I was on a call today with a coaching client. It was interesting because the client had asked me whether I could begin the call fifteen minutes earlier than scheduled because the patient that was due for their appointment at the time we were scheduled to end the call was a patient who invariably ALWAYS arrived earlier than her appointment time.

And my client, the dentist, always liked to see this lady earlier than her allotted time if that was ever possible.

And that is a good frame of mind to work in.

And I congratulated him for doing so….

Because you see, if you want your patients to arrive early for their appointments, you need to run to schedule or ahead of schedule.

Because the converse is also true.

Recently I worked with a dental office where the dentist was always running behind schedule.

ALWAYS.

All day….

And guess what?

His patients were so used to him keeping them waiting that most of the patients I saw there never arrived early for their appointments.

And sometimes even arrived late.

Because, as they said, the dentist was never on time and never kept to time….

It’s about mutual respect.

If you want your customers to respect your time you need to respect their time.

A good friend of mine says his father always said:

“If you’re not fifteen minutes early, you’re late”

And to me that makes a heck of a lot of sense.

If you want someone to respect your time you need to begin by respecting them and their time.

You do need to lead by example.

We have a local medico GP where I live who runs so late with his patients and their appointments that the office advises them to phone ahead and check to see “how late” he’s running, and whether they are able to delay their arrival at his rooms.

That’s not a good look….

And that’s not a great way to provide a world class experience for your paying customers.

Don’t run late.

Don’t be known for running late.

Because if you do, you’re immediately coming from a position of “negative” in the relationship you’re trying to establish with your clients.

Why begin by putting yourself on the back foot?

Better to be early….

*****

Have you read my book , How To Build The Dental Practice of Your Dreams [Without Killing Yourself!] In Less Than Sixty Days.

You can order your copy here: Click Link To Order

*****

The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.

Email me at david@theupe.com

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