I recently read a post in a social media group about a person working on the front desk in a Dental Office, feeling disgruntled because her boss had mentioned to her that she did not smile much and that she needed to smile more if she was to be working at the front office greeting patients.

What I read next was interesting.

Many of this woman’s colleagues believed this was rude of her boss and she should leave her job.

So we have a woman working at the front desk in a Dental Office where she greets patients and communicates with patients and she is not smiling.

I am sure she was embarrassed but now it’s time to assess if this is true and do something about it.

It is unacceptable to be communicating with patients face to face and not to smile.

Our job at the front office is to smile at everyone, including the team we work with.

This woman has been given a gift from her boss.

She said she had no idea she was not smiling.

The good news is, now she does know and now she can fix it.

I suppose if you have not been smiling much then it may be a big transition into an authentic and real smile but surely this is not that difficult.

A Dental Professional I know was visiting a Dental Office a few weeks ago and said, “Is it that hard for the receptionist to smile?”

The good news is, with a bit of practice and perseverance we can all learn to smile more.

If we smile too much then we can come across fake and not to be trusted.

So take it easy because it is ok at times to be serious.

A smile gives our patients the message, that we are approachable and likeable.

Without a smile our patients can believe we are unapproachable and they don’t like us.

There is more good news.

Smiling has health benefits not only for those you smile at but also for yourself.

When we smile we release neuropeptides that help us cope with stress. Exactly the type of friend we need at work!

When you smile you are also perceived as more attractive.

You can see now how crazy it is not to smile.

This week I have been testing out the effect you can have on people when you smile more, not that I need any encouragement to smile, and I have been overwhelmed by the responses I have received from the strangers I meet.

People were saying to me:

“How lovely to have someone so happy.” 

“I wish all my customers were as happy as you.” 

“You are so easy to talk to.” 

“You should see some of the cranky miserable people I meet each day.”

I think after my little experiment of smiling and paying attention to people’s responses I even started noticing how people really don’t smile enough.

Go and have a close look at your team who work with you.

Are they smiling enough?

If they are not smiling enough, then give them something to smile about, start noticing them when they are smiling, create more of a happy environment at work and if you do have to, let them know they need to smile more.

Maybe, like the woman I mentioned at the beginning of this article, your team just need to know they are not smiling enough so that they can start smiling more!

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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 live full day workshop “How to Turn Every Dental Phone Call Into A Valued and Kept Appointment”  is being held 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 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