5-Star Customer Service for Your Dental Practice

Episode #397 with Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca

Your boss is the customer, and the customer is always right — even when they're wrong! So, how do you ensure you provide excellent customer service at every step? To share secrets from her latest book, At Your Service: 5-Star Customer Care for a Successful Dental Practice, Kirk Behrendt brings back Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca to reveal how you can create a winning team and culture for your practice to thrive. To master 5-star customer service at every level of your business, listen to Episode 397 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

Customer service is everything in dentistry.

Create a winning team culture for your practice.

Know the traits you will not tolerate on your winning team.

Master the ten powerful customer service phrases.

Learn about the four complainers and how to handle them.

Quotes:

“Customer service is everything — everything. I want the listeners to remember this: who is the boss? Who is the boss, even of the dentist? The boss is the customer. The customer pays your paycheck. So, the better service that you can give, the more you'll be rewarded. And customer service is everything. We are a service industry. Dentistry is a service industry. So, customer service is what we do. We are providing care for our patients.” (3:16—3:55)

“Think seriously about your culture, about your team culture, because culture is what the patient feels the second they walk into your dental office. And culture is not optional. Culture is the sum of the behaviors that you choose as a team to have on your team.” (4:33—5:01)

“Have a team meeting and ask them to write down what are the winning traits that we want on our team, what are the traits and behaviors that we are screening for and looking for on our team. And collect those responses and go over them as a team.” (5:52—6:16)

“If you have a winning culture and you want to sustain it, you must be intolerant of those behaviors which do not sustain your culture, or destroy your culture, or minimize your culture, weaken your culture.” (7:35—7:55)

“Have your team write what are the traits not tolerated on our winning team. Now, this is interesting. I have 21 traits. But if you go through these traits, all 21 really come down to one, in my opinion: bad attitude. The other 20 are a subcategory of that first major thing, which might be considered bad attitude.” (9:34—10:00)

“When a patient asks you something, stay away from using the term, ‘No problem,’ because it’s a negative term. And you don't even know what the patients are hearing a few feet away from where you're talking. You might say, ‘No problem,’ and all they hear is “problem,” and they're thinking, ‘There's a problem?’ So, stay away from that term. That is not a customer service term.” (15:29—16:08)

“[Customer service phrase number ten], ‘I apologize for our mistake. Let me make it right.’ The customer is always right. Even when they're wrong, they're right. So, apologize, ‘I'm sorry for our mistake. Let me make it right.’ You don't ever want to get in an argument with a customer. Even if they're wrong, don't make them wrong. Make them right.” (16:51—17:19)

“[Customer service phrase] number nine, ‘Thank you for your business. See you again soon.’ You cannot say thank you enough.” (17:21—17:27)

“[Customer service phrase] number eight, ‘I'm not sure, but I will find out.’ Now, you're going to be asked a lot of questions. A patient asks you about their insurance balance. Maybe you don't know the answer. ‘I'm not sure, but I will find out.’ And you will find out. If you see it, you own it. If you hear it, you own it. You don't pass the buck. You follow up until you get the patient their answer, whatever that might be. You might not know the answer, but you're going to find out for them.” (17:28—17:57)

“[Customer service phrase] number seven, ‘What else can I do for you today?’ Before you release the patient, before you sit them up in their chair and say goodbye, ‘What else can I do for you today? Do you have any additional questions? Is there anything else I can do for you?’” (17:58—18:14)

“[Customer service phrase] number six, making the appointments. ‘What is most convenient for you?’ Now, you might not be able to give every patient a 4:30 p.m. appointment. All my patients want 4:30 appointments. ‘What is most convenient for you?’ ‘4:30 on Thursday.’ ‘Well, I have a 4:30 on a Thursday in 10 weeks. Or I have a 2:00 in four weeks when the doctor wants to see you. What is most convenient for you?’ Let the patient decide. If 4:30 on a Thursday is really what they want, give them the 4:30 on the Thursday, even if you have to book it way out.” (18:16—19:03)

“[Customer service phrase] number five, ‘How may we serve you at the front desk? How did we do?’ I like that question at the end of an appointment. ‘How did we do?’ ‘Oh, you did great.’ ‘Oh, that's wonderful. Do you think you could give us a five-star review on Google?’ Now, if they say, ‘It was kind of rough today,’ then you can discuss that. ‘Oh, how so?’ You get the information. Better they tell you than write a review somewhere, because you can make it right.”  (19:05—19:48)

“[Customer service phrase] number three, ‘Glad you're here.’ Now, ‘Glad you're here,’ three words, it’s like saying, ‘I love you.’ It’s like saying, ‘I appreciate you.’” (19:49—19:57)

“Two words that you can never say enough, ‘Thank you.’ And then, the most powerful word in customer service, the word yes. [If the patient asks you] something, ‘Could I take a bathroom break?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Could you lift up my chair?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I'm a little cold. Could I have a blanket?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I need a drink.’ ‘Yes.’ The more you say yes, the more you're making your patient happy.” (20:01—20:35)

