Dental Practice Heroes
Where dentists learn how to cut clinical days while increasing profits - without sacrificing patient care, cutting corners, or cranking volume. We teach you how to grow a scalable practice through communication, leadership, and effective management.
Hosted by Dr. Paul Etchison, author of two books on dental practice management, dental coach, and owner of a $6M collections group practice in the south suburbs of Chicago, we provide actionable advice for practice owners who want to intentionally create more time to enjoy their families, wealth, and deep personal fulfillment.
If you want to build a scalable practice framework that no longer stresses, drains, or relies on you for every little thing, we will teach you how and share stories of other dentists who have done it!
Dental Practice Heroes
Easy, Low-Cost Ways to Improve Patient Experience & Get More Reviews
Case acceptance often hinges on moments most dentists overlook. Do you follow-up with post-op patients? Does the front desk greet every patient? Is your office clean and welcoming?
In this episode, we talk about the little things that improve patient experience and lead to more reviews, loyalty, and referrals. Tune in for creative ways to make your practice stand out and help your team provide consistent care!
Topics discussed in this episode:
- Why patient experience matters
- How to make a good first impression
- Phone etiquette and follow-up calls
- Patient gifts that are worth the money
- How to keep your team accountable
- Tips to get more five-star reviews
- Creative, low-cost marketing strategies
This episode was produced by Podcast Boutique https://www.podcastboutique.com
Use the same marketing company as Dr. Etch!
Get your free demo with Relevance Marketing by Clicking Here
Take Control of Your Practice and Your Life
We help dentists take more time off while making more money through systematization, team empowerment, and creating leadership teams.
Ready to build a practice that works for you? Visit www.DentalPracticeHeroes.com to learn more.
Today, we're talking about one thing that can make or break your practice, and it's not your pricing or new technology. It's patient experience. It's how your team shows up, how the patients feel while they're in the room, and all those little touches that make patients feel important and lead to better case acceptance and even more referrals to your practice. That's what today's episode is all about. You'll get some ideas for making patients feel more comfortable in your practice. That's what today's episode is all about. You'll get some ideas for making patients feel more comfortable in your office, helping your team create a better experience and getting more five-star reviews for your practice, which ultimately leads to more practice growth and more profit. Let's get to it.
Speaker 1:You are listening to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast, where we teach dentists how to step back from the chair, empower their team and build a practice that gives them their life back. I'm your host, dr Paul Etchison, dental coach, author of two books on dental practice management and owner of a large four-doctor practice that runs with ease, while I work just one clinical day a week. If you're ready for a practice that supports your life instead of consuming it, you're in the right place. My team of legendary dental coaches and I are here to guide you on your path from overwhelmed owner to dental practice hero. Let's get started. Hey, welcome back to the Dental Practice Heroes podcast. I'm your host, dr Paul Edgerson, and I am joined with my DPH coaches. I got Dr Steve Markowitz the man, the legend. He's got six practices on the East Coast. He don't ever quit and he never misses. We got Dr Henry Ernst he's got an 18-op practice in Carolina and man, that team don't ever quit either. They are joined with me because they want to share something really special with you today.
Speaker 2:And what?
Speaker 1:is that, Dr Steve? Patient experiences how to make them smooth. Just like that intro, Paul, you crushed it Smooth, yeah, Okay, Patient experience it is. So you know. This is one of those things. I think. If you put a little intentionality into your patient experience, it can go a long way, because nobody does it. You want to differentiate yourself. It's not just about putting warm, caring people on your website, it's about actually follow through and making the patient feel that. So I'll go to you, Henry, first. Like what is what do you do special in your office that makes the patient experience special? Because we can't just hire I mean, we can hire great people and hope it happens, but how do we become more intentional about it?
Speaker 3:When we were in school, we would always take notes and always have a TQ or a big star when something was really important. So remember this. This is a test question. Patient experience equals treatment plan acceptance. When your patient experience is top notch, your treatment plan acceptance will be great. If your treatment plan acceptance is crappy, look at the experience right. So this starts from things we're not even thinking about normally.
Speaker 3:So the patient experience doesn't start in the office. It starts with the phone call. Are we answering the phone? Every one of these things, if messed up, can drop a patient off and then they're getting out and they're not going to come in, they're not going to get the experience, they're not going to accept treatment. So are we answering phones? What's our missed call rate? Are we answering phones properly? Are we taking control of the conversations like we should?
Speaker 3:When I come into the office, how are the people dressed? Are they dressed professionally? Is the office clean? Am I getting greeted? You know, when I walk into the waiting room, are you showing me amenities? Do you have little amenities? Am I getting greeted when I come back? All these little things right? Am I offered a beverage beverage bar, you know, not beer or anything like we talked about last experience. But you know coffee, stuff like that.
