Archive for June 11th, 2010
Patient Relations: Let Your Patients KNOW You Care
June 11th, 2010 at 1:36 am by Livvie
Working in a dental office presents many challenges…daily, you could even say…hourly! One of the biggest challenges is making certain your patients know you care because they don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care!
We had a dad bring in his young daughter today for several procedures. As it turned out we needed to refer her to Pediatric. Due to the procedures needed, their front desk person said they would have to work up a time frame and they would call the dad.
The dad had to come back to our office later for the band and loop to take to the pedo office and when he came in we could tell he was upset. The pedo office had called him, the phone call had not been a good experience at all (first impression), and to make matters worse it was going to be August before she could be seen for a consultation!
His daughter was upset this morning, he was upset because his daughter was upset, and to make matters worse, he had a bad experience on the phone with the pedo office regarding his daughter. What do you think his impression was of that office? And more importantly ~ what was his impression of our office for referring his daughter to them?
If you work in the front office you know what came next. I got on the phone with the pedo office, spoke with their office manager, relayed the circumstances, asked her to ”smooth” their first impression, and worked out an appointment for the daughter to be seen this Tuesday. Now what do you think the dad thinks of our office?
In just a few short minutes we positioned ourselves as caring in several ways:
- We let him know it matters and we care about his daughter and her well being
- We let him know it matters and we care about his inconvenience and his feelings
- We let him know it matters and we care about his experience in our office AND his experience in offices we refer to
In short, he now knows…we care.
What are some things you do in your practice to let your patients know…you care?
Posted in Patient Relations, Services | 
Tags: Building Business, caring dentists, Livvie Matthews, Patient Relations | 
Comments Closed
