Have you ever lost a patient before he or she even walks through your door? It's possible you may never meet prospective patients if problems arise when they call for an appointment. To ensure that the potential patient walks into your practice you need to be mindful of basic procedures like answering the phone in a welcoming manner, taking care not to rush through the appointment process and avoiding putting patients on hold for long periods or transferring them to different departments.
Dental teams underestimate the expectations of prospective patients. Patients not only have high expectations for quality dental care, but equally important to them is exceptional customer service. To determine if your practice is focused on service ask yourself if, on a regular basis, you and your staff treat others as they would like to be treated. Do you promptly respond to requests, employ pleasant phone manners and courtesy, answer simple questions, and show willingness to follow through? Your customer service demonstrates the value you place on your patients and your willingness to welcome new patients.
The best measure of success for your customer service comes directly from your patients. Please them, protect them, enrich them, fight for them, and they will let you know that you have succeeded. They will sing your praises and tell their neighbors, friends and associates about their positive experience.
Your patients embody the most valuable asset of your business. Disappoint them and they will stop dealing with you. It is that simple and that serious. A lost patient equals lost revenue to a practice, an expensive proposition. Superior dentistry cannot make up for the lack of follow through on the part of the staff, and bad news travels swiftly.
Customer service is not just part of the job; it is an integral part of the job and should be the focus of everyone in the office, regardless of position.
Survey Says
Nearly half, or 49 percent, of the more that 2,000 North American consumers surveyed by Accenture said that poor service led them to change service providers in at least one industry in the past year.
When asked to elaborate and explain why they switched providers, these were their reasons:
- 61 percent identified poor service or product quality.
- 46 percent wanted to get lower prices.
- 39 percent responded that a service representative lacked knowledge about the service or product.
- 22 percent indicated lack of customized solutions.
- 19 percent blamed company policies that created bureaucracy.
- 19 percent stressed technologies that delayed or stopped service.
Approximately one-third of the respondents indicated that the most important aspect of a satisfying customer service experience is the ability to obtain assistance from a company without being forwarded to multiple representatives.
Seventy-five percent of the respondents reported that the most frustrating aspects of interacting with customer service representatives were the need to repeat information to multiple service representatives and to be kept on hold too long. The survey also found that customers spend an average of 6 minutes on hold when seeking assistance via a phone helpline and that customers speak on an average to 2.6 service representatives to resolve issues.
Additional frustrating aspects identified in the survey include inability to solve problems, representatives trying to sell other services, inflexible service, slow responses, representatives not personable, lack of personalized solutions, computers that are often down, requests for too much personal information, being asked too many personal questions and creating too much paperwork.
Most important, the survey advised businesses to do the following:
- Identify the frustrations expressed by clients, patients and customers.
- Address how to counteract these problems.
- Decide on new ways to ensure that they do not occur in the future.
What Constitutes Customer Service?
Customer service is not simply fair prices, courteous staff, generous exchange policies or reasonable payment terms. These are expected, and do not constitute exceptional customer service. They are the bare minimum. Customer service means much, much more than minimums. It means doing extraordinary and sometimes outrageous things on behalf of your patients.
You feel it when you experience exceptional customer service. And, you know in your inner self, if you are not providing exceptional customer service to your patients.
Start with Yourself. What is your attitude about yourself? You are not just a receptionist, assistant, hygienist or insurance person. When you take pride in your job; when you realize that you are the front line of the business, practice or clinic; when you don’t just answer questions and transfer calls but take action to resolve or satisfy the patient; when you realize that you provide the first and lasting impression of those with whom you deal, you are providing exceptional customer service. You represent the practice!
Evaluate Your Surroundings. At least once a year, take a walk through the office and view it from the vantage point of the patient. Pretend you are entering the office for the first time. What do you see?
- Are the magazines current?
- Is the decor modern and updated?
- Is the carpeting in good condition?
- Are there sufficient supplies in the washroom?
- Is the front desk clear of clutter?
- Are charts in their proper cabinets?
- Is the office clean and dust-free?
Add some of your own items to this checklist and then formulate a plan for what to do about those things that need changing.
Review Policies.
- Are your hours convenient for your patients?
- Do you have clear and concise ways to deal with personnel?
- Do you have standard operating procedures?
- Do you have several ways patients can pay?
- Do you have written collection policies?
If you answered no to any of these questions, what are you going to do about it? How would you rate your practice?
Building Exceptional Customer Service
There are five steps that you and the staff can take to improve customer service. Hold a staff meeting and concentrate on these items. Work together to come up with suggestions that will “wow” your patients.
