In the early days of the 1990s after purchasing my own practice in downtown Parramatta, the local dentists heard rumours that two health insurance companies were each about to set up multi-chair dental clinics in town.
And start treating patients. And become direct competitors of the dentists who had been treating their members.
It didn’t seem fair.
These dental insurance companies had by virtue of their membership programme been able to amass data on these patients already, because of the patients’ claim records, and it was obvious the companies were now going to use this data to establish their own dental clinics in a suitable location that would target these patients’ needs.
The local dentists were infuriated.
The local dentists believed this course of action to be unfair.
The local dentists believed that the insurance companies were going to take all their patients. These dentists believed that if the insurance companies weren’t stopped, then their private dental practices would go out of business.
A committee of these dentists was formed to lobby the government.
Members of this committee met with the State Minister for Health, who laughed at them when he was told that these insurers’ actions would result in the funds’ members receiving dental services at a lower cost than they currently were paying private dentists for those services.
The Minister didn’t seem too concerned that the dentists were going to possibly go out of business as a result of this new competition in their marketplace.
The committee didn’t know what to do.
Three members of that committee stood for and were elected to the NSW ADA, in an effort to get the ADA [Australian Dental Association] to champion their cause.
But the ADA was torn, because it also had members who were going to be employed dentists working for the insurers.
And so, as I said, two of these insurance clinics came to town…
Here’s what happened…
Two things happened.
Those local dentists who chose to compete on price with the insurance companies struggled to compete.
Because the insurance companies had the ability to market aggressively to their members about their dental clinics.
The insurance companies also had the ability, because of their size, to offer dental services at a lower price. It was an economy of scale thing…
But here’s what also happened…
One dental practice that was located one block away from these insurance clinics chose to differentiate itself by offering dental services to its patients wrapped up in an Ultimate Patient Experience.
Dentistry with Five Stars of Customer Service Excellence.
And that practice grew its turnover dramatically…
Because the owner of that practice realised that no matter what, there would always be a certain percentage of the population who would seek out quality, and an experience, rather than simply just “best price” for the dentistry they needed.
This dentist’s practice grew.
It TRIPLED its turnover in a six year period.
And then it DOUBLED its turnover again in the following five years.
And in the four years after that, this dental practice added another ONE MILLION DOLLARS to its turnover.
In a fifteen year period, this dental practice grew it’s turnover by $3Million, despite having these insurers operating on a less than level playing field, right around the corner.
The owner of this practice chose a lane, and he ran with it.
And his choice paid off.
It’s simple really….
This dentist set about building a practice to service the 20-25% of the population who choose quality and service and RELATIONSHIPS, rather than choose on price.
His practice was known for not being cheap.
But his practice was known for being worth it.
People who came to town and asked where they were should go to the dentist were told:
“You’ll pay a little more there, but IT’S WORTH IT….”
What actually happened….Â
The insurance companies actually did take patients away from all the local dentists… but they took that percentage of the population who use price as their primary driver when choosing their dentist.
And this dentist I mentioned above worked out that looking after those price conscious patients was a more stressful way of trying to survive compared to going the extra mile and offering a world class experience to all of his patients each and every time they attended his practice.
And the reason I know that this dentist was so successful, is because this dentist was me.
The lesson here is…
The lesson here is simple.
There will always be competitors who think they can take a piece of your action, by trying to duplicate what you do.
But in reality, all they will do, by undercutting you on price, is to take away those customers who can be quite painful to deal with.
Ultimately, if your clients and customers and patients have a relationship with your business based on the quality and the service that your business provides, you will always be successful.
There will always be competitors who come along and compete on price.
But they won’t be you…at best they’ll be a cardboard cut-out of you. Your customers choose you because you are you, and not some fly in blow hard out to make a quick buck.
In closing…
In closing, years ago there was a hairdresser who was concerned that a barber was setting up next door to him offering $5 haircuts, and that this was going to be the end of his hairdressing business… he couldn’t compete on price.
So here’s what he did in an attempt to survive…. he put a sign in his window, and business got better… a lot better!!
That sign said this:
“We fix five dollar haircuts”
When your business becomes known for the way it makes its customers feel special, rather than for having a low price… that’s when you’ve created a truly successful business.
Anything else is just a cardboard cut out…
*****
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.
I’m up in Sydney to further my dental education by attending the FDI World Dental Congress. It’s an annual global event held over four days and this year, 2023, it is being held in Sydney.
So I’m here. In Sydney.
Check in time at my hotel is 3:00pm, so I time my drive to Sydney perfectly so that I arrive at my hotel just a couple of minutes before 3:00pm.
