I phoned a dental practice today where I had difficulty hearing what the receptionist was saying.
There was obviously a fault in the line, because I was unable to catch her name, and needed to ask her to tell me her name again.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name? What did you say your name was?”
The receptionist told me her name again.
I thanked her and said:
“Thank you. I must have a bad connection here on my end.”
She replied:
“No, it’s our end. People keep telling me all the time that we have a dodgy phone, and they can’t hear me.”
Here’s my thought:
If you know your phone is faulty, or your phone line is faulty, why not try to have it rectified ASAP?
And why not tell your callers when they mention it to you:
“Yes. We’re just in the process of getting that rectified.”
And then third party it and say:
“It’s something going on at the exchange…”
[I know, it’s a little white lie…]
By implication:
By implication, people calling this dental practice will feel that if the phones are wonky, then maybe the dentistry is going to be wonky there too…
And so by implication, callers who book appointments under these circumstances might be MORE LIKELY to reschedule, cancel, or fail to show for their appointments.
All because of the implication by association.
What other implications can be [falsely] made on a phone call?
If the receptionist has their microphone or handset of the practice phone too close to their mouth so that the caller feels as if they [and actually does have to!!!] have to hold their own phone at arms length to their ear, this may imply to the caller that the practice doesn’t have any quality control checks and balances in place….
And maybe never will?
And maybe in actual fact the dental practice owners are unaware of the accidental message this situation is sending to potential new patients who call that practice?
Lastly…
If you’re going to put me on hold when I call your practice, please don’t have a message that plays every seven seconds and tells me how valuable my call is… and don’t leave me listening to this message for four or five minutes on end…
[Yes, this really did happen]
And really lastly….
If your dental practice website page “ABOUT THE TEAM” is really written all about YOU the dentist, and is written in first person [that’s “I did this, and I did that, and I am the greatest….”], then don’t let my call go to an answering machine message in the middle of a business day, where I have to make the decision to leave my number and hope you call me back, or choose to hang up and call another practice that knows how important it is to have an ACTUAL LIVE PERSON answering the phone during regular office hours…
Sadly, you can’t make this stuff up….
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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