Last weekend I attended the annual convention of the Professional Speakers Association of Australia.
One of the key takeaways from the meeting was this statement from legend Keith Abrahams, who said:
“The reason most people don’t use you more is because you stopped staying in touch with them.”
Isn’t that the truth.
In my dental practice many years ago, I had my team do some reactivation phoning.
Reactivation is the process of phoning patients who have not been in for a while and who are overdue for an appointment to complete diagnosed treatment, or are overdue for a dental hygiene and examination appointment.
For some reason or other, these patients have been allowed to cancel an appointment they were booked for without booking another appointment, or they may have been allowed to leave our office after treatment without securing their next appointment.
And because dental pathology does not fix itself, these patients now become a walking time-bomb of treatment uncompleted that needs to be completed.
Anyway, on this day in my office, one of my team members relayed to me the comments from a long-term patient named Molly. For some reason, Molly and her husband Ken, who were regular attendees at my practice, were overdue for their hygiene visits.
When Molly was contacted about scheduling a time to see our hygienist, she informed my receptionist:
“We’ve decide to go somewhere else. We hadn’t heard from Dr Moffet in a while, and we thought that he didn’t care about us any more….”
OUCH!!
This comment from Molly hurt.
Because our practice had not been in touch with Molly for a while about her and Ken being overdue for their hygiene visits, she believed that our practice had been taking her and her husband for granted.
This definitely was not the reality. However it was Molly and Ken’s reality.
And now it had become our practice’s reality.
In your dental practice…
In your dental practice, are you staying in touch with all of your patients about their dental needs and requirements?
Or is your apathy towards patients with outstanding treatment not being booked sending those patients a message that you aren’t interested in helping them any more?
At your dental practice, it’s definitely safer to stay in touch with those patients who don’t have an appointment with you, until THEY TELL YOU that they don’t want to hear from you any more.
And if that’s the case, always ask those patients if they would like their records sent to another practice. As a health care professional, it is your duty to ensure that your patients do get their treatment completed, even if they decide that they are not coming back to your office.
What you will find, by regularly staying in touch with patients who do not have appointments scheduled with you, is that a lot of those patients actually will be grateful for the follow up, and will schedule a time to resume their dental care with you.
Staying in touch regularly with your unscheduled patients [and your scheduled patients as well] will always be a WIN-WIN for your dental office and for your patients.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
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.
Although I had a long list of optional tasks to do, I had one very urgent task that just had to be done yesterday and everything else needed to wait.
And it was done. Thankfully.
Sometimes though, we are made to feel guilty for being focused and not “sharing our attention around”.
Sadly, sometimes you need to be strong and just do what needs to be done.
Yesterday was one of those days for me.
What I had to do yesterday was not something that I could have done sooner. It was an important task that I was unable to complete any sooner due to mechanical equipment failures that were totally out of my control.
You see, when I had previously decided to complete this task, my Apple MacBook suffered a hardware failure that resulted in it having to be sent off for repair.
And that repair was not completed in the time frame that Apple had promised.
And so I found myself Mac-less.
What I had to do..
What I had to do then was to buy an alternate MacBook to use while my MacBook was in for repair.
Fortunately, I was able to download the information that I had saved to a backup drive, and to the Cloud, and was able to complete what I needed to do.
Apple failed me big time…
When I took my MacBook to the store on Tuesday 14th, to have its dysfunctional trackpad replaced, the employee who took my MacBook told me that the quickest way for me to get my MacBook serviced and back to me was for the store to keep it, and for the store to send my MacBook to the repair depot, and for the repair depot to then ship my MacBook directly back to me.
The store employee told me that the store would ship my MacBook to the repair depot on that afternoon [I dropped it off Tuesday morning 14th] and that it would be back at my home on the Friday 17th.
When I checked the lodgement email I received from Apple, it stated that the MacBook would be back at my home on the Monday 20th.
I phoned Apple service on the morning of Friday 17th. I was horrified to be told that my MacBook was in transit and had still not arrived at the service depot.
I received an email on the Friday afternoon 17th after 5pm to let me know that the MacBook had finally arrived.
When I phoned Apple Support on Monday 20th, the MacBook still had not been looked at.
In fact, by close of business on Tuesday 21st my MacBook was still being repaired.
Sadly, I had to leave for Melbourne early on Wednesday 22nd and my MacBook was not fixed. Nor was it available.
And I needed the MacBook to write and prepare a presentation that I needed to give in Melbourne on Sunday 26th.
