It’s been an interesting week.

This week I’ve farewelled the Dental Office I’ve worked in for nearly twenty-eight years.

More than half of my life.

As many of you know, I sold my business seven years ago now, and have been working in that business still for the past seven years, most recently, on a part time basis.

However, it’s been a year of change.

And over the past few months, it’s become obvious that the new direction that the new owners wanted for my practice was different from the way that I personally wished to go.

And so it was time.

The outpourings of emotion from patients, and their families and from staff and team members were very touching.

And at the same time very humbling.

Because it meant that in the process of delivering Dental Services to these people for oh so many years, that I had indeed delivered more to them than Dentistry.

I had indeed delivered to them a Service.

An Experience.

Some clients were unable to comprehend what they would do without me there.

And others said they would watch out for me should I turn up somewhere else.

And I guess this was because it was all about the relationship.

It was about so much more than just the teeth.

How are things in your Dental Office?

Is your relationship with your patients bigger than being just about the teeth?

Do they only want YOU to be their dentist?

Or are they happy to accept anybody doing their teeth?

When you’ve built a business based on providing service, and a World Class Customer Service at that, you’ve built a legacy.

It’s a business that transcends more than just teeth.

It’s a business between friends.

Where the dentistry is purely secondary.

What’s so interesting about practicing Dentistry in this manner is that the trust that’s built between you as the Dentist and them as the patient is the Ultimate trust.

It’s a trust that’s implicit.

Where your patient has the attitude of “if that’s what I need, then that’s what I need”.

It’s a Dental Office where the patients don’t really care about the fee, because it’s more about “whatever it is, that’s what it is”.

What’s been interesting has been the comments of patients who have been loyal to their previous long-term dentists.

My Dental Practice was really the conglomeration of three long term Dental Offices where the principal Dentists from those practices had been the sole Dentist there for a long long period of time.

So these patients had transitioned from an already very trusting relationship into a new relationship with me.

And it’s been the kind words from these patients that have been most heartening.

“Oh he never spoke to me.”

“Oh he never cared about me the way you have.”

These people in particular have been very very grateful for the relationship that they’ve had with me.

The Experience.

I hope that for you, the practice of Dentistry is about the people, not about the teeth.

Sure, treating disease and illness is paramount.

But remembering that there’s a person on the end of that tooth is more important.

People love to do business with people they like.

And they won’t do business with people they do not like.

I have learned a great deal from my relationships with these wonderful people that I’ve had the honour to serve.

Because, it’s not about the teeth…

When providing an Experience, an Ultimate Patient Experience, it’s never about the teeth…

It’s about the people.

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

Did you like this blog article? If you did then hit the share buttons below and share it with your friends and colleagues. Share it via email, Facebook and twitter!!