Following on from my blog article last Friday about the dentist who had no systems in place when she was running late, and a patient was told to “go for a walk” to fill in time, I can embarrassingly reveal that a similar thing happened at Active Dental many years ago.
In fact, twice in twenty eight years I had patients just up and walk out because nobody in the practice had bothered to keep them abreast of the fact I was running behind time, and why I was running behind time, and whether or not they [the waiting patient] were OK with that.
What wasn’t OK was that the waiting patients were not given any say in what was going on.
And that was because we [at the practice] either did not have the systems in place to deal with my running behind time, or we did not train the team members on how to step up and take control of something that could easily turn pear shaped if left to its own devices…which in both cases is exactly what happened.
Case Number 1.
In this instance, a new patient scheduled at the end of the day simply stood up and walked out of the client lounge [waiting room] because I was running late, and neither of my two receptionists had bothered to inform the waiting new patient about why that was, and whether he [the new patient] was OK with that.
Which was totally unacceptable.
What should have happened was that one of the receptionists should have engaged in conversation with the waiting new patient, while the other receptionist went down to the treatment room and checked with me as to how late I was actually running, and whether the new patient should wait and stay, or reschedule?
And if that had been done, then the new patient may well have waited, or may well have rescheduled, purely because they had been informed and kept in the loop.
But they weren’t kept in the loop. And because of that, this new patient never returned to the practice.
Case Number 2.
This was a Monday morning in early April. We had a TV set in our client lounge showing live coverage of the final round of the Masters Golf from Augusta.
And patients waiting for their appointment were able to watch the golf live.
On this morning, I was running behind time because an extraction of an upper second molar had turned into a surgical procedure.
And so, while my next patient was “waiting” for me to see them, I was up to my armpits in blood trying to remove the fractured root fragments from the socket of this upper molar.
And so my “waiting” patient walked out.
He was a regular patient of some standing and he simply just up and left the building.
When I phoned him later that morning to see what had happened to him, he said this to me:
“How dare you keep me waiting for my appointment while you’re out the back there with your feet up watching the golf on TV?”
When I told him that this perception of his was nowhere near the truth and that I’d been up to my elbows in blood performing a difficult surgical extraction, the “waiting” patient didn’t want to hear a bar of it.
You see, the problem wasn’t the waiting, really.
The problem was that this patient hadn’t been kept informed as to why I was running behind time.
Because of this…
Because of this, because of a complete lack of communication in our office, I decided that we needed to make sure that something like this never ever happened again.
Because it’s inexcusable behaviour.
So here’s what we implemented…
Moving forwards, we decided that if ever a dentist or hygienist was running behind schedule, then if ever possible, the DENTIST or hygienist needed to be the one to go out to the waiting patient and simply take the time to explain to them why he/she was running behind, and that they were trying their hardest to catch up that time.
What we found…
What I found when we implemented this protocol was that the waiting patients were very appreciative of the fact that I, as the dentist, had come out to the client lounge to inform them personally as to the state of play….
And in nearly every case, the waiting patient would reply with something like this:
“Take your time Doc. I’m in no hurry. Don’t let it worry you…”
All in all…
All in all, patients just want to feel valued, and respected.
And when they feel ignored, and taken for granted, that’s when the trouble begins.
How are things in your practice?
Are your patients being kept informed?
Are your patients feeling valued, as much as you possibly can make them feel valued? And not feeling taken for granted?
The number one reason that established patients leave a dental practice and take their patronage elsewhere is because of APATHY and PERCEIVED APATHY towards them from the staff and the dentists of that dental practice.
Remember…
Nobody likes going to the dentist.
And if going to the dentist is so bad, then nobody likes going to the dentist if they’re going to feel ignored or taken for granted on top of all the other negativity associated with a visit to the dentist……
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