Howard Schultz of Starbucks has been known to say, “We are not in the coffee business serving people, but in the people business serving coffee.”
Dental practices would be well-served BY APPLYING the same idea.
Dental practices often become so focussed on the delivery of dentistry that they lose sight of what truly builds their businesses. And that is providing great patient experiences.
Patients happily pay for treatment when the experience your practice delivers is great.
Patients return as loyal clients when the experience your practice delivers is great.
Patients refer friends and family when the experience your practice delivers is great.
You may be one of the many dental practices that choose the path of online marketing to build your practice. Depending upon your budget, you may be spending a substantial sum. In my work with dental practices, I have observed anything from $2,500 per month up to an eye-watering $20,000 per month.
Can you imagine the impact if, instead of online marketing, you spent an average of the lower amount of $2,500 per month on designing an extraordinary patient experience?
I suggest to you that this would be one of the most powerful business decisions you could make.
What could your practice achieve with a yearly ‘experience’ budget of $30,000?
I say that team training is your best bet.
One of my favourite quotes is by Archilochus, “We do not rise to the level of our expectation, but fall to the level of our training.”
Ensure the level your team ‘falls’ to is a high one! You can do this when you:
- Build a team of enthusiastic, caring team members who are trained in rapport-building skills, communication and high-level customer service.
- Conduct regular brainstorming meetings with your team and come up with a series of systems that will not just deliver to your patients an extraordinary experience, but one that will be delivered every time!
- Establish a team-culture that is patient-centric and help each team member work from a place of purpose and meaning. When you consider your patients as people first and patients second, you start seeing opportunities to build a human connection with them. You are better able to identify what your patients truly need to know, like and trust you.
- Pay attention to the aesthetic appearance of your practice. Have attractive furnishings, have high-quality waiting room magazines, stock the best toilet paper!
- Install a top-end audio system so the ambience is restful and enjoyable.
- Make available additional services that dental patients would not normally expect such as noise-cancelling headphones, after-treatment hot towels, recall and welcome bags with extras such as lip balm and local cafe vouchers for coffee and cake.
Delivering a consistent, extra-ordinary experience to your patients that they consider to be a great one will build a hugely successful dental practice. Shift your focus to being in the business of people who receive dental treatment and see what brilliant ideas you can come up with to have a steady stream of new and returning patients beating a path to your door!
Want to know how you can improve your patient experience?
We’ve put together this FREE guide full of simple and effective things you can do within your practice to improve the patient experience. Get yours here.
