It’s amazing how environment can affect our experience and shape our beliefs.
As dentists, sometimes we get so caught up in the doing of the dentistry that we forget that there are other factors dictating and affecting the experiences of our clients and patients.
Sometimes I speak to Dentists who only ever enter and leave their offices and buildings via the back door.
In so doing, they never see and experience the turn-ons and turn-offs that are shaping and affecting the experiences of their customers who enter and leave only via the front entrance.
In his book Broken Windows Broken Business, Michael Levine discusses his premise that all big dilemnas in business arise from a lack of attention to small detail.
And we can see this in our own business if we only took the time to walk in and out of our own front door and look at our business through the eyes of the patient.
We need to see our Dental Office as our patients see us.
Not as we see it.
Not as we see it from the inside looking out.
But as our patients see our business from the outside looking in.
What do our patients see when they arrive at our building?
Do they see leaf litter outside of our entrance?
Do they see trash and dirt on the outside of our building that we never see, because we enter and exit through a private back entrance?
How are our windows?
Are they spotlessly clean or are they smeared with rain and with dirt?
Are our glass doorways clean and impeccable? Or are they too smeared with nature’s rain, or children’s handprints?
If we do not enter our office from the front on a regular basis we could be doing ourselves out of significant business, simply because we fail to see these “broken windows” that our clients and customers see on their visits.
It’s funny. Not funny ha ha. Rather funny strange. There’s a Dental Office right across the road from the exit of my local supermarket. And this Dental Office always looks like it needs a good spruce up.
The lawn always looks like it needs mowing. The edges always look like they need doing.
The building just looks so untidy.
And in so doing, it looks uninviting.
My thought is:
“If this is how they look after their building, then how on earth are they going to be able to look after my teeth?”
Now if you own your own building you are able to control the appearance of your premises. But if your Dental Office is inside of an office block owned by a third party, well then there’s a whole new conundrum as to how to get the communal landlord interested in maintaining the building health…
There’s a point where enough becomes enough.
There’s a point where our patients come to believe that if we do not look after and maintain the entrance to our own building, whether it is our building or whether it is owned by a third party, our patients start to believe that we as their dentists are going to start neglecting the entrance to their body, [i.e. their mouth], in just the same way that out office entrance is being neglected.
So we need to be on top of our presentation of our facility.
One of the major difficulties I had towards the end of my time in my own practice was in dealing with landlords who would not invest in fixing and repairing the “broken windows” in their buildings.
Dirty windows. Dirty doors.
Untidy entrances with worn out walls and paintwork.
Tired communal restrooms.
Worn public area carpets.
Lifts and elevators needing a makeover.
It becomes very difficult to project an image of quality and care when valued clients and customers have to negotiate their way through a maze of building disrepair and neglect that is thrust upon them by an uncaring landlord.
Or is thrust upon them by an uncaring owner of the Dental Office, who enters and leaves only via the back door, and never takes time to view his Dental Office from his patients’ points of view.
So how is the patients’ view when they arrive at you Dental Office?
Are you unwittingly doing yourself out of business?
Are you missing your own “broken windows”?
******
My Two-Day Workshop in Las Vegas on September 25 and 26 was a huge success. At that workshop I explained the COMPLETE Ultimate Patient Experience process in detail, covering in greater depth how to address simple changes that create BIG RESULTS.
Sorry you missed it.
If you are interested in purchasing a recording of a part or all of the this magnificent workshop then email me: david@theUPE.com
******
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
Did you like this blog article? If you did then hit the share buttons below and share it with your friends and colleagues. Share it via email, Facebook and twitter!!
Leave a Reply