Have you ever received a “Patient Complaint Call”?
When someone complains about something it is an opportunity for them to vent their feelings about a situation or maybe even about a person. They are usually annoyed, angry and definitely frustrated by the situation they have found themselves in.
Now what does your patient complain about?
Our goal is that it doesn’t happen too often, but these are a few of the complaints you may have heard at some point in your dental profession:
“No one told me how much it was going to cost?”
‘I didn’t know I needed a crown after the root canal!”
“The girl on the phone was so rude.”
“The Dentist kept me waiting for so long.”
“I need to change my appointment and you have nothing available for 2 weeks?”
“Stop calling me to make another appointment.”
“Your fees are just so high.”
“I don’t want to see the Hygienist, I want to see the Dentist.”
“My tooth still hurts after he did that filling.”
And the list does go on!
Now, what I want you to do is to take a new spin on the “Patient Complaint Call” and start thinking differently.
Instead of answering the call and hearing your patient annoyed and angry, I want you to hear that your patient is confused and overwhelmed.
As soon as you do this new spin on the call you will start speaking to the patient very differently.
You will now have more empathy for the patient, because you know they are not angry and annoyed with you but are confused and overwhelmed.
Your response will be one of empathy and understanding and you will be more likely to immediately find a solution for the patient.
Listening to a patient on the phone who is angry can be difficult and there are those times when you too start to get angry. I know it would happen to me now and then…
When you change how you think about your patient on this type of call, you start listening to a confused patient who needs your help.
Just changing how you think about this call can make such a big difference to the outcome of the complaint call.
You are more likely to stay calm, in control and look for a solution for your patient and the patient is more likely to accept the solution and stay being your patient.
The loss of a patient on a “Patient Complaint Call” is very high.
Many times your patient has already decided they will not be returning to your practice.
How you handle this type of call can be the difference between keeping a patient, or losing a patient.
You want to get this call right and of course solve the issue that your patient is confused about in the first place!
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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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My FINAL live full day Master Class for 2017 “How to Turn Every Dental Phone Call Into A Valued and Kept Appointment” is being held in Brisbane on Friday November 24, 2017.
Click here on this link to register.
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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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At present I have availability for 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
