Words are very powerful.

You might even say words are powerful weapons that can be used for good as well as evil.

When you are speaking on and off the phone to your patients, your goal is to help them.

Is that correct?

How you verbally communicate with your patients has a direct influence on how they react and respond.

The words you choose are very important.

What you say to your patients is not always what they hear!

 

Here are a few words to avoid and what to replace them with:

1. “I will call you if we get a cancellation.”

When you say these words to your patients you send the message that your patients cancel appointments and your patient will start to believe that cancellations are okay.

Replace these words with:

“An appointment has become available.

 

2.”I am calling to confirm your appointment and check everything is still okay.”

The patient hears that their appointment is not confirmed yet and now is the time to change or cancel their appointment if they choose.

Replace these words with:

“It’s just a courtesy call to let you know Dr Brown is looking forward to meeting you on….at….”

 

3. “Would you like to make an appointment?”

The patient now makes a choice of yes or no. Seems like a silly question to ask. What if your patient says no?

Replace theses words with:

“Let’s make an appointment for you. Would you prefer morning or afternoon?”

 

4. A patient calls to cancel an appointment and you say, “that’s okay.”

Is it okay? No it’s not okay.

Replace these words with:

“I am so sorry to hear this. Is everything alright?”

You are now trying to find out the reason for the cancellation with an opportunity to provide a solution for your patient to keep their appointment for treatment.

 

5. “Have you been here before?”

I often get asked why these are the wrong words to use? The answer is, you should always presume everyone is an existing patient until they tell you differently. This creates familiarity with everyone who calls your office.

Replace these words with:

“When was you last appointment with Dr……?”

 

You can see these are all words but what you say and what your patients hear can be two different things.

The meaning of your words can be lost in the translation.

Right now many of you are thinking about the words you use. Good. It might be time to change a few!

 

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Call Tracking Excellence

With Call Tracking Excellence your team will learn the SAME exact processes Jayne used to:

1. Dramatically improve new patient call-in conversions to booked appointments..

2. Retain existing patient appointments and…

3. Prevent ongoing losses from appointment cancellations.

www.calltrackingexcellence.com

For those of you, who are ready to get started call me on 1300 378 044 or email jayne@thedpe.com

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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…..

Go to www.dentalphoneexcellence.com.au

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