Answering the phone in a Dental Office involves so many things and one of them is to know what you do in your role at your practice.
You need to know your product, your treatment, and the type of care your practice offers.
Knowing is confidence.
Not knowing gives the impression that your dental office does not know what they are doing and so the caller will start to believe the Dentist doesn’t know either.
The caller then has no confidence in you and probably won’t make an appointment.
It is so important that when you answer the phone that you are confident and knowledgeable.
Keep in mind that just knowing a small amount more than the caller means you are perceived as an expert.
Yesterday I popped down to my local supermarket.
As I walked in I noticed trays and trays of chilli peppers. There were green chillis, red chillis, yellow chillis, orange chillis and even purple chillis. (I didn’t know but the spelling of chilli can be “chili”, “chilli” or “Chile” depending on the region the chilli is from or maybe the person spelling it!!!)
I was very interested in the purple chilli, as well as the intensity.
I asked a store person who let me know that this week was a Chilli Festival at the supermarket.
I asked him about the purple chilli but he didn’t know anything about any of the chillis.
He had been told there was a big Chilli Festival but nothing more.
Oops I thought!
Just like the chillis you need to know your products in any business, especially if you are on the front line with customers and patients.
I then went home from the supermarket and opened my supermarket magazine which had a whole page devoted to telling me all about each chilli. This would have been what the young man in the supermarket needed to become knowledgeable about the chillis he was selling.
I probably would have bought a few more!
When I talk to front office teams who are new to dental, they often get anxious about their lack of dental knowledge. I always say to them, it is important to know what dental treatments you offer and what sets you apart in patient care from other dental offices, so find out!
Offer new people on your team information about treatment that they will need to answer questions on. You don’t want the people answering your phones to always be having to refer to a higher authority.
Look at your Dental Website for great content and learn what treatment and care you offer at your dental practice.
Your website gives insight into what callers are reading before they call your office. So many teams I work with say they don’t regularly look at their practice website.
People calling with a dental problem or concern are looking for help.
Our job when we answer the phone in a Dental Office is to provide the caller with dental knowledge, ask lots of questions to get to know them and pinpoint the issues and then wow them with how we are already caring for them on the phone.
Having the right amount of knowledge does give us confidence and when we are confident we are so much more effective on the phone and we make more appointments.
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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 public speaking presentation teaching Dental Front office Staff how to improve their phone skills will be held in Perth Western Australia on Friday June 16th 2017.
I will also be presenting in Melbourne Victoria in Friday June 23rd 2017.
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At present I have availability for only THREE 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
Great analogy Jayne!! Know your “product line” inside and out. I see this in various situations all the time. Coincidentally just last night at the new restaurant we visited, it was clear that some of the staff members had no idea what was going on. One in particular was very vague regarding her knowledge of the items on the menu. Fortunately someone jumped in to support her in a respectful way, but I sure was thinking “This team needs to be totally coached up well before opening their doors to the public.” My son is the GM of a large private group of restaurants in Scottsdale and not only do they have a very comprehensive training program for everyone, they also require “clearance” conducted by him and some other “principles” prior to getting out to the customers at any level. This is a “no-brainer” when it comes to dental professionals.
Thanks Deb. It makes such a big difference and once everyone knows what is happening, it makes a huge difference to the customer/patient and the team!