How To Have Your Practice Stand Out In A Land Of Mediocrity
Dr. David Moffet BDS FPFA CSP
Dental Practice Management Specialist > Dental Practice Profitability Expert > Dental Operations Consultant and Coach.
At your dental practice, how are you welcoming new patients?
Do you send them a physical welcome package before they attend your practice?
Maybe you send them an online welcome?
You might email them some useful information welcoming them to your practice, with information about their first appointment, or about finding your office easily, or including where the best place to park might be?
Here's something that we recommend for our clients to do to welcome their new patients.
When a new patient schedules an appointment with one of your dentists, have that dentist phone the patient a few days prior to their appointment.
The dentist should call personally and speak with the patient, or leave a recorded message on the patient’s voicemail saying something like this:
“Hi Jenny. It’s Dr David Moffet calling from Active Dental in Parramatta.
Jayne has let m. know that you’ve made an appointment to see me on Friday. I’m just calling to introduce myself, and to find out if there’s anything in particular you’d like me to be looking at [or discussing with you] when you come in?”
The reason we had every dentist in our practice do this for every new patient is because not too many other dentists out there do do this.
And making this pre-appointment welcome call during working hours usually has the effect that when the new patient gets off the phone, they immediately say to their work colleagues:
“You’ll never believe who that was? I’ve made an appointment to see a new dentist this week, and that was the new dentist himself calling me to welcome me personally to the dental practice.”
And of course everybody in the new patient’s workplace will immediately reply:
“Oh, which dental office was that? My dentist doesn’t do THAT!!”
We also did this…
We also had our dental hygienists make the same sort of call to new patients of the practice that they would be seeing, if this new patient specifically had wanted to have a clean and a check-up as their first appointment with our practice.
And also…
And also, where a new patient to the practice had seen the dentist firstly, and then has made their second appointment at the practice with the hygienist [RDH] or the oral health therapist [OHT], we would have the RDH or the OHT make a phone call to the patient with a similar message to the one that the dentist says:
“Hi Jenny. It’s Emily calling from Active Dental in Parramatta. I’m a dental hygienist [or Oral Health Therapist] at the practice. Dr. Moffet has let me know that you saw him last Friday and that you’ve made an appointment to see me next Wednesday.
I’m just calling to introduce myself, and to find out if there’s anything in particular you’d like me to be looking at [or discussing with you] about your gums and your teeth when you come in?”
And of course the reason we had every RDH and OHT in our practice do this for every new patient is because not too many other dental practices out there do do this.
Similarly…
When a new patient came to our practice and saw the OHT or an RDH firstly, before scheduling their next appointment with one of our dentists, we’d have the dentist make a phone call to the patient along the same lines as the one just mentioned [regarding the internal referral].
What does all this mean?
When your dental office adds these personal welcome phone calls from providers inside the practice [dentists, OHTs, and RDHs], the patient receiving the calls feels personally welcomed.
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And feels appreciated, even before meeting the practitioners.
This is in direct contrast to the dental office that does nothing to welcome new patients.
And it is the complete antithesis of the dental practice that has so many providers working there that the callers are asked these two clangers by receptionists that should know better:
What this comment says to the caller is that all our dentists are vanilla… and we have so many of them…
“Who do you normally see?”
Excuse me, but look at your monitor and check the caller’s file to see who they see.
Asking this question to the caller implies that the practice thinks all their patients are vanilla.
It's easy to stand out in a land of mediocrity…
It's easy to stand out in a land of mediocrity.
All you have to do is to CONSISTENTLY do the little things needed to be different.
But it’s easy to slip back into the pack of vanillas.
And that vanilla mediocrity is achieved by CONSISTENTLY FAILING to do those small points of difference needed to set your practice apart from all the other average Joes out there….
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Dr. David Moffet BDS FPFA CSP is a certified CX Experience coach. David works with his wife Jayne Bandy to help SME businesses improve their Customer Service Systems to create memorable World Class experiences for their valued clients and customers. Click here to find out how David and Jayne can help your business