength of the dental practice’s BLUEPRINT.
Creating that complete list of Zero Risk Service Recovery systems in your practice is the third accelerator we apply to the lever that transforms your dental office into that well-oiled machine, helping your dental business on its way to unleashing its maximum potential.
*****
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 April 28, 2022 in Brisbane QLD
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.
You can order your copy here: 
You can order your copy here: 
