Four weeks ago I published an article discussing the common dental office problem that there are some dental practice team members who find it difficult to have conversations with patients that come to their practice.
And there are serious ramifications for those practices that have team members who cannot conduct a conversation between each of their patients and each of themselves.
Patients of the practice will only tolerate being ignored for a certain number of times before they start feeling that they should take their dental business to someone else.
Last week, and the Tuesday before, and the Tuesday before that, I wrote about three of the four great ways that every staff member can quickly and easily become a conversational guru, no matter how shy or quiet or reserved they are, or they think they are.
These four great ways involve being able to converse with any patient at any time on any one of four very straightforward topics.
Today I will conclude with the fourth and final topic that your team members can use to strike up a meaningful conversation of any length with every patient who visits your practice.
Bucket Lists
Everybody has a list of things they would love to do if they could.
Places they would love to visit, if they could.
Events they would like to attend, if they could.
Things they would like to attempt, or try, if they dared to, or if they could.
That list may be long, or it may be short.
It may only be one thing.
But it’s still a list.
A list of aspirations.
Some people are very private about their aspirations. Others are quite open…
But we all have aspirations.
We all have a bucket list.
Where would you go, if you could, anywhere in the world?
“Do you have plans to travel?”
“Where would you go, if you could, anywhere in the world?”
“What places are on your bucket list?”
“Why there?”
“How long have you been wanting to go there?”
“Have you been there before?”
“What was it like?”
“Do you think it has changed?”
“What do you think it will be like?”
Some people want to go back to places they have been to before. These may be places they have holidayed, they may be places where they have lived previously or even places where they spent their childhood…
These places may have certain nostalgic and sentimental values.
And people love to talk about these places, and their reasons for wanting to return there.
You just need to know how to prompt these people to tell you more…
“Tell me about that”
“Sounds wonderful…”
Events they’d like to attend
When I meet Americans and other foreigners, I’m surprised at how many of them want to come to Australia to attend the Australian Open Tennis.
And I do know people who have travelled to the USA to attend The Masters in Augusta. [that’s golf]
I know people who have attended the Open Championship in Scotland and England. [that’s golf too]
And I know others who have travelled to the Chelsea Flower Show.
Attending a musical on Broadway [in New York] or London’s West End is also high on people’s Bucket List.
Or just seeing Paul McCartney in Concert?
Or climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge?
What about sitting in the front row to watch Les Misérables? How would that feel?
Or just being able to fly overseas and knock on the front door of a relative, and say:
“Hi, I was just in the neighbourhood…”
It’s very easy.
It is very easy…
When you use the F.O.R.D. principle for starting a conversation, you can talk to anyone for hours and hours, and simply ask them a series of questions and just sit back and listen to them talk.
And it’s all about the F.O.R.D.
F.O.R.D. is an acronym for:
Family
Occupation
Recreation
Dreams and Desires
These are the four subjects we have covered today, and over the past three weeks.
When you use the F.O.R.D. method, when you equip yourself, or your team members with the knowledge and the skills of using F.O.R.D., what you will find is that whoever you are talking to will happily divulge the answers to all the questions you throw at them about any of those four subjects.
It really is that easy.
And in business, using F.O.R.D. is a game changer.
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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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