Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

April 23-29, 201214 Practice Management United Kingdom Edition14 R ecently, I received a letter from my former mobile phone service provider – a large international company. The letter was in response to my terminating my contract (just beyond the 24-month contract period). I did so be- cause I moved house and found the signal strength in the area I moved to inadequate. There was a small amount owing on my account (£14.77). The letter explained, in what can best be described as terse language, that if I didn’t pay this within 14 days they might reg- ister my account as a bad debt with a credit reference agency and instruct a ‘Debt Collection Agency’ (this being more im- portant than a debt collection agency, you understand) to col- lect the payment on their be- half, with 15 per cent added to the amount outstanding. Rather sweetly(!) the letter ended by thanking me for my custom. Until I received the letter, I’d had nothing to complain about with this service provider. I’d even visited their local store to see if there was an alternative to my switching providers – the assistant was unhelpful, to say the least. So, what’s the point of this little story? It’s that while first impressions are important, fi- nal impressions are the ones we retain. And you can guess what my final impression of this com- pany is! There’s a learning point here for dealing with com- plaints from patients. How each patient’s complaint is dealt with and resolved will determine the lasting impression. You may be the best practice on the planet with the world’s loveliest staff but if the resolution of a com- plaint leaves a patient dissatis- fied, their lasting impression (and the one they’ll convey to family and friends) will be neg- ative. Before we consider how to avoid this, I should point out that I’m discussing non-clinical complaints. Clinical complaints, as we all know, should be dealt with in accordance with GDC guidelines. Now, I can imagine some of you reading this are smugly thinking: “But we never get complaints”. Well, here’s some statistics I learned at last year’s BDA Conference. Only four per cent of dissatisfied patients ac- tually complain – the other 96 per cent just go elsewhere. If a complaint is resolved, seven out of 10 patients will stay and if it’s resolved quickly that figure rises to nine out of 10. Most complaints are re- ceived by your front of house Why improving your practice is a mystery – part eight Jacqui Goss suggests productive ways to handle complaints