Speaker 3:When the doctor talks with the patient, are we coming up with commonalities? Are we coming up with connections? Are we showing the patients their pictures and their x-rays and explaining to them not selling, but we're educating Are we offering them treatment plan options and financing options, or are we just limited with options? Right, everything that we can do is going to get the patient to say yes, right. And then we got to think outside the box. I had my office staff years ago come up with things that will make the patient experience better. We do cookies. We bake cookies twice a day Makes the office smell nice. We give new patient gifts and we rotate them. Right. We have gifts for guys, gifts for girls. What's the follow-up when we're done? Do we call you? Do we ask how the experience was? If you didn't schedule right? Do we call you? If we did an extraction, root canal, did we call you afterwards as the doctor to see how you're doing? Right?
Speaker 3:All of these things are super important and you can come up with a list like just do it from start to finish. You could always do a secret shopper, right, we've done this before. I've had friends just say hey, I'm going to pay for your cleaning and everything. Just come into the office you could even videotape it if you like and go through that whole process to see if it's what you really want, as your name is on the door.
Speaker 3:Once you have these processes in process, it's not the end. You got to audit them consistently. It only takes one team member a new team member to not learn how you're supposed to do it, to drop it all and then a month later nobody's greeting people and all this stuff. So it is super important. Nobody's greeting people and all this stuff. So it is super important. And you know you're doing a good job. When a patient says man, nobody's ever explained that to me like that man, this office is really nice. You know, I've never had TVs before above my head, so you want to go above and beyond, because there's so much competition nowadays and everybody can say they're the latest and the greatest. But it's all about the personality and getting the experience. We don't have customer service after COVID in this world anymore, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Everything is like check your own stuff out at the grocery, do this, do that. It's so nice to go to a business where everybody is, you know, doing customer service up to here.
Speaker 2:Wait. Thanks, steve. I got a couple thoughts. But yesterday my wife had to take my oldest for their appointment to get for school for their yearly physical. The appointment was supposed to be at 4 o'clock on Wednesday. They moved it to 8.50 on Thursday. We got three kids trying to get them to camp and then she showed up at 9 o'clock after dropping my two other kids off at camp. She showed up at nine o'clock after dropping my two other kids off at camp. She showed up at nine o'clock and they wouldn't see her and they said it's time to get a new HMO Steve.
Speaker 2:And they said this is our policy. They were having a good day. We woke up early to get the kids ready, to get Jacob to his appointment and this woman, by just not treating them with any care or understanding or empathy, ruined both my son's day and my wife's day. Fast forward to that night. I was coming home from work and I was like, well, let's do Mexican Lynn, can you call in dinner and I'll pick it up? And she called me and she's like can you give that guy who answered the phone, can you give him a tip? That guy literally made me change my day. And I think what? Because he was so kind.
Speaker 2:I think what that I immediately share that story with my team. We get to have that level of impact. We can make people's day and ruin people's day just by how we treat them. So, as patients go through your patient journey, as we pick up the phone, as we check them in, as we transition them. That is what I impress on every single team member is we get the chance to make people's day or ruin it. It's your choice and we can also.
Speaker 2:We can disagree with someone or have systems and policies, but also do it in a kind way, I'm so sorry you're going to hate me. You're the patient who was behind you was already already being seen. I don't think I can get you in. Let me take a look, just give me a couple minutes, let me see. Some times that will work better for you. That would have gone so much better than you didn't do your your paperwork and I can't see you. So I share that in. Like it sounds extreme, but that happens every day in healthcare. Every single day that kind of stuff happens. The bar for excellence is so low, which is such an advantage for us. We don't have to be perfect, we just have to not suck.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So when you go through it, yes, I love. We have TVs in all our ops, we offer water, we want to do all these amenities, things and that's great. That's like the cherry on top. But before we can get to the cherry, you better get the meat and potatoes all perfect, which is how do we answer the phones before that? Do we answer the phones? How do we greet people? How do we show people that we care? What does this look like? Write it all out, because, as Henry said, if any point in that chain of the patient journey isn't perfect, that's the story they're going to go home and tell, yeah, I think it's like there's the book of what is it called?
Speaker 1:The Power of Moments was an interesting book and one thing I remember from that is nobody remembers the middle. They remember the beginnings and the endings. And I just read another book that was really interesting by Eric Barker. It was called Plays Well With Others and it took all these social maxims such as no man is an island, and one of the things it said, like can you read a book by its cover?
