5-Star Customer Service for Your Dental Practice

Episode #397 with Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca

Your boss is the customer, and the customer is always right — even when they're wrong! So, how do you ensure you provide excellent customer service at every step? To share secrets from her latest book, At Your Service: 5-Star Customer Care for a Successful Dental Practice, Kirk Behrendt brings back Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca to reveal how you can create a winning team and culture for your practice to thrive. To master 5-star customer service at every level of your business, listen to Episode 397 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

Customer service is everything in dentistry.

Create a winning team culture for your practice.

Know the traits you will not tolerate on your winning team.

Master the ten powerful customer service phrases.

Learn about the four complainers and how to handle them.

Quotes:

“Customer service is everything — everything. I want the listeners to remember this: who is the boss? Who is the boss, even of the dentist? The boss is the customer. The customer pays your paycheck. So, the better service that you can give, the more you'll be rewarded. And customer service is everything. We are a service industry. Dentistry is a service industry. So, customer service is what we do. We are providing care for our patients.” (3:16—3:55)

“Think seriously about your culture, about your team culture, because culture is what the patient feels the second they walk into your dental office. And culture is not optional. Culture is the sum of the behaviors that you choose as a team to have on your team.” (4:33—5:01)

“Have a team meeting and ask them to write down what are the winning traits that we want on our team, what are the traits and behaviors that we are screening for and looking for on our team. And collect those responses and go over them as a team.” (5:52—6:16)

“If you have a winning culture and you want to sustain it, you must be intolerant of those behaviors which do not sustain your culture, or destroy your culture, or minimize your culture, weaken your culture.” (7:35—7:55)

“Have your team write what are the traits not tolerated on our winning team. Now, this is interesting. I have 21 traits. But if you go through these traits, all 21 really come down to one, in my opinion: bad attitude. The other 20 are a subcategory of that first major thing, which might be considered bad attitude.” (9:34—10:00)

“When a patient asks you something, stay away from using the term, ‘No problem,’ because it’s a negative term. And you don't even know what the patients are hearing a few feet away from where you're talking. You might say, ‘No problem,’ and all they hear is “problem,” and they're thinking, ‘There's a problem?’ So, stay away from that term. That is not a customer service term.” (15:29—16:08)

“[Customer service phrase number ten], ‘I apologize for our mistake. Let me make it right.’ The customer is always right. Even when they're wrong, they're right. So, apologize, ‘I'm sorry for our mistake. Let me make it right.’ You don't ever want to get in an argument with a customer. Even if they're wrong, don't make them wrong. Make them right.” (16:51—17:19)

“[Customer service phrase] number nine, ‘Thank you for your business. See you again soon.’ You cannot say thank you enough.” (17:21—17:27)

“[Customer service phrase] number eight, ‘I'm not sure, but I will find out.’ Now, you're going to be asked a lot of questions. A patient asks you about their insurance balance. Maybe you don't know the answer. ‘I'm not sure, but I will find out.’ And you will find out. If you see it, you own it. If you hear it, you own it. You don't pass the buck. You follow up until you get the patient their answer, whatever that might be. You might not...