The Patient Experience begins at the first personal contact with your Dental Office, with the person you hire to answer your phones.

The last point of contact may also be this same person.

Do you know how important it is to hire the RIGHT person to be that first point of contact?

I see the role of the person who answers phones in a dental office now starting to be fully realised by the Dentists who hire these people.

I see excellent Dentists doing the very best dentistry and working hard to create the very best patient experience, and it ALL falls down when the person answering the phones is the WRONG person or a person who just does not have the skills to do the job well.

The Dentists scratches their head wondering what is happening.

“Why is my marketing not working?

“Why do I not have enough new patients?”

“The phone must not be ringing very much.”

The phone is ringing but the calls are just not being converted to appointments.

The Dentists I work with finally get it and realise that they need to either change the people answering their phones and/or up skill their existing team who have a great attitude but struggle coping when the phone calls.

Over the last twenty years Dentistry has changed dramatically.

Once upon a time every call that came into your dental office converted to an appointment.

Now with the internet and many sources of information our potential patients are:

  • researching us
  • reading other people’s reviews and experiences about us
  • asking so many more questions
  • resistant to going ahead

The people answering your phones need to be well armed and ready to handle all of these calls but unfortunately most people are not.

There is no point pouring large amounts of money into marketing your practice if the person answering your phones cannot make appointments for the people who call your office.

This does not add up.

Sit down and do the maths. If it doesn’t add up then you know something is wrong.

The person answering your calls needs to be excellent at answering the phone.

They need to be able to handle each call so the outcome is that an appointment is made.

This takes knowing how, practice, and measuring results.

So think carefully about who is answering your phones.

Check to see if they are doing an excellent job, a good job, an average job or a bad job at answering the phone.

It is time that Dentists realise the responsibility they give to the person who has the phone in their hand.

You rely on the person answering the phone in your business to make appointments for each and every caller.

After all, isn’t that the reason why those people have called your dental office?

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Jayne Bandy is a certified CX Experience coach.
Jayne works with her husband Dr. David Moffet 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 Jayne and David can help your business