Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

March 25-31, 2013United Kingdom Edition PFM Dental continues their popular verifi- able CPD courses in 2013 with booking now open for: • Preparing for retirement – Leicester 3rd May and Edinburgh 20th September • Buying a Practice – Wakefield 7th May (evening) Preparing for retirement – an insight into goodwill valuations from leading practice valuers PFM Dental. A specialist dental solicitor will cover legal issues including: NHS contract transfers, sale agreements and employment law. Dental accountants PFM Townends will present on tax reliefs and independent financial advisers will focus on the NHS Pension and wealth management. Buying a Practice – financing a practice purchase and presenting your case to the banks. Lloyds TSB Healthcare will cover finance applications and PFM Dental’s practice valuers will offer guidance on goodwill values. A specialist dental solicitor will cover sale/purchase agreements and common pitfalls. Retirement and Buying a Practice seminar programme (verifiable CPD) To book your place on one of PFM Dental’s verifiable CPD courses please email mandy.wraige@pfmdental.co.uk or call Mandy on 0845 2414480. A ttention dentists, hy- gienists and all other wet finger operatives. Imagine if you will that you have no appointment system. People turn up when they feel like it and bang repeatedly on the door of your treatment room, regardless of how busy you are. As more people arrive they also start banging on the door. When you let one of them in you discover they’re not a patient and you have no notes on them. Nevertheless they sit themselves in your chair and demand attention. They may be there for five minutes or half an hour. Meanwhile, the banging on the door is getting ever louder... A nightmare scenario? Nooo… just a typical working day for a receptionist through the prism of being a dentist. For front of house staff, an- swering the phone is just one of their many routine tasks yet the way they do it and what they say can significant- ly affect practice profits. I’m amazed that some practices spend time and money attract- ing potential patients (read part two to find out how) and then don’t ‘close the deal’ by overlooking the training and on-going development of their reception staff. I’ve been on both ends of the telephone. Practice own- ers employ me to play the role of potential new patients to assess how well the telephone is answered. As extreme ex- amples, reception staff can be ‘captured spies’ – persis- tent questioning is required to elicit any information – or they can be ‘monologue-ists’ – they emit a continuous stream of words, often repeating them- selves rather than pausing for breath! I exaggerate for effect, not to imply criticism. Answer- ing the phone in a practice is hard work. I’ve done it when clients have been suddenly left short-handed and judge it as akin to running a men- tal marathon with the added hazard of random hurdles to leap over and arbitrary hoops to jump through. Oh, and the occasional wayward mobile ‘banana’ to trip over. When you answer the phone you have no idea who is calling. Within a few sec- onds you may determine their gender from the sound of their voice. You don’t know their name, age, mood or their rea- son for calling. They may be in a hurry or relaxed. They could be warm and dry or get- ting cold and wet. They may have good or poor hearing and there could be little or lots of background noise. Okay, let’s start consid- ering what mistakes can be made when answering the telephone and how they can be avoided. The usual advice is to first confirm the busi- ness name and then iden- tify yourself (I’m making up the names): “Good morning. Sunny Smiles Dental Practice. Jacqui speaking and I can help you” The problem comes when somebody answers the tel- ephone in this way 10, 20, 50 times a day. Before the week is out they’re answering: “G’morning. Sunnysmiles- dentalpractice. Jacquispeak… n’Icanhelp!” As a humorous diversion, older readers may recall the Morecambe and Wise sketch ‘Morny Stannit’. Eric plays a street newspaper seller who repeatedly calls out the name of the newspaper – “Morning Standard” over time having become “Morny Stannit”. Inci- dentally, the Morny Stannit is now available online: http:// mornystannit.info The caller is either obliged to ask that this be repeated or they carry on without having Turn your good practice into a great one – part three Jacqui Goss continues with your journey toward practice perfection! page 20DTà The way your calls are answered is crucial