And so that’s what I had to do today… in my hotel room. I had to write and learn that presentation.
In very limited time.
At no time did anyone from Apple take ownership of their lie.
The apple employee who took my MacBook lied to me about timeframes.
My MacBook was not transported to the repair depot in the timeframe I was told.
In fact, it appeared to me that my MacBook probably did not get shipped to the service depot until Friday afternoon 17th.
The smokescreens and cover ups that I experienced in this encounter were disgusting.
There was no explanation.
There was no apology.
And there was no urgency in their service recovery processes.
In your business..
In your business, do you just treat your customers with disrespect that reeks of taking them for granted?
Apart from Andrew in Apple support, who took a personal interest in my predicament, everything I heard that was coming from and was happening at the store, and at the service depot, was simply underwhelming.
And unprofessional.
I cannot praise Apple here.
The store, and the depot, behaved with arrogance.
I cannot recommend them.
I will never recommend Apple for service.
Ever.
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
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.
Some people I know really well recently had the opportunity of staying away from home for a night at a luxury hotel.
The couple very much enjoyed their stay. The hotel was well located, with great rooms, a great restaurant and great facilities. It was well known for its intimacy for guests.
The hotel rooms were well appointed and the rooms all commanded spectacular views.
The hotel employees were all very friendly, and treated each other and guests professionally and were courteous and polite with their guests. All interactions were warm and personable.
The only “fault” that my friends discovered was what I would call a great example of a BROKEN WINDOW.
A broken window would be defined as a glaring oversight that would be seen by someone visiting that business that would have that person remark to themselves:
“I wonder why nobody here is attending to that?”
An example of a broken window in a dental practice would be:
Crooked pictures or degree certificates hanging on the walls
Glass doors and windows that need dirt and fingerprints cleaned off them
Magazines that are worn and dog-eared that need retiring from use.
Shelves that need dusting
Carpets and flooring that needs vacuuming or sweeping
Desks and surfaces that need decluttering and tidying
Scuff marks on floors and skirting boards that need cleaning
Lawns and gardens that need attending and manicuring.
Building entrances that need sweeping and tidying
Bathrooms that need cleaning and updating
The list goes on…
At this hotel, my friend noticed one of the most common BROKEN WINDOWS that is overlooked by all kinds of businesses.
When seen and noticed by the public, this broken window immediately has visitors who spot it wondering:
“I wonder what else they’re not cleaning here?”
And that broken window my friend noticed was an air conditioning return grill layered in thick dust.
Other times businesses have air conditioning outlets that need dark marks to be cleaned off their louvres and grills.
Anywhere where dust can be seen to be accumulating because of lack of cleaning, will have visitors and guests and patrons of that business wondering what other levels of hygiene and cleanliness are not being attended to by this business.
And if this business happens to be in the food preparation business, or the medical services business, or the cleaning business for instance, patrons who notice this lack of attention to cleanliness detail will also be wondering what else is this business failing to see properly.
In your dental practice, the lack of cleanliness in your client lounge, your entrance way, and on your air conditioning grills could be acting as GAME CHANGER when new patients, and existing patients, are failing to schedule ongoing appointments.
And the dental team, and the dentist believe that the patient was probably a price conscious shopper.
When in fact all they wanted was a clean dental office to be treated in.
And price was never a deciding variable.
Attention to detail was a deciding variable.
In our coaching of The Ultimate Patient Experience, we spend a lot of time during Building Blocks II and III helping dental practices realise that there is so much opportunity lost by the practice before the patient has ever even sat down in the dental chair, and that if a BROKEN WINDOW is missed in these two building blocks, well that patient will be gone for ever, never to return…. and they’ve made that decision before they’ve even met the dentist….
And the dental team, and the dentist believe that the patient that fails to rebook was probably a price conscious shopper?
Sadly, no….
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
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.
It costs more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing customer….
Yet when I talk to dentists about how slow business is at their practice, they all bleat out the same monologue…
“I just need more new patients.”
Often when I see a practice…
Often when I see a practice, the practice has a healthy number of new patients booking in each month. But at the rear end of the practice, that same practice has a continual number of patients leaving the practice without an appointment, or has patients calling back later to cancel, but not to reschedule appointments for necessary diagnosed treatment.
Which kind of seems quite dumb really.
Why would a practice not nurture their existing patient base until those valued customers were ready to bring their teeth and gums treatment up to date… rather these practices seem to be ignoring those loyal patients and start chasing down new patients to join the dental practice?
To me that doesn’t make good business sense.
