Ash welcomes Nathan Strum from Abby Connect to discuss the evolving role of technology, especially AI, in enhancing the patient experience at dental practices. They break down the traditional functions of the front desk, highlighting the importance of both in-person and phone interactions, and the challenges associated with each—especially the common pain point of phone overload.

They also discuss why separating in-person tasks from phone duties leads to better service and a less stressful work environment for dental staff. They also talk about the role of AI-powered and virtual receptionists, including their capabilities, advantages, and their current limitations when handling patient interactions and urgent calls. Compliance and HIPAA considerations for practices using these technologies are also discussed. It’s clear that, rather than replacing human roles, AI is best used as a support tool to improve efficiency, help staff retention, and keep up with patient expectations in a competitive dental landscape. Nathan offers practical advice for practice owners and team members on vetting virtual receptionist services and stresses the importance of ongoing training and adaptability in adopting new technologies.

To connect with and learn more about Nathan, visit: https://www.abby.com/

Key Topics Discussed:

1. Dividing front desk and phone responsibilities for better patient experience
2. How slow or missed phone responses can lose new patient leads
3. The role of AI and virtual receptionists in dental practices
4. Handling urgent and emergency patient calls with AI and human backup
5. Impact of phone tasks on front desk stress and staff turnover
6. Cost, training, and staff retention benefits of using virtual receptionists
7. Ensuring HIPAA compliance with third-party phone services
8. How to evaluate and choose a virtual receptionist provider
9. The importance of ongoing staff training in new technologies

Welcome to Beyond Byewings, the business side of dentistry, brought to you by Edwards and Associates PC. Join us as we discuss how to build your dental practice, optimize your income, and plan for your future. This podcast is distributed with the understanding that Edwards and Associates PC is not rendering legal, accounting or professional advice. Listeners should consult with their business advisors before acting on any of the information that is shared at Edwards and Associates PC. Our business business is the business of dentistry. For help or more information, visit our website@eandassociates.com.

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Bitewings. My name is Ash, and in today's episode we have a very special guest. His name is Nathan Strum, who's with Abby Connect. He has a lot of knowledge and expertise to cover on some of the technological advancements that may help a dental practice. And without giving too much details away, let's get started. Hi, Nathan, how are we doing this morning?

Hi, Ash. Thanks for that introduction. We're great and I'm happy to be here.

So for our listeners out there, can you give us a little bit about your background and what Abby Connect does before we get started?

Yeah, I'd love to. You know, we've been working with dental offices for 20 years, and so we help them with their customer service, specifically with the human receptionist service. We are currently talking to a lot of dental offices and helping them implement AI into their practice. And so that's kind of our sweet spot. And we've loved working with dental officers for, for decades now.

Wow, that's fantastic. 20 years, that's no small feat. Now, AI, you know, that word gets thrown around so much. And in fact, I have covered so many episodes on AI, but AI, I don't think it's fair if you look at AI as just one thing. I think there's so many different utilization part of AI. So today specifically, we're going to talk about utilizing AI potentially in the patient experience side of a dental practice. Let's talk about before AI. How would a dental practice focus on the patient experience side, starting with, let's say, the front desk, the receptionist?

Yeah. So I always like to talk to my dental practice managers and dentists about really looking at this as a customer customer service issue like any other business. And, you know, your patients are your customers and you should treat them as such. And so I know that customers are hard to come by and, you know, you want to give them that, that feeling of being welcome. And that starts with your front desk. And so if you walk into a dental office and your receptionist is on the phone and can't greet you and can't look at you in the eyes. You know, that you're. You're getting off to a bad start.

And so we like to look at phones as a separate job than front desk receptionist. And that allows you to focus on the people in front of you and also to make sure that you're available for questions that your patients have.

Interesting. I like how you separated the two. So connecting with your patients with your eyes, that's what a front death receptionist does. And the person that's on the phone, that person's work is a little different. It's because the eyes are not there to connect. It might actually be more strenuous or may require additional skills.

Right, yes, absolutely.

Okay, so let's talk about that. So what are some of the key differences? You would say?