“Another phrase, which I call our external mantra is, ‘We will take good care of you.’ That is a powerful phrase, especially in the exam room. When you are doing an exam for a new patient, before the doctor leaves the room, turn to the patient and say, ‘We will take great care of you,’ or, ‘I'm turning you over to my treatment coordinator. We will take great care of you.’ That is a wonderful, wonderful thing to say to your patient.” (22:54—23:22)

“Putting these things in place, it’s going to take a lot of leadership from the doctor to maintain the standards of excellent customer service. And one of the things you're trying to instill in the team is building a relationship with the patient, to genuinely care about the patient, and to go from having to serve the patient, learning to serve the patient, to wanting to serve the patient, to loving to serve the patient. When you start to love it, and when you're saying, ‘Oh, I can't wait to see this patient today,’ you know you have really gotten to know that patient on a personal level. And personalized care is the highest level of customer service.” (24:05—24:54)

“Two things that can diminish a mood of happiness that you can work on is, number one, don't overschedule. Don't overschedule your day. You don't want to be rushed. You want to start on time. You want to end on time. And when your schedule is under control, you are going to be happy, you're going to be relaxed, and you're going to spend quality time with your patients. You're probably going to be more productive. You're probably going to produce more dentistry because you have the time to do what you need to do, and you're not spinning your wheels. You're not just patching things up.” (25:35—26:29)

“You want to find A players. And if you want people who smile at work, you need to interview and hire people who smile. You can't teach someone to smile. You have to hire the people who are already smiling when you hire them.” (28:37—28:54)

“Let's say you get a complaint. How do you handle it? Well, you listen. You say, ‘I hear you. I hear you,’ and sympathize. Say, ‘Oh, that’s too bad. I'm so sorry that happened,’ whatever it is. Ask questions, ‘What can I do to make it right?’ Propose a solution, ‘Let's do this.’ Ask if the solution is satisfactory, ‘Would that be okay with you?’ If not, ask what would be satisfactory. Grant another solution, ‘How about we do this? How about we do that?’ Explain why the solution would be satisfactory, and then come to an agreement. Now, you're not going to come to an agreement with every single patient in the world. But usually, if you care and you go through these steps, you will come to an agreement.” (29:46—30:40)

“The patient you have to watch out for [is] the ‘I'm okay. You're not okay. And neither were the last five dentists that I just quit.’ That is a very dangerous patient. And in a naive world of lack of experience, your ego is going to set in and say, ‘Oh, but I can make them happy. I'm different. I'm different from those other five dentists that they didn't like.’ No, you're not. And in the end, it’s going to bite you. So, that is the one patient you need to send to the university, because it is a problem patient. And they are going to cause problems for you.” (32:39—33:32)

“Fred Joyal actually gave me this idea, to give your patient a blanket during treatment if you're doing a long procedure. It turns the experience a little more into a spa experience. You want to make sure that your office is appealing to the five senses: the sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste, even if you give your patients water. And make sure that the appearance of your team, the team uniforms look really professional, looks really good. And you want your office to be extremely clean.” (35:09—35:51)

“One thing you can do at your team meetings, you can ask, ‘What is one thing we could work on this week to improve our customer service?’ You can usually work on one thing. You probably can't work on more than three things. I would limit it to maybe three things you work on every week. So, once you put all these things in place, then you need to preserve what you've worked on and make sure that your systems are being followed. And when the communication is clear, it really makes the work environment great for everybody because there are no surprises. There's no stress. There's no stress when there are no surprises.” (40:16—41:02)

“Have fun and express your personality, whatever that might be, whatever you love. When you think of your patients, think of your best friend from high school, someone you haven't seen in a long time that you really enjoyed spending time with. And now, greet your patient. Think of your best friend. And be happy at work. Have fun with your team, because your own enthusiasm, your love for your own practice, will be transferred to your patient.” (41:42—42:20)

“The platinum rule of customer service: treat people the way that you would like to be treated.  (50:20—50:26)

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

1:48 Dr. Gorczyca’s background.

2:54 Why this is an important topic.

4:02 How to create a winning team culture.

8:11 Know which traits will not be tolerated.

11:11 Core values and mission statement.

12:15 Project positivity and good energy.

15:20 Ten positive customer service phrases.

23:22 Language matters.

24:04 Build a relationship with your patients.

24:54 Overscheduling is not productive.

28:30 Recruiting your winning team.

29:27 Handling complaints.

30:41 Four types of complainers.

33:53 Winning care practices.

36:46 Creating a winning office climate/Mr. BIV.

41:36 Last thoughts on customer service.

42:34 Dr. Gorczyca’s books.

46:34 Handling absenteeism.