Speaker 1:And it talked about first impressions. And one of the things it said is first impressions people like say I have this great intuition on people. I can really tell it really poked a hole in that said hey, our intuition sucks on people. We can't tell anything. Our first impressions are wrong a lot of times. But one thing it did say is that it is so difficult to change someone's first impression so you've got to bring it at the beginning. Man, I see so many docs, new grads, not even get completely in front of the patient when they introduce himself and they just lead off on a so low confidence note that I think you can't. It's like you blew it. You blew it in the first five seconds, because that first impression that happens in like I don't know, probably milliseconds right, it just happens right away. And that was the thing that I thought was really interesting about that. What they said in the book is that you know that first impression is hard to change.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel like I'm humble. I feel like I'm not the greatest dentist in the world, right, but I care about people. You're preaching to the choir right there. I teach every young dentist sit and we practice this. I know it sounds crazy, but we practice and we role play. Sit in front of the patient. I can't tell you how many times I've seen we have rear facing. So people say hello, how's it going? And they're behind you. That is weird, right? That is just weird. I'm about to feel old now, because we used to look people in the eyes, right? This new generation does not do that.
Speaker 3:And people feel, especially when you're talking about something like their dental health, why have I not gone to the dentist in 10 years? And what you know? What do I need? Look at them in the eye, it really means so much. You know what do I need. Look at them in the eye, it really means so much. And calling people afterwards I love it when I call somebody and I ask them how they're doing. They tell me a story. You know what? I was at a friend's house when you called me and my friend said who was that? And I said my dentist. And that person said my freaking dentist never calls me. I spent like $10,000 with that jerk, so it's all about the personal thing. And you said it great, steve, is there's such a low bar after COVID, right? There's no customer service in this world. It's so nice to do business with somebody who does have that touch.
Speaker 1:But one thing that came up recently for us is we're using AI to audit our phone calls, which is really cool, and sometimes it gives some really funny recommendations. The other day we had a really good phone call, but its recommendation was the agent, meaning the person that answered the phone. On my team, the agent could have made it more memorable by asking the caller at the end was there anything else I could have helped you with or that I could help you with, and did I satisfy all your needs today? And I was like you know what? That's kind of a nice ass touch right at the end of it, you know. So it's like even like there's always an improvement to get better, and part of me wonders is like, uh, just a big. You could just make a giant document full of these things. There's so many little touch points that you can make special.
Speaker 1:The one I always like to bring up is I went when I sit a patient up after doing a crown and we're going to start milling it and designing it and stuff. I asked him hey, it's going to be 40 minutes. Everything went really great. Can I get you water or coffee or anything? You need to run to the washroom and they always say no, no, no. But it's just that little touch point makes such a big difference. And the other thing is I always ask them is it okay if I lean you back before I lean them?
Speaker 3:back.
Speaker 1:Little touch, that little thing. Do I need to? No, I don't need to do any of this shit, but it makes a difference and it makes that so much more memorable experience, and that's the stuff your patient remembers.
Speaker 2:Why do you ask? I asked the same question, but do you know why you ask? I just think it's polite.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you why I do it. I can't tell you how many times. If I don't do it, they would jump out of the chair like they were scared shitless, right? So I always ask permission, right, is it okay? I ask permission. Is it okay if I set you back in the chair and maybe this comes with my South Florida, you know, because in South Florida everybody's old and everybody has back trouble. So I got in the habit of asking permission. Is it okay if I set you back right Again? Newer dentist doesn't even sit in front of you, jumps the chair back. It's just a horrible experience.
Speaker 2:Tell what Henry was saying about. He calls the patient. I was just having a conversation with one of my doctors. If there's times wherever I'm ever just thinking about how someone's doing or wondering a patient, I'm like I'm going to call them and it's not because I want to be like go over the top. It's also helps me get it off my mind, like I can check that off my list. Yeah, there's a reason why my subconscious thought about that patient and again, it's what I get probably the most compliments on and it definitely is a touch that I think helps with the patient experience. But it also helps me sleep better at night too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'll tell you something that makes it fun. Fun for the staff is we do the secret shoppers and I think we do it maybe twice a year and we have to get real creative because the staff has gotten smart now. We used to have like these little pins you can get them on Amazon. That's like a little camera and from start to finish, I've got the experience. How were they greeted, how were they brought in the back, how did the doctor explain things to them? And then we share it during our quarterly meeting and we give kudos.
