Dental Tribune Untited Kingdom Edition

21Practice ManagementMarch 5-11, 2012United Kingdom Edition to monitor the effectiveness of your marketing and, again, the FoH team can help. How easy is it to ask callers where they heard about the practice? Do callers give precise or vague an- swers? Is it better to give them a choice of, say, three places – from a friend, the website, elsewhere? What, if anything, do callers remember from your advertisements? And is it all just so manic on the reception desk that another way of monitoring the effectiveness of marketing should be found? Forearmed, you can now work with your marketing con- sultant. The best ones I’ve come across are not content to remain huddled away with the practice owner and, perhaps, the prac- tice manager. They tour the practice and talk to team mem- bers (and patients). They get a feel for the type of enquiries received and the sorts of ques- tions patients ask. Once you have a draft mar- keting plan, it’s time to involve your whole team again, includ- ing the FoH staff. Not only do you want their comments and feed- back but you also need their en- gagement. Give them market- ing messages they can’t believe in and they’ll sound like the employees of large corporations reciting words as required by faceless head office staff. Think: “Have a nice day,” “Please wait and the hostess will seat you,” et cetera, ad nauseam. FoH staff don’t need a copy of the full marketing plan but they do need an itinerary of key events – dates advertisements are to be placed, for example. They should also be told (in good time) when special offers are available. We all like to hear a bit of inside information so if, for instance, a patient is chat- ting at the reception desk and tooth whitening is mentioned, a receptionist could say (with em- phasis): “I’d make sure you look on our website tomorrow, if I were you. Here’s the address.” Similarly, they might say: “It’s Mouth Cancer Ac- tion Month starting soon and we usually have special offers for that.” I’m sure your marketing plan will include posting news regularly on your website and social media pages. Unless you have daily ‘huddles’ (short, in- formal meetings for staff, in- cluding the FoH team, with, say, the practice manager, business manager and patient coordinator) communicating these postings could be time- consuming and problematic. I suggest you encourage FoH staff to (briefly) check your website and/or social me- dia pages online at least once a day. News that the practice raised £500 for a local char- ity recently or a posting on social media by a satisfied pa- tient can be turned into mar- keting messages by FoH staff enthused with their ambassado- rial role. A feedback loop is desir- able if not essential. You need to know the reaction to your adver- tisements, marketing messages, news items on the website and so on. The FoH staff are well placed to do this but, as mentioned above, may not have the time (are you missing out on good patient communication if you don’t have sufficient staff re- source on the front desk?) to question patients and callers. Nevertheless, you should ask for their feedback at staff meetings. If during the month after an advertisement was placed in a local newspaper no callers mention it, did it contain the right message? If you always promote discounted tooth whit- ening on Wednesdays via Twitter and there’s no discernible in- crease in the number of enquir- ies on that day, maybe that’s not working. More positively, if FoH staff notice a sudden increase in en- quiries about, say, tooth align- ment could this be the result of a television programme, an article in Hello! magazine or re- cent tweets? Maybe you need to market your ability to undertake tooth alignment…DT About the author A proven manager of change and driv- er of dramatic business growth, Jac- qui Goss is the managing partner of Yes!RESULTS. By using Yes!RESULTS dental practices see an increase in treatment plan take-up, improved patient satisfaction and more appoint- ments resulting from general enquir- ies. Yes!RESULTS turns good practices into great practices. Jacqui Goss, Managing Partner, Ashton House Sale Cheshire M33 6HE Tel: 08456 448066 Mob: 07795 562617 Email: jacqui@yesresults.co.uk Website: www.yesresults.co.uk Twitter: @Yesresults www.facebook.com/Yesresults http://uk.linkedin.com/in/jacquigoss IDENTIFY PREVENT RESTORE RECALL Seeing is believing! Unique three tone plaque disclosing gel that identifies new, mature and acid producing biofilms. Tri Plaque ID Gel from GC. Part of GC‘s Minimum Intervention program. GC EUROPE N.V. Head Office Tel. +32.16.74.10.00 info@gceurope.com http://www.gceurope.com GC UNITED KINGDOM Ltd. Tel. +44.1908.218.999 info@uk.gceurope.com http://uk.gceurope.com