Reach Out to Dr. Gorczyca:

Dr. Gorczyca’s website: www.clubbraces.com

Dr. Gorczyca’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GorczycaOrthodontics/  

Dr. Gorczyca’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChpbJpv0mkAHSzRJc7yGj-Q

Dr. Gorczyca’s social media: @gorczycaorthodontics

Resources:

It All Starts With Marketing by Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/21075610-it-all-starts-with-marketing

Beyond the Morning HUDDLE by Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27397317-beyond-the-morning-huddle

At Your Service by Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36350240-at-your-service

Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca Bio:

Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca has been a clinical orthodontist for over 25 years. She wanted to be an orthodontist since she was in the seventh grade when she had her own orthodontic treatment! After completion of her orthodontic residency program, she worked with world-renown orthodontist, Dr. T.M. Graber, in Evanston, Illinois. Since moving to California, she has taught at both UCSF and University of the Pacific Dental Schools and worked in a multispecialty group practice prior to opening her own orthodontic office in Antioch, California.  

In addition to her private practice, Dr. Gorczyca is an adjunct clinical professor at the Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry at the University of the Pacific. She has also taught at UCSF Dental School and Northwestern Dental School.  

Dr. Gorczyca is an avid reader and has a passionate interest in business management. She lectures on business management topics at the University of the Pacific Dental School. These topics include Marketing, Teamwork, Treatment Coordination, Customer Service, Management Systems, and Human Resource Management. She has published her first book, It All Starts with Marketing - 201 Marketing Tips for Growing a Dental Practice, which is now available on Amazon.  

A graduate of Wellesley College, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Gorczyca completed her advanced orthodontic residency and received a Master of Science degree in oral biology from Northwestern University. She also has a master’s degree in Public Health.  

Professional affiliations: 

•        American Board of Orthodontics 

•        Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontists

•        Advanced Education in Orthodontics (Roth Program) 

•        American Association of Orthodontists 

•        Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists 

•        California Association of Orthodontists 

•        World Federation of Orthodontists 

•        American Dental Association 

•        California Dental Association 

•        Contra Costa Dental Society 

•        Delta Implant Study Club 

•        Seattle Study Club 

•        National Board Testing Construction Committee for the American Dental Association 

•        American Association of Dental Office Managers 

(Video)

Insider’s Secrets to the Hiring Nightmare

Episode #396 with Deena Meldgin & Courtney Dalton

There's nothing more important than having the right people around you. But the challenge is finding those right people. There are a few things you need to do before you even think about hiring, and Kirk Behrendt brings in two ACT coaches, Deena Meldgin and Courtney Dalton, to share their secrets to attracting and keeping the best team members. Hiring can be a nightmare — and it doesn't have to be! For the best tips on hiring and to feel better about the hiring process, listen to Episode 396 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

Invest in your current team members.

Find alternatives before you think about hiring.

Core values are essential for successful hiring.

Your favorite people care about the same things as you.

Highlight core values in ads to attract the right people.

Lean into your team for the hiring process.

Quotes:

“It all leads back to core values and making sure that you have an established vision before you even start the hiring process.” (5:48—5:55)

“There was a big issue with a team member, and I kept saying, ‘The issue is that they're not a good core values fit.’ And I kept getting brushed off until it hit them in the face that, ‘Yeah, you're right. They're not a bad person; they're just not a great fit for the direction the practice is going, and for the belief that the practice has, and how it wants to move forward.’ So, all roads lead back to core values.” (6:41—7:06)

“Another way to really attract people that align with your values is to really call it out in your ad, ‘Here’s what we represent.’ I absolutely love that, because I think that your best team members, or the best team members in dentistry, they have a job. They have a position right now. Right? And they're looking for something else because of a cultural change or a leadership change. And so, if our ads stand out and share what we represent, we’re more likely to attract people who align with those values.” (13:07—13:39)

“[Get] creative with putting out — even in our social media — like, how can we continue to attract people who are excited about our values, excited about who we are? People aren't looking for an ad that talks about all of their responsibilities. They're looking for something that stands out. So, go into it as if you're on the other end. What's going to stand out? Even ask some of your team members. Maybe you're looking for a hygienist. As a hygienist, what would stand out to you? What are some things that you would like to see in order to click that button and apply?” (18:31—19:05)

“If at all possible, if we can avoid the hiring crisis right now, because everyone’s in it and everybody’s feeling it, is there an alternative within who we have to get everybody realigned? Do we really have to hire? Is the issue that someone wants to leave who is unhappy? Can we have more frequent check-ins with that team member and get back in alignment? Will that solve the problem? Is it on the clinical end or the admin end? It’s so easy to say, ‘Okay, we’ll terminate, and we’ll stop this working relationship.’ But is that the easiest thing right now? No. There's not a whole lot of bite. So, maybe, really, the answer is more internal than external.” (19:17—20:00)

“Sometimes, tapping into your own team who already does align with how you think and your core values, that's one of the best assets that you can tap into,...