Speaker 3:We make it fun, like I'll take a tennis ball and tape a gift certificate around like, hey, jane, that was awesome, launch a gift certificate there. So it also keeps you humble because you can see, you know what we probably could have done this better. Right, are we walking the patients up front? You know what? This patient didn't get walked all the way out to the front. It's a nice touch to walk them all the way up front, open the door for them hey, you know what? We didn't do that. But it's nice to celebrate your wins and to physically see that, yes, my vision is working right. We're auditing, because I know we always say auditing, but it's so important as a business owner. Things can get off the track so easily with one employee, yeah, and there's like no magic system for patient experience.
Speaker 1:It's just a bunch of little things and making it part of your culture that it's important. By talking about it, you know there's so many things like to show you how it's part of my culture. I remember our team asking what do you guys think about in wintertime taking people's coats, like doing a coat check. And we eventually decided against it, but it was a good suggestion. I'm like that's kind of cool. You know, I kind of like that we could take it and we can hang it up for them. We could. They're all done like what would you do for a guest in your home? You know just all these little things that you can do and you just keep adding to it. But it definitely makes it special. And that's the type of stuff like when we're trying to open a practice.
Speaker 1:If you're a new practice owner and you're trying to differentiate yourself in your market. I mean, I always think it's important to get out on the SEO, so you appear at the top. Or you're sponsoring ads, so you appear at the top. But damn dude, you got to get those reviews. And I guarantee you, if you're doing all these patient experience things and you look the patient in the eye personally as a doctor, and say, hey, we're really trying to grow our reviews. Would you write us a review please? They will do it and I bet you could get a thousand reviews. In what? What do you think? Six months A year, thousand, I don't know Thousand? Yeah, I got 2,000. It's been 13 years.
Speaker 2:A thousand seems, seems that's kind of high Is it Okay?
Speaker 3:what?
Speaker 2:500? I would say 100 would be a good place to start.
Speaker 3:I like to be humble and say you know what, If you're willing to leave us some good feedback I always say it a lot better than I ever thought. Oh, you know what, If you have a moment, we'll send you a link. You could just say some nice things about us. It helps us in the community and we're really appreciative for that. Are you willing to?
Speaker 1:do that. Yes, you know what I would love to do. We're going to do a challenge for all the listeners On October, the first week of October. Let's see how many send me an email at dentalpracticeheroes at gmailcom, and I'm going to get my team so involved in this.
Speaker 3:I'm going to get 40 reviews In one day One week. Wait a minute. You personally, you only work one day a week.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:I'm showing up every day.
Speaker 1:I'm the review master. Hey, it's me. I used to work here. That's what I was going to say to me.
Speaker 2:What is the competition? I'm competitive.
Speaker 1:Let's go October 6th through October 10th. Who can get the most reviews? And if you get the most reviews, you get to come on the podcast. I don't know, we'll do something for you.
Speaker 3:I wanted to say one thing too, to be creative, because I know, steve, you had a great point. It's not about the bells and the whistles, but I will say some interesting things that we've done over the years. That works. Cialdini always talks about the. You know the principles of influence and I always like the reciprocation right.
Speaker 3:So it's great to, when you're presenting a treatment plan for a new patient, give them a new gift, right, we have I think our current ones are. We have these nice beer mugs at Pleasant Plains. Dental for guys, for ladies. We have wine Like glass, yeah, and it comes in a nice little like a box and with all this stuff on there. Other things that you can do, like I mentioned before, baking cookies. It's a great thing. It just makes the office smell nice. It doesn't smell like, you know. Dental stuff, right, extraction gift, goody bag right, we give. A lot of people just give the gauze and stuff we give. Let's see, if I remember correctly, it's a little can of soup and it's a Hershey Kiss and it's got all the other stuff in there. So it's like a. You know it's a nice little touch. I know it sounds dumb, but patients remember that, right, gosh, they give me. They're going to give me the soup, you know.
Speaker 1:Question and this is you know, we used to do this stuff and then one day you run out and you realize you have to order some more. So you stop doing it for a while and then you go hmm, nothing really changed, and then we stopped doing it. So what are your thoughts on that? Sometimes I feel like that's just another thing for me to keep track of. Is ordering these goodies. I mean glass beer mugs. That's pretty cool. Nobody gives a crap about a crappy plastic tumbler anymore. That's not cool. Nobody, you know nobody wants a canned koozie. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And I let my staff pick the gifts like, hey, you know what, we've done them. We've done the mugs. This is like our new thing now. What's what's new? And I think I can't remember. You know, all these marketing companies have all these cool things right. Let the that's kind of cool that people actually like that they won't just chuck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Can I answer that? Can I answer that question? I have some ideas, so I don't think it actually matters because there are many that most dental offices don't offer those things. But the question is like who are we? Like you don't need to, but if that's part of who you are, then that's your brand and that can change. But if your brand is we're going to do this, then that's who you are and that's what differentiates you. That's perfectly okay.
