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In the blog post on Customer Service in Dentistry that I wrote earlier this week I mentioned how another great article on Customer Service written by Shep Hyken had recently come across my desk.

In that blog post I explained how there exists a direct correlation between the application of World Class Customer Service Systems and their immediate effects upon the business of Dentistry.

Our businesses of Dentistry.

Because there are effects and benefits that you will see immediately upon your collections, and your bottom line.

All decisions we choose to make as Dentists need to be made as Businessmen first and foremost.

Because as a business owner, there’s absolutely no point in doing things, or more importantly *FAILING* to do things, that will impact unfavourably or negatively upon your bottom line.

But some times we do.

As dentists, as a whole, we’re guilty of failing to take the necessary actions that ensure our long-term financial stability and the success and viability of our Dental Offices.

We paint ourselves into figurative corners by our own inactions.

Because in dentistry, just as it is in business, you need to have long-term strategic plans.

Little things that we need to do on a regular basis that continue to maintain the financial well being of our businesses, of our practices.

We can’t keep continuing to think of our practices as *NOT* being businesses.

And sadly sometimes that’s what we are doing.

As I wrote on Tuesday, I was recently explaining to a dentist how he would be easily able to add $100,000.00 to his collections over the next two years.

I told him how he could achieve this extra income by doing only three very small very simple little things.

I explained to him how these extra takings in collections would be easily achieved by him simply looking at his customer service systems for retaining patients, by improving the way his phone was answered, and by gently adjusting his fees.

Well, actually, the changes that I showed him were so simple they would have added $158,290.00 in revenue to his collections!

So he’d only have to have a two-thirds result of not much change at all to be adding that extra six figures of collections to his takings….

Here’s what I told him to do:

Adding two extra new patients per month to your New Patient numbers would see an additional $48,000.00 in revenue entering the practice. [In very broad numbers, I’ve found that the average adult New Patient has about a $2000.00 initial two-year value in the average dental practice.]

Improving the phone answering skills of those people in his front office would easily see the addition of at least two new patients per month to the number of new patients scheduling appointments.

Preventing the loss of two patients per month through leakage and attrition by improving customer service would retain $59,040.00 of revenue being lost to the practice. [The average regular patient has four hygiene visits and two to three restorative procedures, on average, over a two-year period. Average spend of $615.00 per year].

Every Dental Office is bleeding patients.

Patients who should be remaining loyal to our practices are leaking out through the cracks in our processes simply because of lack of attention to detail.

By us.

And our team.

It’s well recognised that the number one reason that our valued customers leave our practices and go elsewhere for their dentistry is because of apathy and perceived apathy by our staff and team members towards those valued customers.

And for that, there is no excuse.

Reducing, or better still removing that apathy will see a dramatic increase in retention numbers in your Dental Practices.

Lastly, but by no means leastly, I explained to this dentist how by applying a gentle fee increase of five percent to his professional fees now and another gentle five percent in twelve months time he will see the revenue collected over the next twenty-four months in his Office by $51,250.00 [assuming he had an average practice collecting an average half a million dollars in takings per annum].

Adding them up, these three simple minor changes that I showed this dentist would easily add an extra $158,290.00 in revenue to his collections!

So he’d only have to have a two-thirds result of not much change at all to be adding that extra six figures of collections to his takings….

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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