Key takeaways from this episode:
1. What do patients that "no-show" have in common.
2. Every practice needs an "appointment wrap up" process.
3. What to ask a patient in regards to following up with them.
4. What's the best script for confirmation calls.
5. What to do when presenting treatment plans to ensure a second visit.
We know how convenient it is to have your employee order supplies for you, deal with credit checks, and even order things on Amazon for you and handle any returns… but you need to be more aware of it. Why?
Well, Sandy received a call about a situation the other day. And this isn’t the first instance an office has called her to see how they should handle it. This is common. The Office Manager had been using the practice’s Amazon account to make purchases for her own birthday party, Christmas, etc.
Sandy gives us 3 systems that most employees use to steal or establish fraud and she gives us the systems to prevent this. In our practice and in life, we want certainty, we want predictability, so it’s crucial you know what is going on in your practice and not depend solely on your employees' words.
When it comes down to it, there's basically two reasons why patients don’t pay: the first is dishonest patients, and Sandy gives us a breakdown on how to stop these type of patients to save us any headaches.
The second, and probably most important reason is: patients can get mad or upset with a situation. Your team can make patients mad or the patients can misunderstand and perceive something wrong. Patients who are mad or upset won’t pay. And when you initiate the collection procedure against the angry patient it gets them even more upset! So what can you do? Well, Sandy lets us know that when you deal with people it’s important to have really good people skills. Something we need to keep in mind is to communicate and acknowledge the patient and what they are saying.
Sandy goes much further into detail on how we can handle upset patients who don’t want to pay and she gives us a script on what to say to find a patient's problem that will get them to pay!
Overall, when it comes to excelling at customer service, we need to build more and better relationships with our patients. Remember that our patients have a choice, they can either choose to continue to come to you, or move on at any moment. They can get their teeth cleaned and get turned off so fast or be highly impressed to the point they want to bring everyone they know to you. That’s the difference between average and exceptional customer service.
In this episode Sandy tells us 10 strategies we need to be thinking about weekly, if not daily, to make sure we are providing exceptional customer service. There's 1.6 million people changing dentists…every month! Make sure you are one of the dentists that patients love and feel acknowledged and valued at. That is something you will notice fast about the first two strategies, how acknowledging your patient is crucial.
Listen to this episode and make sure you write down the 10 strategies somewhere visible, where your team can see it so they can use it as a checklist or reminder to apply these strategies daily.