The cost
of bad customer service is. . .
With social
media at your patient’s finger tips, poor and average customer service has the
potential to destroy your reputation and livelihood over-night. Dentists,
generically, are often ill thought of and feared, so sub optimal customer
experiences makes difficult task of attracting new patients even harder
Signs and
symptoms of poor customer service
·
Loss of current patients
Are you
always on the marketing treadmill to fill your appointment books with new
patients, to keep your income stable? Is this because your current patients are
drifting away after they have attended for just a couple of appointments?
Even the.
most forgiving patients who come to you because you are local, open when its
convenient, want the treatment you offer, will leave if your customer service
is less than they expect.
·
Loss of future patients
Your
reputation precedes you, and patients love to compare bad stories about
dentists. With social media and o-nline review sites, patients are very quick to
react to a bad experience and tell the world. it is impossible for you to
remove a bad review and can difficult to respond. Today, your future patient
will look on line to find out about you before they attend, what are people
saying about you on-line?
·
Loss of reputation.
“It takes
20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” Warren Buffett
Your
financial future depend on patients returning to you, and new ones attending. Remember,
in the summer of 2015, how quickly Walter Palmer’s practice closed after he
shot Cecil the Lion.
How you
treat your patients will affect your future patient numbers and your ability to
attract and retain team members.
·
Loss of team members
A dental
practice is nothing without its team. A mentor of mine often says “The way you
do one thing, is the way you do everything.” If you are not treating your
patient well, the chances are you are not treating your team well. People will
put up with poor wages if they are treated well they will not put up with high
wages if they are treated badly. As a general rule of thumb your nurses and
reception team will defend your patients, and if they see, hear or experience patients
being treated badly they will not tolerate it, and will leave.
·
Difficulty recruiting staff
The
dental world is a very small one, and news travels fast, and reputations linger
.If within the local dental community
you have a reputation for poor customer experience, experience show that you
will also have a difficult time reciting good team members.
·
Loss of profits
Poor customer
service results in, fewer patients returning, those that do will buy less
treatment and will chose the simpler less expensive options and you will find
it hard to recruit new patients. This will hit your pockets hard research from
many sources including Bain and co, shows that returning customers spend more
money, because they purchase more expensive items and they are far more likely
to introduce new patients.
Take a quick quiz
o We are the preferred practice in our area
o Over 80% of our patients are returning
patients
o Our patient numbers are increasing year on
year
o We have a great reputation locally.
o Our google reviews, or equivalent, are 4 star
and above
o Our team members stay with us for 5 years or
more
o We find it easy to recruit new team members
o Our profits are stable and increasing
8/8 excellent you are doing really well, remember to stay ahead of the curve
your competitors will be trying to emulate you.
6 or 7/ 8 well done you are doing well and you will probably
need greater structure, systemisation and consistency to your patient journey
5 or below your patient experience really needs some
attention. You will need to define, systemise and implement a winning patient
experience. Your team needs to be involved in the design of a new patient
journey.
For more
information about how we can make this process, easier, faster and at a cost
effective price call us on 07989 757 884.
You can
take a full BPE (Brilliant Practice Evaluation) here
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