As happens from time to time, I’ve been phoning dental offices over this last week.

And what I’ve been hearing has not been good….

As simple as it is to get a three part phone greeting correct, it’s amazing how many dental practices are failing when they are answering their dental practice phones.

Make No Mistake….

Make no mistake.

When the dental practice phone rings you need to get the greeting 100% correct.

Because anything less than 100% correct is A FAIL big time.

Firstly…

When the phone rings at your office, it needs to be answered by a human being within three or four rings.

The caller is a human being with a dental concern.

And the caller wants to talk to a human being.

That’s why they have called.

So don’t let some phone salesman in a cheap three-piece suit tell you that your phone should not even ring, but should go straight to a message about how the sun shines out of your practice crevices.

Some dental offices even have AI generated robotic voice messages telling callers how “a wonderful team member” will be with them in just a moment!!

Don’t kid me with that BS.

If you really valued your customers and callers, you would have a living, breathing “wonderful team member” answering the ringing phone in the first instance.

But you don’t…

I’ve called some dental offices where it can take over 55 seconds of recorded instructions and dribble before I get to speak to a real live employee… that’s way too presumptive, and it’s way too long to keep callers waiting…

When I finally get to speak to a living breathing team member…

Finally, when I get to speak to a living breathing team member, they great me with an abbreviation of the greeting that we know works best.

And what we know works best is THE THREE PART PHONE GREETING as taught by phone guru Jayne Bandy:

“Thank you for calling Active Dental. This is Jayne. How may I help you?”

The Three Part Phone Greeting is complete.

And anything short of those words, of those three parts, is a STRAIGHT FAIL.

Because those three parts go together so perfectly, like the three wise men, like the three sisters, and like the three wise monkeys.

And that’s why it works.

Only just last week…

Only just last week I phoned the office of a friend, and his wife answered the phone:

“Thank you for calling ABC Dental. How may I help?”

This was a double fail.

Firstly, the wife did not identify herself by name.

And secondly, the wife did not ask:

“How may I help YOU?”

Failing to use the word “you” ignores the caller and their need to be helped, and focuses attention toward the receptionist as the saviour there to rescue the caller.

Except that in this case, the wife also did not identify herself to the caller, which de-humanises the process of being there for the caller on these three premises:

  1. Be their friend.
  2. Solve their problem.
  3. Give them hope.

Those are the three things that every caller to a dental practice wants, and needs.

Sadly…

Sadly, when the incoming phone calls to a dental practice are not being recorded, and those recordings are not being listened to by an expert, then SLOPPY behaviours like these will develop into bad habits that become permanent, simply because there are no accountability processes in place.

The trouble is that most dentists will say:

“Does it really matter?”

And the answer is that it does.

Just in case you missed that…

“Does it really matter?”

AND THE ANSWER IS THAT IT DOES.

One new patient enquiry each day that doesn’t go ahead and make an appointment because they haven’t “felt the love” on the phone multiplies out to five NPs each week and blows out to 250 NPs each year that should be in your books but have gone elsewhere…

That’s more than $500K of dentistry that you’ve lost from your schedule, every year… at a minimum.

[And if your office is dropping the ball on two NP enquiries each day, well that’s a cool $1M each year that you and your children and your family are never seeing…]

In 1997 a dentist said to me that he could walk into a dental practice and find an employee that was costing that practice $200K per year. And when he said that, I knew that I had an employee like that in my practice…

Accountability is the key.

When the dental office phone rings, it always has to be one hundred percent about the caller.

When you focus on the caller, you will inherently make them feel important.

And that is our primary goal.

Our primary goal whenever the phone rings at our dental office must be to make the caller feel as though we’ve been ready and waiting all day for them [that caller] to ring our practice, just so we can help them.

Each and every time.

No exceptions.

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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