When I enter the hotel lobby to check in, there is a separated check in area with six computers, but only three of those computers are being attended to by hotel staff.
Which means that three computers are not being used. Three out of six.
At the time that guests are told to arrive. One of the busiest times of the day…
There is a line of people waiting to check in to the hotel. There may be four or five people or groups ahead of me, and after I join the line, there appear to be some four or five additional people and groups join the line after me.
It’s busy.
During my wait, the number of people attending to guests wanting to check in drops from three to two, and then from two to one, and then rises to two, and then to three.
It felt as though I needed to wait some twenty five minutes before being attendee to, but eventually I was attended to, and my check in was completed without fuss, and I was on my way to my room. But I did wait for a very long time.
The staff processing the arriving guests were doing the best that they could….
But things could have been better…
But things could have been better.
For a start, the hotel could have employed or allocated more people to be processing check ins during the time that guests were being asked to arrive.
And if that didn’t work so well, the hotel could have organised more computers to be available to move arriving guests quickly from the hotel lobby and into the lifts and elevators and up to their rooms.
It really wasn’t a good look for the hotel to have their lobby full of frustrated arriving guests who just wanted to be acknowledged and processed and on their way.
And the process didn’t create any warm and fuzzy experiences for those waiting.
It’s the same in dental practices….
In dental practices, most patients want to arrive and not have to wait to check in. And at the completion of their visit, they all just want to settle their bill and organise their next appointment quickly, and then be on their way.
Nobody really wants to hang around for too long after treatment waiting to be attended to by a team of frustrated dental employees whose hands are tied by an inefficient check out protocol.
Years ago I was coaching a dental practice in the USA that had only recently renovated and relocated its whole practice into a purpose built facility…. the problem for them was, that this office had never thought to allow for the log jam that they had accidentally created at the front desk.
You see, this practice had six hygienists and two dentists working every day, but only had three front office team members available to process the eight departing clients along with the eight arriving patients, each and every hour.
The practice had created its own human logjam.
And there was no physical floorspace available for them to expand their reception area…
The only solution that this practice could offer was to install EFTPOS machines in each hygiene room and for the hygienists to become cashiers … definitely a less than ideal solution…. that frankly did not work for them because it dropped their post treatment Customer Experience to become a very haphazard and below average moment….
Definitely not the best solution by any means….
When people are paying good money for high ticket items, like hotel accommodation and dental services, they don’t expect to be waiting around like mustered cattle when it’s time for them to pay and to be cared for.
If this sort of thing is going on in your dental practice, it could be the “silent killer” that is causing patients to not come back to complete their treatment.
We’ve all been in lines at retail stores where only half the cash registers are manned, and we see customers who are obviously in a hurry just dump their goods and leave…
And maybe these customers will return and repurchase another day?
Or maybe they will never return, because this time for them is the last time they’re going to tolerate this waiting..
Who’s to know?
Except to know, that when we don’t make our patients have to wait to check out, then we’ve done our best and succeeded in making their visit to our office as comfortable as it should be….
*****
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.
In the fitness industry, there’s always people who want the superstar body, but they’re not willing to do the work necessary to get that superstar body.
It’s funny how that plan works?
Or doesn’t work?
How many people do you know or do you hear of who join a gym to get fit, but one month into their year-long membership, they’ve already stopped going to the gym and written off the membership as being at best “a good idea at the time” …
It’s said that most diets don’t work, but in reality, it’s the people beginning the dieting process that don’t stick to the diets that are the reason for the failure.
If somebody wants something so badly that they’re willing to do whatever it takes to achieve what they want, then they will achieve that result.
But if they quit working towards that result, and they simply hope things will change, well guess what?
Nothing is going to change.
Some people join a gym to get themselves in shape so they look good on their wedding day…and they do in fact succeed at doing this.
And then straight after their wedding, they quit the gym, and they go back to doing what they used to do before they wanted to get fit, and all that good work is undone and things are just as they were… or worse?
And what’s the point of that?
Larry Winget said that if you really wanted things to be better you’d already be there doing the things that you needed to be doing, and the reason that you haven’t done those things is because deep down, you’re actually happy with your lot as it actually is… no matter how miserable that lot may look to someone else.
The thing is that if success was easy, everyone would be successful and would have done all that it takes to create that success and maintain that success.
The trouble is that success only comes to those who do the work necessary.
You can’t wish for success.
You can only wish for the wisdom to become motivated to take the actions necessary to travel the road to success, and to stay on that road to success.
