I try to avoid writing about politics in my weekly Blogs, but the temptation this week was far too great.

Our Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Trumbull, Trunbull, sorry Turnbull, may not have been feeling the love this week!

The spokesman for the president of the USA, Sean Spicer, referred to our Australian Prime Minister twice with the wrong name.

Not just once but twice.

How does that even happen when someone is in such a high-end position as a spokesman for the President?

Surely a person who speaks on behalf of another person is hired to get it right?

I think it is time for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, to turn this bull on its head right now.

One of the biggest signs of respect you can pay a person is to use their name correctly every time.

White House Press Secretary Mr. Spicer not only got Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s name wrong twice, he then said, “We have a tremendous amount of respect for Prime Minister Trunbull.”

Good grief. He didn’t get the memo on what the definition of respect is let alone how to say our Prime Minister’s name correctly.

Respect is having regard for someone’s feelings.

I know I don’t feel great when people get my name wrong.

I feel like they don’t really care, I am not important to them and they just can’t be bothered to get my name right.

This same respect that our Prime Minister deserves, is the same as the respect we need to give our patients and their name.

Dale Carnegie wrote:

“Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the English language.”

In your Dental Office you have the opportunity to give your patients the sweet sound of their name.

You want to always make sure you say your patient’s name during your conversations on the phone and in the Dental Office.

Not too much but just enough that the sound is sweet to your patient.

Saying a patient’s name is also a great way to make that personal connection and keep patients involved and listening during treatment discussions.

Just like the Spokesman for the USA President you want to avoid getting patients’ names wrong.

To avoid a name being said or written incorrectly you want to put the following into place right from the beginning with your patients:

• Double check the spelling of a New Patient’s name when they make their appointment over the phone.
• Say their name back and ask if your pronunciation of their name is correct.
• Make notes if the name is tricky to pronounce so the team can check

These are just simple strategies to put into place to ensure that people’s names are always correctly said and written.

After all, as Dale Carnegie wrote:

“Remember that a man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in the English language.”

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NOTE: For accuracy I have included Dale Carnegie’s original quote here. In recent times Carnegie’s quote has been politically corrected to read:

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language”

This blog  features simple practical ideas that are easy to implement tomorrow in your Dental Office, impacting immediately on your Patients’ Dental  Phone Experiences, and ultimately, improving your practice profitability.

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Dental Phone Excellence is a simple to implement complete Phone Answering system I developed that helped me to build an extraordinary dental practice in the heart of working class western Sydney.

If you’d like to know more,  download my sixteen page FREE special report “How I Quickly and Easily Went From 35% to 77% New Patient Telephone Conversions, and Doubled The Size of my Dental Practice Along the Way” and discover some of the many costly mistakes being made on your phone…..

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My next live full day workshop “How to Turn Every Dental Phone Call Into A Valued and Kept Appointment”  being held in Sydney NSW on Friday February 17, 2017 is SOLD OUT.

I will be presenting “How to Turn Every Dental Phone Call Into A Valued and Kept Appointment” at Surfer’s Paradise on the Gold Coast in Queensland on Friday March 24, 2017.

Click here on this link to register.

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At present I have availability for only TWO new private clients. For more information on how I can improve your Dental Office’s Phone Numbers contact me, Jayne Bandy at  jayne@theDPE.com