Sure, there's a lot of similarities, but the key difference is, you know, being available right away, whether you're on the phone or in person. Nobody likes to wait. And people are a little bit more forgiving in person to wait if you're talking to somebody in front of you. But when it comes to phones, you know, we don't like to be on hold. We don't like to be in a queue. We want to pick up that phone and we want to talk to somebody immediately. And this is one of the most important things with phone customer service.

Yeah. The timing of it, especially if the call was made after the practice is closed or before it opens, or maybe even on a day when the practice is traditionally closed.

Yeah. And if I'm not a patient of yours and I'm calling to find out if you're accepting new patients, which most practices are, and you don't answer that phone, I'm hanging up and I'm calling the next dental office on the list and Yelp or Google or whatever platform I'm looking at, and whoever answers first gets my business.

That's right, yeah. So in this scenario, you would be the. How should I say? The lead. Right, yeah. Calling in. And we all know these days, with so much competition, especially if you're in an urban area, you need all the advantages that you can utilize to acquire as many leads as you can.

And, you know, dentists are fabulous at what they were trained to do, what they went to school so well for. When you open your own practice, you've got to also think as a business owner, and leads are part of that.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Why do you think phones are such a pain Point for so many dental offices.

Again, I think that typically, you know, you're looking at the phones as an afterthought of first. When you look at hiring, you don't think of phones. You, you think of who you're hiring to work in the office. And that's just the natural, you know, any business. And then you're layering on top of that. Okay, who can answer the phones? And it's always the front desk staff that is the most capable of answering the phones. They've got the information, they're trained on the intake platform, they're trained on the scheduling platform, dentrix or whatever it is you're using in your office. And so they're the ones that always are pressured to answer the phone.

You don't want to hire multiple people to stand there all day, but you do need to have somebody available to take calls and to greet people in person.

Now, you did mention that if you are calling in and not as an existing patient, and if nobody picks up or if they put you on a cue, you call the next dentist. At that point when you're, you've shifted your thought that I'm going to call the next dentist, what do you think is happening from the patient's perspective? Now, I know we're just using one as an example, but I'm sure there's potential for multiple prospectives prospect patients not be taken in. What do you think is happening from the patient's perspective so that the practice owner can pay attention to this part, the intake part of the patient experience?

Yeah, good question as a patient or a customer, especially when it comes to getting work done on your teeth. And I'm sorry to say this, but we all know that a lot of us really have angst when it comes to, you know, going to the dental office office. I just want to check this off my list. I, I want to pick up the phone, I want to make an appointment, and I want to get on with my day. I don't want to, I'm not going to spend a bunch of time interviewing dentists and really evaluating every single thing about the dental office. I might look at some reviews online and maybe I'm referred by somebody, but at the end of the day when I pick up that phone, I just want to get off the phone as quick as possible. And so that's what you, that's the way that you really want to think about new leads at your dental practice. How do I get them booked as quick as possible? And it's not just the customer service Aspect, it's what practice management system you're using, what scheduling software are you using? Is that scheduling software available online for your patients to use for future? Are you providing text message notifications to help with, you know, keeping people accountable to their appointments? Are you looking into AI functions to allow customers to communicate with your scheduling platform via AI, you know, through text messaging? So these are all the ways that we look at leads.

No, you mentioned a good point. That's right. Even I get anxious whenever I have to hear, oh, no, it's that time of the year, I have to call my dentist again. But I could imagine if I'm looking for a new dentist, yeah, I would be very anxious for multiple reasons. So, yeah, that initial entry point during the intake, if it's a pleasant experience, I think that sets off a good tone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, you're not going to, you know, we're not going to solve the anxiety after you get into the practice or get into that chair. So whatever we can do before that is so beneficial and so powerful.

I like this shift that's happening in the recent years. I feel like with practice ownership, where owners are put in a place where they have to think about a lot more things than, let's say a dentist would have to 10 years ago, just because the market has shifted, right, the what the patients are looking for and asking for has shifted. And also dental, the future dental practice owners, they think very differently from, let's say, a dentist 10 years ago. You know, it's not just about the bottom line anymore. I feel like a lot of dental practice owners, they attach their own identity with the practice they own, starting with the culture they're going to have, the team members they're going to hire to, let's say, even how the practice is going to look like, the interior details and the ergonomics and the technology, I feel like it's going to be a representation of who they are. So, yeah, it's very easy to think of the bigger things, the interior design and the team members and the culture and, you know, how your website's going to look like. But at the same time, I feel like the ongoing daily things like this, like just that initial phone call that's taken, it starts right there with this experience, right with. With this practice that is a representation of you.