Speaker 1:We stopped doing toothbrushes. We got a four-star review recently for it. Four stars because they didn't give me a toothbrush.
Speaker 2:We ask if the patient wants a toothbrush.
Speaker 3:We don't have toothbrushes in the Carolinas, so when we stopped doing them, man, we had a freaking pitchforks and torches. So we have never, we always, still do them.
Speaker 1:I got a tool with bristles on a stick for you.
Speaker 3:I'm not kidding. When we stopped doing it as a beta test for a while and my hygienist says we can't do this anymore, I'm getting bitched out, man, really.
Speaker 1:I. We can't do this anymore. I'm getting bitched out, man, really, I just think it's so ridiculous. Why am I responsible to get you a toothbrush?
Speaker 3:I don't know. I think we did it for so many years. People just expected it All right.
Speaker 1:The hygienists want it back, and I'm just like fine, it's just another thing to order. I guess, how much do you spend on these bags, your?
Speaker 3:Muggies, things you're getting, I mean it's I see the numbers, all the numbers are good, so, yeah, so I think we have a certain but we have a certain budget for it and you know my team sticks within the budget, so and it's I mean, like a beer mug, it's not given out every time. Right, we have a oh like on the pop, we have a little on open dental. There's an area we can and we actually have a little list of, like this person, what, what they've got over the years.
Speaker 1:So, hey, they already got a mug. These are random gifts. Now All new patients get gifts.
Speaker 3:Oh, every new patient, okay. And then our existing patients, we call them, you know, our VIP patients, the patients we really like and stuff like that. We just give them stuff, you know like that, here and there on a routine basis.
Speaker 1:I need to be more giving. My heart is getting cold and stony.
Speaker 2:People think that their marketing budget's only what they pay on their website or pay for advertising. But all this stuff is part of your marketing too, and there's two parts of marketing. There's actually measurable part, which is the company calls that I get from this piece of advertising, and then there's your brand recognition and all of this stuff. There's your brand recognition and all of this stuff falls into your brand recognition and it's gift giving and stuff with your logo on it, and it all falls under the marketing and that should be. You should continue to spend a certain percentage.
Speaker 1:We can talk about that whatever your goals are, but you should fill that bucket because it continues to help feed the beast. But I think the hard part is that what do you get that people like? Okay, for instance, I got dental practice hero sweatshirts made. Okay, Dental practice heroes. Look at me shaking my head, Paul.
Speaker 3:Hold on. No, but I gave it.
Speaker 1:I never got one, I got to get you one, I'll sit in my closet and I gave them to some friends and they're like cool, they never wear them. And I'm like dude, how can you never wear the thing? They're like actually it's just dentist, it's just stupid. Like I don't want to walk around a dental practice, you know podcast. So I'm like, okay, if I just put DPH on there, would you wear it?
Speaker 2:They're like yes, that would be cool. So what do you put on my t-shirts In Like office?
Speaker 1:Or you saw them in public.
Speaker 2:You don't have to do any of this crap. You don't have to. It's just is that going to? Does it? Does this align with how you want to take care of people?
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, here's one. Here's a one. Every year, veterans Day weekend, we open the office for Veterans Day to veterans free dental care. You know, we do the basic stuff, but we make a ton of t-shirts for the staff and we give them out. I love wearing those t-shirts. Right, it's basically on the back says you know the date, and giving back to veterans usually has some form of American flag on it and stuff like that. Man, that is. I mean, it's not what it's meant to be for, but it's great marketing man. You open your office, it starts conversations in the gym all the time.
Speaker 2:man you open your office, it starts conversations in the gym all the time. But also, Henry, because you're lifting like 300 pounds. It's more the weight that you're lifting.
Speaker 1:That's causing all the conversation. I'm bolting the shirt, man. Well, you know, I think these are all good solutions. I think the moral of the story is, man, talk about this with your team and getting your team to internalize and understand man, this makes a difference and I have so much power in what I'm doing today. I have the power to change somebody's day. I have the power to really have somebody leave here and feel good, so that may give my job more meaning. So, discuss with your team, come up with some stuff and never quit doing it. Always continue to talk and grow on this and build on it. But thank you so much for listening. If you're thinking about you're working with a coach like Steve or Henry, have them looking at your practice and showing you how to convince your team that these things are good ideas and how to lead a team. Check out our website at dentalpracticeshowscom and look at our coaching packages. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you next time.
