In a perfect dental world, your clients would always love you and remain loyal patients throughout their lives. Snap out of it! In the real world, what patients really think about your office can be incredibly fickle. All it takes is one poor experience for one customer to spoil your entire client list. One patient may make it a point to tell others of their perceived injustice. If they think you don’t care, this only makes it worse, and the injustice becomes an outrage.
Sometimes, appearances are everything. This includes visual appearances, but also other forms of perception, too (smell, touch, temperature, behavior). Naturally, you’re not going to please everyone all the time, but you have to remain sensitive to their needs.
Let us say, for instance, that one patient complains that your office is too hot. If they’re the only client who says this, consider accommodating them with a fan turned on low to help keep them stay cool. By taking the extra effort, you make them feel pampered, but also you keep your electricity bill down. If too many patients complain about the heat in your office, perhaps nudging the air conditioning a bit would be a good thing. Don’t always go by your own comfort level.
Another example of perception gone awry involves what patients can do to your office without you knowing. It pays to revisit the client experience frequently. Go through their steps to see what they see and to feel what they feel. This way, you might discover that the front entrance door handle sometimes feels slippery and tacky. Could one of your patients overdo their hand lotion regimen? They could make the experience far worse for other patients and prospective clients.
If your waiting room furniture is becoming a bit threadbare, then plan to have it replaced. But you don’t need to ruin your finances with immediate upgrades. Until the budget can allow for the purchase, consider some thrifty, interim measures, like colorful seat covers. Make certain to get feedback on your ideas before implementing them. At the very least, ask your office staff for suggestions.
In the world of winning hearts, perception is everything. If any of your clients perceive something to be true, your first concern is to show them that you care or that you will take action, not that they are wrong. Sometimes, asking a patient for more information will reveal a misunderstanding, rather than an actual mishap. Sometimes, asking questions, instead of making statements can help a patient come to a new understanding without perceiving you or your staff as a threat.
In order to dig deeper, you need to ask patients directly. As part of their time in the waiting room, have them fill in a short survey. Include questions like, “What would make your visit to the dentist more enjoyable?” To keep your patients motivated, consider knocking off a small amount from the dental bill for the “best” survey picked each month. This could be a low-cost way to keep your patients thinking about how to improve your business. You might even pick from the monthly winners, a winning survey for the quarter or for the year with an even bigger prize. Surveys can give you greater insight into the perception of your patients. Giving them a valuable incentive helps to keep them interested. Not all great ideas or insights happen during the filling out of a survey. Sometimes, the ideas happen later or between visits. Having a meaningful reward may motivate more of your patients to jot down the ideas or perceptions when they come to mind so they can add them to the survey on their next visit.
Having more eyes and ears open to your office’s improvement could help your dental practice go from merely surviving to thriving. So, make it even easier for them to contact you with suggestions and observations. Have a suggestion box in your waiting room with a bright, colorful sign explaining the offer and the need for feedback. On appointment cards, include your office email address or the contact form on your dental office website. Each one of these can help you know what patients really do think about your dental office.
