Take a look at all of your relationships out there and tell me one thing you see that they all have in common?
When you look at the people we call our friends and all the people we have a business and professional relationship with, the one common theme across all of these relationships is this:
People do business with people they like.
We all do it.
We all prefer to associate with people we like rather than people we do not like.
Life would be pretty darn miserable if we were forced to socialise and do business with people we do not like… I think that’s called prison.
Years ago, I used to buy my newspapers and magazines at my local newsagency, which was a short fifteen minute walk from my home.
[For all the millennials out there, a newspaper was a daily printed publication available for purchase that brought the news events of the world to the public in pre-internet days]
There was an employee working there at that newsagency named Bob, who always made me feel welcome, and who was a pleasure to see each day.
We got on famously.
Sadly, when Bob left there, the owner of the shop and his daughter, who were both as abrasive as two pieces of course sandpaper, took over the cashier and service roles.
Suddenly everything that was asked of them by customers became too difficult for them.
There were always excuses.
There were always reasons.
Reasons why not.
With Bob, on the other hand, nothing was ever a bother.
Bob excelled in making the impossible possible.
Finally, one Saturday morning, when I was asking the daughter for a replacement for a magazine that had come without an important advertised insert, the daughter asked me:
“How old is this child?”
[as if that had anything to do with anything??]
And then said:
“Sometimes children have to learn that in life we don’t always get what we want.”
Thanks for the unasked for philosophy lesson….
And there ended the customer-shopkeeper relationship.
What does this all mean to dentistry?
People do business with people they like.
And people choose not to do business with people they dislike.
From that point on, it was more inconvenient for me to have to travel further to buy my magazines and my newspapers.
But there was no point in rewarding rudeness.
Or tolerating it.
Ask yourself this?
Do you have abrasive employees dealing with your valued customers?
Do you know what’s being said by your staff members to those trusted and loyal patients?
In 1998 I advanced the employment opportunities of a long-term dental receptionist.
[I moved her on….]
And replaced her with one of the best employees I ever had, who immediately closed the EXIT DOOR of unhappy patients who were being rubbed up the wrong way by the previous employee.
And business boomed.
The conga-line of offended patients exiting the dental office disappeared.
Years later we employed an additional front office employee who was very efficient and skilled at what she needed to do.
Problem was, *SMILE* was not part of her vocabulary.
In your dental office, you need to employ “people people”.
People do business with people they like.
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My next public speaking presentation showing Dentists how to grow their Dental practices will be in Sydney on November 9-10 and in Melbourne on November 12-13 with Dr Christopher Phelps, Dr Nathan Jeal, Mr Alex Lalovic and Mr Tiger Safarov.
For more information and to secure your seat click this link here.
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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
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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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