So I think it's all the more important these days to pay attention to these things. Then let's say it was 10 years ago.

I love how you look at it from a real holistic point of view. I consider Myself a dental practice connoisseur.

Really.

My, my dental office, they've got it nailed. They've taken every awkward moment out of the whole experience. From the phones to when you walk in, to how they greet you, to the dentist when he greets you and shakes your hand and looks at you in the eye and then when you're finished, how they handle the scheduling for the next appointment. They've really nailed down how they can, you know, not pressure you, but also give you that option and come to you at your level levels. I've really, really come to respect customer service and dental practices and seen how that can really grow the business and really attract patients because patients talk. They, they talk and they, they will be your best advocate.

Oh yeah, I agree. And that's also another thing that with most, and I'm not talking about like the big giant corporate DSO type practice, but if you're privately owned and if you ever pay attention to how you're getting a lot of your leads asides from your online platforms or your phone calls, you know, the cold calls, it's going to be word of mouth. Patients are using platforms like, what is it? There was one. It's not just, you know, Google searches anymore. They're using platforms like Nextdoor. Right. You know, if you live in a neighborhood, there's an hoa. A lot of times they'll have you become part of this app called Nextdoor, where, you know, moms or whoever may hop on and talk about, hey, did you see that new dental practice that just opened in our neighborhood? I love this dentist.

And you know, that one person's experience can compound into 10 other new potential prospects just because of that one great experience that you were able to give as a whole. So, yeah, it's important to pay attention to things like that.

Yeah, I think that's interesting. You bring up the Nextdoor app. I downloaded the Nextdoor app. I was curious and my intention was I thought that I would receive updates on anything happening in the neighborhood as far as crime or get togethers or anything. I thought it might meet people. And what I found was actually a lot of referrals for dental offices, an electrician and plumbers and a lot of different trades people. But I did find that pretty interesting and I'm glad you brought that up.

Yeah, exactly. The power of spreading the word. And it doesn't stop with Next Door. There are closed groups for moms on Facebook where, you know, they talk about things like that. Especially if you're a pediatric practice, that's very important.

Yeah, yeah. And it's your best lead source.

So tell me this, Nathan. When people hear virtual receptionist, you know, they often think just answering phones. But what are they actually doing for a dental office?

Sure, answering phones, which comes along with answering questions, making the patient or the caller feel heard and feel valued. Also, we do scheduling, so we will connect to your calendar, depending on what calendar system you use. We've recently released an AI receptionist that can do a lot more with scheduling and, you know, can really complement the, the human receptionist over the phone.

Now, AI has come far, right? So if, if, let's say somebody wants to utilize that aspect of it, it's not like somebody is going to answer the call and sound like a robot. Right. I remember back in the old days when cars had those assistants built in them, you would click on it on your steering wheel. Just the voice alone would be so annoying. It's like, oh, come on now.

It'S horrible.

Yeah.

If you haven't heard the new AI voices, you will be shocked. You will be shocked. The inflection, the tone, how it matches your conversation. Digress for a second and go into a different industry. We also work with law firms and I have a attorney that we've been answering phones for on the human side for many, many years. And she came to us and wanted us to answer after hours as well, but she didn't want to increase her cost. You know, we've all been there, right? So we gave her this idea of using the AI receptionist. We wanted to have her as a use case and we thought that would be a fair, that we would provide this to her at no cost.

But the kicker was, or the kicker is that she specializes in elder law. And we thought if we can wow this caller, her market, we've really nailed it. And to be quite honest with you, Ash, I didn't know how this was going to go. It went fabulous. Fast forward to today, and she's one of our biggest advocates and her callers love it. And I was really curious and listened to how their callers communicated with the AI. Are they going to talk to it like it's a robot? And are they going to get frustrated? Are they going to have that conversational tone? And they did, they did. They really adopted it and really conversate with it like a human.

And of course with any call there's going to be some friction. And that's why we always advocate for advocate especially in customer service, for having humans available at any moment in time. And so we see about 30% of their calls get re queued over to our human receptionist. There, there could be a situation where the caller has repeated themselves a couple of times. The AI just isn't getting it or not giving them the right response. Or it's a caller that just doesn't want to speak to AI. And in that sense it does come to our humans receptionists.

