Engagement.
As a Customer we all want it.
And as a customer we hate it when we don’t receive it.
We don’t like to feel that we are being taken for granted.
We hate it when the person serving us is distracted, or inattentive, or simply just doesn’t care.
How are your team members at your dental office?
Are your employees simply going through the motions?
A patient walks in to your office…does your receptionist greet that patient as if they’ve been looking forward to their visit all day?
Or do they glance up, over their counter and their monitor, and say:
“Won’t be too long. Just take a seat.”
When your patient gets brought to the front following treatment are they engaged in a genuine caring transfer conversation or are they simply “attending” this process as a bystander as the dental assistant or hygienist robotically lists the procedures that *she* [the patient] had, not even mentioning the patient by name?
When it’s time for your patient to be brought down to the treatment room, are they greeted personably and warmly by your hygienist or team member or are they simply *called* and told to “follow me….”?
Customers don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care, but if your team members are simply going through the motions then your customers will feel disconnection from your business with a big fat capital “D”.
Mary Kaye Ash said everyone’s walking around out there with a whopping big invisible sign hanging from their neck which reads:
“MAKE ME FEEL IMPORTANT”
Whenever we act in a distracted manner that is less than courteous to our valued customers we certainly are sending them a message that we don’t value their business or want their business or want to *KEEP* their business.
And you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be another business just like yours simply waiting to extend the hand of courtesy to those customers of yours who you have been taking for granted….
And why would they want to stay with you?
When they can easily find a dentist charging less than you that’s going to treat them just as rudely for less out of pockets?
I recently flew from Sydney to the USA and back with a carrier other than Qantas, my regular carrier.
And on one flight I experienced, for want of a better word, a flight attendant who was simply just going through the motions.
Now I’m not sure if this poor old chap had had a bad night’s sleep before coming to work.
But he sure as eggs had very little attention to detail when it came to looking after the PAYING passenger in seat 8A.
Now I know my concerns are purely “First World Problems” but this old guy dropped the ball on not one but four occasions during a flight that involved ninety percent sleep time.
So much so that I really could not recommend flying the friendly skies across the Pacific.
Similarly too, it’s a big thumbs down to the arrogant Delta representative at Newark who spent an eternity looking at a monitor before attending to me and then asking me if I was “Priority or First” when all I needed was for Delta to acknowledge my flight reallocation from United and simply print my replacement tickets.
I know my travel issue that day was not the fault of Delta. But what an opportunity there was for this employee to make a difference…
And he blew it….
Big time.
“Welcome to Delta. We’re so glad we’ve been able to help you with your travels today Dr Moffet. We know you’ll enjoy the Delta experience and we hope to see you again soon….”
were words that never ever passed the lips of this pompous little man, who viewed me as an inconvenience rather than a customer “gifted” to him by United.
What a goose!!
Honk! Honk!
What is it with some people?
Don’t they realise that without customers, there is no business?
And if there is no business, there are no jobs?
******
My upcoming in depth two day workshops will be held in London in August.
You can reserve your places here: Click Link To Order
*****
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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