The good news is that in business, the road to success has been travelled before, and there are people available to show you that road, and to help you navigate that road without detour and distraction.
All that you need to do is choose when you want to begin that journey.
Once you have chosen the road and the starting date, all you need to do is do everything that it takes to stay on that road.
Failure only comes when people behave themselves off the pathway to success.
Success will always be a result of doing the work required and of sticking to the plan.
Success is a reward for discipline.
*****
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.
I’ve always been an advocate of being respectful of patients’ time when it comes to their appointment time made with you. [by “you” I mean the dental practitioner]
What I mean is that once the patient and you [and your dental practice] have agreed upon the appointment time for the patient to next visit, the only reason for the dental practice to be changing that appointment time is if the dentist and the patient have agreed because of urgency to bring that appointment forwards, if a change or availability arises in the practice schedule.
Other than that, there should be no reason for the practice to call that patient and move their appointment.
What I sometimes see is that practices do phone patients and try to reschedule their already made appointment if for some reason that appointment time is now “inconvenient” for the dentist/hygienist.
Sadly, these “inconveniences” can be simply that the patient’s appointment could be late in the day and there are no other patients wanting to come into the practice leading up to that appointment… in reality what is happening here is that the dentist and or the practice would rather move that patient’s appointment because the original arrangement doesn’t suit the dentist or the practice any more.
The dentist doesn’t want to be waiting around for the patient and be doing nothing…
The patient’s original appointment time has now become an inconvenience for the dentist and the practice.
In so rescheduling, what the practice is doing now is telling that patient that the patient’s original appointment is now very much an INCONVENIENCE, and the dentist and the practice would rather be doing something else than seeing this patient.
A person I know really well…
A person I know really well was getting some landscaping work organised at his home.
A concreter was booked to do a pour over a two day period, but because of one day of rain during the week leading up to the scheduled pour, the pour was delayed by the concreter and rescheduled for fourteen days later.
And then when the pour was performed, it was only half done, and then the concreter went on holidays for eight weeks, and so the second half of the pour was delayed even further.
This delay by the concreter then caused a knock on effect [of months] for other trades associated with the landscaping job.
When we change a patient’s appointment time…
When we change a patient’s appointment time for our reason rather than for theirs, we immediately send the patient a message that we don’t really value their time at all.
The number one reason why dental practice patients leave their `dentist and take their patronage elsewhere is because of apathy and perceived apathy shown towards them by the dentist and the dental office.
If we indeed do want our dental patients to show us respect, we firstly must show respect towards them.
Until we do show our patients this unconditional respect of their time, and maintain their chosen appointment times, we can’t really get upset with them if their behaviour towards us is simply a mirroring of our lack of respect by us, their dentist, for their time…
*****
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.
Recently I was talking to a close friend about a new acquaintance who had arrived in our village.
The close friend said that I had described the new acquaintance as a person who was “OK once you get to know him”.
Actually, this was not how I described the new acquaintance at all.
I feel that in the world there are different kinds of people and different kinds of relationships, associations, and friendships.
Ideally, I believe that relationships should be 50:50 on an equal basis.
There should be give, and there should be take, and there should be give and take.
All on an equal basis.
The relationship cannot survive or be expected to survive if it is lopsided, where one party gives more and the other party takes more.
Relationships that are a one-way transfer of giving are destined to fail.
There needs to be a trade-off, and balance, for a relationship to survive.
In business, there are one-sided relationships, where the imbalance between giving and taking is restored financially.
If a business gives to another business that only takes, then that other [taking] business does have the opportunity to balance up that physical transaction with money.
Finally, there are eunuch relationships, where one party does not give, but it also does not receive. In fact, the eunuch even goes out of its way to be amorphous, be even going so far as to reject gifts from the other party.
You wonder what this eunuch actually wants, but what they do covet is the perception of popularity by association, although they bring nothing to that association except presence, or more specifically, appearance.
Finally, there are some people who are mavens. These are the nicest types of people to associate with.
Mavens are always working on bringing value to relationships.
They do so unconditionally and with no expectation of reward or return of favour.
in fact, they are such giving people, their kindness is startling.
If you are friends with a maven, what you must do is praise them and always thank them for their efforts. Surprisingly, they often shy away from recognition for their efforts.
Getting back to “old mate” ….
The best relationships are 50:50.
Equal give.
Equal take.
Equal give and take.
That’s what works best in business and in life.
Be wary of relationships, friendships, and associations that are unbalanced.
Stay away from investing time in one-sided associations and relationships. They are not worth the effort, and will always end with tears…
*****
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.
You can order your copy here:Â 