I see, so you're saying that these AI receptionists are capable of matching the tone and the voice and maybe even the age demographics just to switch up their answers to make the person who's calling feel more comfortable. But the downside is they're mostly capable of answering the FAQs. But anything maybe that's outside of it or is more of a specific question, that's when it may need to get moved to a human receptionist.

Yeah. There's two core things to think about when you think about AI. One is saving money. As the business owner, of course, that's always a consideration. And so AI can help you save money, can help you with your budget. But then from your customer standpoint, your patient standpoint, how does it help them? Well, the availability, the ease of asking questions. And so you have to make sure that you choose a service that can provide the functionality that your callers crave and need when they call in.

How do you think the AI receptionist handle, let's say an urgent or emergency dental call without, let's say, disrupting the practice?

Well, if, if it's something that the AI can't handle, then it needs to be able to get a human on the phone because emergencies, you know, something urgent, you just got to get the dental practice on the phone. I know that over the Christmas period, my w, a couple days before Christmas had had some procedure done on her teeth and she developed an infection. And luckily, like I said, I love our dental office and they provide a great service. They actually drove into the office on Christmas to meet with her because she was in so much pain. So you've got to have that human touch.

What would be a common piece of feedback you hear from patients after, let's say, a practice improves the phone cover.

So what we look at is we're our customers that the practice manager or practice owner or our dentist. Right. But we are looking to really impress and take care of the caller. Right. And so the caller is our unpaid client. That's the. Yeah, exactly. Right.

The best compliment that we can have for the dental practice is to see a caller put a review online, talking about how great the receptionist was. And that's really what nails it for us. And it's not even a review for us, it's a review for the dental office. That's really where we feel good about what we've done.

Now let's move on to front desk responsibility, relief and staff retention around this. What do you think a phone overload does to a dental practice as front desk?

That sure, it can be very stressful. Answering the phones in itself is stressful, but then you manage, then you add in the fact that you've got to work with the people that are walking in and you know the paperwork and the scheduling and you know every aspect of the job. It can be very stressful and it can cause, you know that stress comes across in your customer service, whether it's over the phone or in person. And that's just a natural part of being human. And so I think managing that stress for your staff is part of this. So that they can have the culture and they can have the good mood, if you will, to provide that customer service.

That's right, yeah. And prevents, what's that commonly thrown word? These, A burnout. But it's a real thing though. It really is a real thing. So if, if some of those duties can be offloaded at a reasonable. Again, we are a for profit business, so it has to make sense monetarily. So if from a budgetary standpoint changes can be made which can in turn help the front desk people provide a better care or customer service to the patients, then why not? And if it's also going to allow for better retention because we all know turnover is pretty high with the front desk side of any dental office. Very rarely do I sit down practices where the front desk area stays on board for long periods of time.

I believe the average right now is seven months. And of course that includes some of the older practices, but in reality with the newer practice, I think it's much shorter. So yeah, if, if some of those responsibilities can be offloaded at a reasonable cost to the practice owner then. And to help with retention, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Reasonable cost is about the cost of a cell phone. So for a service like ours. That cheap, huh?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, that's good. Now, since we are talking about the dental practice. Right. We also have to talk a little bit about compliance, especially with hipaa. Would you out there that utilize virtual assistance programs, utilizes AI that's aware of these compliance codes?

Yes. And we do provide a HIPAA compliance level service for dental offices. But I have to be honest with you, I'm quite surprised that a lot of the dental offices don't take advantage of our HIPAA compliant option.

Okay.

Now you, technically, you know, as long as, as a dental practice, you're making sure that your virtual receptionist company is not collecting certain pieces of information. It, you know, we all know HIPAA compliance and where it's required is not a science, it's an art.

Yeah, that's right.

It's a little, it's a little gray. So you, you can ensure that you don't need HIPAA compliance when it comes to a virtual receptionist, but you've got to be actively involved and make sure.

That.

We or your provider is not collecting the PII information.