The existing patients already love and respect you for all that you do for them. So much so, that an existing patient is more likely to accept their treatment and get the work done, when compared to a new patient, who has yet to establish true trust and rapport with their new dentist…
Building a dental practice with a large base of loyal patients who stayed, and paid, and referred was my goal in dental practice ownership.
It just made no sense to be paying for advertising and marketing to bring in new patients, only to see those patients leave through holes in our customer service systems that could easily be addressed.
Choosing a dentist is an emotional decision for the public to make.
Giving all patients an exceptional experience at your dental practice will go a long way towards helping those patients stay with you.
When the dental treatment you provide to your patients is bland, and vanilla, those patients will eventually tire of your dental practice and look elsewhere for a better experience.
Providing an exceptional experience to your patients goes a long way towards differentiating your dental practice from being just a commodity.
Patients want to feel respected and valued, and understood.
And helping them to feel that way is a lot less expensive than having to spend more money on marketing and advertising…
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
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.
Jayne and I celebrated her birthday this past weekend with our usual Saturday lunch out at our favourite Sydney restaurant.
When we lived in Sydney we used to make a day of it and have a driver take us to lunch and then bring us home, so that we could relax and enjoy the food and the wine we were being served.
Since we’ve moved out of Sydney, we still travel to the same restaurant, but we overnight it at a Sydney hotel to make sure that we get to the restaurant on time and we have no difficulties after our lunch.
On this weekend just gone, I wasn’t able to secure a room where we usually stay. The hotel was fully booked.
So I booked another hotel nearby, where we had stayed before several times.
The hotel that I booked this time is a larger hotel at the luxury end of the market.
Here are some interesting observations:
When it was time for us to leave the hotel after our stay, I phoned the concierge to organise to have our car brought up from valet parking. As we were travelling home, we had no deadline, so time was not an important factor.
Sadly, when I phoned internally to concierge, it seemed to me that my call had been directed to a service for incoming calls from outside the hotel. This is because my call went through to an on-hold service with a recorded message specifically addressing a caller who may not as yet ever stayed at this hotel.
I felt as though I was listening to this message for a very long time, as the loop repeated itself twice before my call was eventually answered.
When my call was answered, the young lady answering the phone sounded very exhausted, as if she had been answering the phones continuously for a very long period of time.
I felt so sorry for her.
I politely told her that I was checking out from the hotel, and I asked if she could organise for my car to be brought up from Valet parking.
The young lady very politely replied that she would do that for me. Her voice sounded so tired.
I thought to myself that this hotel obviously needed to have more people answering the internal phone calls during this busy time, so that hotel guests felt valued, and felt important.
The long delay that occurred before my call was answered sadly sent me a negative signal that my business with this hotel was not valued.
Secondly, in another unrelated observation, Jayne and I both remarked that for a luxury hotel, the toilet tissue provided was very thin and not of a luxury standard that you would expect from a luxury hotel.
You would assume that all hotel guests would be using the hotel room toilets, and therefore you would think that making that “visit” for the hotel guest as good as “visiting” at home or better? How difficult would it be for this hotel to lux up the toilet paper to a thick and very soft and comfortable ply? Wouldn’t that be an easy win in for the hotel to WOW their customers on their stay?
I’m not sure who decided that cheaper toilet tissue was OK for this hotel, but certainly, every guest would notice the lack of quality…
In your dental practice:
When the phone rings at your dental practice, are your phones being answered promptly?
When a caller phones your dental practice, you want that caller to believe that the person answering the phone has been looking forward to that caller’s call all day.
And when that caller phones, they need to be made to feel like the most important person on the planet.
Secondly, at your dental office, are you using top quality personal products to exude a level of luxury and excellence in your establishment?
Are your tissues of a fine standard that feel comfortable against your patients’ skins?
Are your dental bibs eight ply and large so that the patient feels protected by them, as well as feeling impressed by their thickness?
And are your soaps and personal care products of a high class standard?
Are your magazines and reading material in your client lounge of a high standard?
If you use “cheap” you will attract more “cheap”, and you will have patients who want more and expect more from you go looking elsewhere for the “more” that you’re not giving, that you could easily be giving.
The thing is, that working in a more luxurious pool is much more pleasant than working in a less luxurious pool.
Believe me, because I was able to do this.
I was able to build a dental practice for patients who wanted and expected more, in terms of service, and who were very grateful for the levels of service I was able to provide them.
Working with those patients was such a pleasure…
*****
Need your phones monitored?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
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.