- Walk in the patient’s shoes and get to know them. See things as your patients see them by empathizing with them. Connect one-on-one with them, and find out what motivates, inspires, challenges and frustrates them. Ask them how they are and be sincere. Concentrate on what they are saying. Listen to their words and tone of voice and observe their body language. Don't make assumptions about patient needs and wants. Find out if they have any oral needs that you are not providing and try to anticipate those needs. Understand that most needs are emotional rather than logical. Introduce new technology to them.
When patients are talking to you, they want your undivided attention. They do not want you taking phone calls or talking with others. Do not become distracted by looking around to see who else is present. Maintain eye contact. By focusing on your patients and walking in their shoes, you can create a treatment plan that reflects their values and concentrates on what they want and expect from their oral health professional.
- Roll out the red carpet for everyone. Make your patients feel important. Be sincere, use their names, really care, and thank them for coming. Allow them to feel like you have spread the red carpet just for them.
- Make it easy to do business with you. Make sure patients are not frustrated by policies that may be designed to save the practice time and money. Patients do not want their phone calls to be transferred several times. Ask a friend to call into the practice and give you feedback on the service. Does the voice mail work? Do you answer messages promptly? If patients do not understand your system or the configuration of the office, they may get confused, impatient and angry when told to go to a different department. If you are sending them to another area, you may want to lead them there. Take the time to explain how your system works. This is especially important with your payment, collection and insurance systems. Such care is remembered.
- Go out of the way to ensure patients are happy. Be sure your services accomplish what they are intended to do. It is better to prevent a problem than to have to deal with it later. Instead of handling a problem after the fact, try to make everything right from the start. Appreciate the power of “yes.” Look for ways to help and to say “yes.” Always follow through with what you say you will do.
- Welcome customer complaints. Be thankful for customer complaints. A complaining patient is providing a valuable service, offering feedback, providing quality control information and allowing you a chance to rectify a problem. It goes without saying that a satisfied patient is the best kind to have. Patients who are dissatisfied complain, and if they feel the problem has not been resolved will leave the practice. This is a lost patient who may take others with them, because you can be sure news of the bad experience will be passed on to friends.
You may even consider being proactive by developing a patient survey. Do not be reluctant to ask your patients what they think! It gives you the opportunity to capitalize on what you do well and what makes you stand out from your competition. From the survey you may learn what improvements could be made and how you can better serve your patients. You could find out who makes the oral health care decisions in the family, whether they want new technologies presented to them, how well they understand the correlation between their dental health and their overall health and their opinions on your parking arrangements and office decor. Your patient survey will help confirm what you knew all along… you’re really good! You have great customer service. But it also can give you a boost to move into new communication methods, address concerns that have been expressed and put a spark in your marketing plan.
If you would like help developing a patient survey contact maryann.dillon@schencksc.com and/or refer to the article “How Well is Your Practice Doing?” in the April 2010 issue of Hot Buttons.
A Successful Customer Service Program
If you are serious about providing your patients with the best customer service possible, initiate significant training of your entire staff that includes formulating procedures for any circumstances that may occur in the office. Plan for when you meet the patient, how they will be greeted, what actions will be taken if a patient becomes unruly or rude, who talks to them about their financial arrangements, how the patient will flow through the office, how the front desk communicates with those in the back and when statements are sent out and by whom. Use your planning sessions to develop and establish standard operating procedures that can be used by the team and each person individually within the practice. Write them down and commit to them. Be aware that you may have to overcome all your staff's excuses for not devising a plan, such as the office is too busy; it’s a waste of time; nothing comes of it anyway; we already talked about that; that is not in my job description; and we have too many interruptions to plan. Look for ways to make things happen rather than just accepting excuses for them not taking place.
Conclusion
Remember that 49 percent of those surveyed indicated that poor customer service prompted them to change a service provider within the last year. You do not want to be that service provider. You want to take steps to ensure that everyone on the team has a commitment to high-quality customer service. You want it known that you specialize in customized solutions to problems; that your practice policies have the patient at heart and that your phone system and other technologies actually satisfy patients' needs, not make them confused or frustrated. Training your staff, conducting planning sessions to address possible glitches in your systems and developing and following standard operating procedures will make you stand out from the crowd. You will offer exceptional customer service.
Customer service begins and ends with your patients in mind. It also starts with you and your staff, and stops with you.
Maryann Dillon is a Practice Management Consultant with Schenck. Maryann has over 26 years of dental care management experience, which includes a wide range of operational activities. She has helped dental practices ensure their long-term viability by assisting with marketing; claims processing information; coding clarification; managed care contracting; communication techniques with insurance companies, patients and staff; dental Medicaid regulations; and insurance statutes as they relate to dental plans and provider responsibilities.