Dental Support Specialties

1) You have less than stellar, grand, charming, warm, friendly, charismatic, smiling, energetic, enthusiastic, go-getting, appreciative, gracious and aware front desk representation.  I called an office in New York a few weeks back to be greeted with a cold, clipped, nasty “Dental Office”. Really, that is all the lady said. If you have someone without at least some of these qualities being the face/representative of your practice, answering your phones and greeting your patients this might be clue #1 on the empty chair syndrome.  Lets face it, all of your team needs to step up in this area because it is the ONLY thing that separates you from the practice down the street. Your customer service. Do patients feel better walking out of your practice than they did walking in? Do they hang up after calling with a smile? These things MATTER!

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When I was in the banking industry, we were forced to watch hours upon hours of Cohen Brown motivational tapes. While we did get many a chuckle from his hair and brightly colored ensembles, something must have sunk in to stay because my BFF Deb and I often bring up certain things that we learned, and obviously liked.

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How does your patient care and service stack up? Is it ok? Is it good? Is it GREAT? From answering the phones, to greeting and seating the patients, to checkout and everything in between – Is your care GREAT? If you can’t answer with an enthusiastic YES, then what you are providing just isn’t good enough. “The moment you settle for less than you deserve, is the moment you get less than what you settled for” If you are settling for GOOD, you are missing out on what GREAT could be. Every contact – phone, email, text, in person – has a direct influence on whether or not we will see that patient again. Every. Single. One.

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Answering the practice phone, just to say you answered the phone is completely pointless unless you are DOING something with those answered calls.

We all know the importance of answering your practice phones. Minimum of 45 hours a week. During the WHOLE day. Every working day of the year, regardless if you are on vacation or not. Why would you stop working the opportunity that keeps knocking on your practice door every day even if you are on vacation? You CAN go on vacation and still reap the benefits of answering the phones and working the schedule.

Even on your “regular” days off of the week, you might be thinking, “Well our patients know we are closed”. Here’s some cold hard stats for you – Last month we scheduled over $277,000 in production for our clients, during regular, normal business hours including “regular” days off of the week. Want to know how we did that? If our clients phones aren’t ringing IN, we are making them ring OUT to work the schedule!

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Said the busy mom, calling on her lunch hour to schedule her children’s next cleaning appointments, only to receive a long winded VM at the dental practice, not only detailing their business hours of every second/every day but advising that said busy mom chose to call during THEIR lunch hour and to call back in 1 1/2 hours for assistance.  Mom LM asking for a return call. Mom never received callback. She gave them a week. Still heard nothing. Mom called a different practice and scheduled appointments for her whole family of 5.  (Missed NP production of over $1250)

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Notes. You can never have too many. You can always have not enough (and most do). Having consistent detailed notes attached to every patient, every appointment, every treatment plan, every broken appointment, every family file and every insurance description will not only make your life easier, it will make the patient happier and actually increase your systems for success. Communication is crucial for any success – personal or business. I can tell you from working in practices across the US, the more details a practice has in ALL areas, the stronger their scheduling success results are. Period.

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If your practice isn’t the one to STAND OUT, you will be forced to STEP ASIDE to the practice that is. To a typical patient, a dentist is a dentist, a filling is a filling and a cleaning is a cleaning. What is the one thing that will always set you apart and make you STAND OUT? Unmatched Customer Service.

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“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”

Procrastination is the line that divides the 4% from the 96% of the health care professionals that reach Economic Freedom by the age of 65.  Economic Freedom is the day you have a safe and reliable portfolio that produces your desired standard of living for the rest of your life.  This is the day you go to work because you want to, not because you have to.

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I’ve got two words for you. CUSTOMER SERVICE. Ok, well, let’s make that three words. EXCEPTIONAL CUSTOMER SERVICE. Just what does “exceptional customer service” look like?

It starts with the phone. Every single phone call should be handled with the highest level of friendliness, warmth, patience and focused on connections. Listen to how your phone is being answered, how callers are being spoke to, and what the end results of the calls are. I’m telling you this – If you have NASTY answering your phone, you are severely crippling your opportunity. If you have BUSY or CLIPPED answering the phone, you are allowing a major roadblock to scheduling opportunity.  Make your telephone customer service SO genuine, warm and friendly, that even if someone doesn’t appoint NOW, they will remember how wonderful you made them feel. BLOW EVERY CALLER OUT OF THE WATER. Every single caller and visitor. You know, the guy who delivers your water? Potential patient. The guy who changes your reception area rugs out weekly? Potential patient. The fireman calling to ask for a donation? Potential patient. Rock that customer service like no one has ever seen.

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Communication Breakdown  = Frustration.

Frustration always rears it’s ugly head when there is a lack of communication, or a misunderstanding. Some one heard something wrong – someone said something wrong – in some people’s lives, someone LOOKED at someone wrong.

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