Right? Yeah. And I think that is part of the concern that if I use a company that provides this service, are they actually going to collect data? And the other concern is patient data security. Right. Is it going to be breached wherever they're storing it, if they're recording the calls, things of that nature?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, we do provide that HIPAA compliance. And if you choose that option, you do give up some of the services that we provide. You know, of course, like you said, you give up the call recording, you give up some of the online functionality. The messages need to be more secure than a typical web portal. We cannot deliver things in an email, so you've got to be able to log into the secure portal to receive your messages. You don't receive any of the AI functionality, so the call summaries and whatnot. So there's a couple of things you're giving up, but overall, I would absolutely recommend that a dental practice works with a virtual receptionist company that can be HIPAA compliant.

Excellent. Okay, I guess that's what I wanted to know. So, Abby Connect is one of those companies that offers that.

Yes, we do, we do.

Okay, that's good. Now here's the big question, and this is for our listeners out there that are not dental practice owners, but maybe part of the team. All right? Do you see the future as AI replacing receptionists or supporting them?

Supporting them 100%. I am a big, big, big believer in humans plus AI. And I know that's become a buzzword. I know that that's, you know, everybody's saying human plus AI, but I truly believe that this technology can be used to improve our lives as a society, as a customer service agent, as a company without mass displacement. But there is some responsibility on companies to make sure that their entry level employees are learning these new skills and keeping up with the new systems that are out there and learning how to use them and learning Everything about them there. I would always recommend that not only receptionist companies and anybody that's doing customer service, but also dental practices. I would recommend that you provide learning opportunities for your staff so that they can keep up to date on this skill set.

Good point. Yeah. And it's these days, especially the era we live in, it's not just going to be the practice that's thinking of implementing this. It's also to make yourself marketable to other practices. Other practices are also looking into the same thing just to stay competitive. So it would be a good thing. Okay. Yeah, that's good.

Now tell me this. If a dental office is considering a virtual receptionist, what should they look for?

Number one, they should look for a company that provides. So we provide small dedicated teams of receptionists. And so you don't have 100, 200, 300 people answering your phones. You've got a small team dedicated to your practice. They get to know your callers, they get to know you. They're not always working on a script. They don't sound scripted because they've answered calls for your practice, because they're dedicated to your practice. So that, that's the number one thing I look, I tell people to look for.

The other thing is, especially in customer service, especially in virtual reception receptionist, I think it's super powerful to find a company that works in office. In office. Yeah. The remote working for, for answering is not conducive to providing that great culture as a company. And the great culture is what provides the good customer service. And so that's what makes somebody sound bright. Bright and cheerful and happy to talk to you over the phone, is that they work with a company that, that focuses on culture.

That makes sense. Yeah. I think we've all been on one of those phone calls where you can clearly hear the dog behind them. Someone else.

Absolutely.

Well, this person's working from home.

Well, you know, I've, I've actually personally been, I've gone down that route where my cat walked into the shot and I was a little embarrassed. It wasn't with the customer though, so that was good.

Yeah. Well, that might have actually worked in your favor. You know, I feel like if I'm in a meeting, which is very intense, and all of a sudden I get like a 30 second break because a cat came into the picture. I think that'll make my day. I'm like, you know what, I needed that.

Yeah, no, I think that's a good point of view.

I like that. That's good. Yeah. Okay. Well, it was really great. Having you on our show today, Nathan, I think you shared some very important points with our audience members and our listeners. And I think they have a lot to consider, especially if they haven't, which I doubt. I think most of our listeners and practice owners are very proactive and they stay on top of the technological advancements as they do with, you know, with their toys, their dental equipment, but also the other aspects.

But to know more, right, because AI is so broad to get more specific information on, let's say, the field of dental receptionists. I think Abby Connect is a great company to consider. So can you tell our listeners how they may be able to reach out to Abbyy if they're considering this?

And thank you for having me, Ash. This has been a great conversation and I would love for your listeners to come. Our website, abby.com a B-B-Y.com but I would really love them to call us. So if you see that phone number, just give us a call and let's talk about what your practice needs and how we can help you.

Great. Awesome, Nathan. Well, I look forward to us talking again soon.

I would love to be back. So thank you so much.

Thank you again.

Thanks for listening today. Be sure to subscribe to beyond by Wings on your favorite podcast platform. For more information, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn or reach out to us on our website. You can also shoot us an email at Info.

Sam.