Achieving Success in the Practice of Dentistry – Part Five

Providing exquisite customer service to your patient base is another important ingredient of successful dental practices. Customer service is absolutely a skill that can be learned. And it really is not that hard to be good at this when so many others are so bad. But I believe you need to be better than just good. Your practice needs to be extraordinary in order to separate yourself from the competition. Everyone in the practice–doctor and staff–needs to buy into the process. The commitment to maintaining and improving an exceptional customer service experience must be an integral part of the DNA of the practice. Here are some ideas for you that really work well.

• Emergencies should always be seen on the date of the call.

• Never say NO. This is a simple rule, but often hard to implement. Eight words that work well are ” the best way that I can help you is…”

• The key to great customer service is making people feel special. Nothing is too difficult. Nothing is a problem. Leave it to us to take good care of you.

• The telephone is the entrance to every dental practice. Great customer service is especially important when any new patient contacts the office. The new patient call is your first opportunity to build a relationship. That telephone call, if done well, could routinely be a 15 minute conversation. That patient should get off the phone and say “WOW – I never had that kind of experience with any office that I ever called!” The person answering your telephone just might be the most important person in your office. If anyone is interested, I have a great new patient telephone intake slip that I am happy to share.

• I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You just can’t overestimate the importance of post-treatment telephone calls by the doctor at the end of every day to patients that have had extensive dental procedures.

My very first post in this series on successful doctors discussed the importance of having a great staff. Providing an exceptional customer service experience for your patients is obviously a lot easier to deliver when you have the right team in place. Having patients all over town raving about how well they are treated  in your office creates a huge funnel for attracting new patients. And new patients equal success.