How Your Practice Can Deliver a World-class Customer Experience

You're listening to the Phil Klein Dental Podcast. Every day as a dentist, hygienist, or an assistant, you go to the office and do the best you can to provide top-notch patient care. But even though you may be providing the best clinical care, does the patient feel special? And are they likely to leave the office thinking, wow, I am so happy I found this dentist? In this episode, we'll be talking about the customer experience and how your practice can deliver one in a world-class manner. that will be instrumental in growing your practice. To tell us more about it is our guest today, Ella Mullakandova. Ella has over 16 years of experience as a dental hygienist and is what she calls a restorative dental partner. She is the co-founder of Converge Dental, a company that helps dental practices succeed and grow, emphasizing the importance of an organized, systematic approach to improve patient care and profitability. Ella will be joining us in a second, but first, as a dental professional, you spend a large part of your day in the operatory. That's why partnering with the right dental company for the best dental equipment is so important to you and your practice. The folks at DentalEase understand that every practice is different, so they've created a customizable suite of treatment room packages to fit every need. Whether you have lots of room or need to be super efficient with your space, DentalEase has a configuration that will work for you. Known for its revolutionary J -chair, And designer-friendly forest equipment, such as lighting and sturdy ergonomic chairs, Dentalese combines comfort, beauty, and efficiency into its state-of-the-art operatory equipment. And when it comes to utility room equipment, nothing beats RAMVAC. It's quiet, reliable, and backed by industry-leading warranties. To learn more about how Dentalese can customize and transform your operatory into one that you'll be proud of, visit dentalese.com. Ella, thanks for joining us on the show. Thank you so much for having me. This is a pleasure. Yeah, we're really happy to have you. So to begin, why is the patient experience so important and what can we expect to gain by focusing on it? So I wanted to introduce and say that, introduce to the doctors the idea that business models today have evolved to put customers first in a lot more places than before. Something that definitely needs to be happening in a dental field. customers and the experience and optimizing every experience that patients and customers have within their business model. Think about going online and shopping for something and then having the ability to pick it up at a store. Or fast food restaurants that never delivered before are now catering to customers and delivering to them as well. focusing on the customers and the experience that we provide in the dental office is something that will distinguish the dental practices from being just marginally successful versus dominating the competition. Yeah, that's interesting that you say that because there was a KOL who I interviewed on a podcast a while back. And when he had an employee that left, he would go to Nordstrom's. He went into some department and he evaluated the people that were working there and he found... the person who gave the best customer service and said, hey, if you're looking to get into the dental space, you have the skill set for customer service that we're looking for. And I could train you on the dental stuff, but the customer service qualities that you have, the attributes you have are second to none. Let me ask you another question. What tools and techniques do you use to help practices craft a world-class patient experience? In Converge Dental, We provide a model practice. A model practice is centered around the patient life cycle. That is the process of the whole experience of the patient comes through your practice from the initial point to becoming a lifelong. And we view every point of the customer interaction as an opportunity to measure and improve the experience. So we have identified key touch points and how to optimize the patient experience through implementing best practices, measurements, and tools. And in our trainings with practices, every team member understands how and who is involved in a particular patient life cycle. touch point and what success looks like in those areas of touch points. So what are the most critical elements in the patient experience and where should the office focus first? Sure. So the patient life cycle, as I mentioned before, it's how the patient goes through the practice. That consists of five elements. The first one is intake, right? When the patient has the initial interaction coming into the practice, then you assess process as well to assess is when you look at the patient as a whole and identify what are their needs, desires, their values, and what their dental needs are as well. Then you go into educate and treat and retention. So those five areas are the areas that we help optimize, making sure that the customer experience is delivered consistently, creating the loyal brand ambassadors for the practice. You start definitely. I always tell our dentists and our teams, everybody is involved in creating that experience. Every team member has a responsibility. For example, let's take the initial. interest into the practice, the front office receptionist has a major role in the decision-making of that patient who is calling to make an appointment or to go ahead and call somebody else, right? That etiquette that the front office receptionist uses, the smile, the posture, the tone of voice that she's using. Those are the elements that we streamline as this patient life cycle to make sure that every aspect is optimized in those five areas of a patient life cycle. So it seems to me as a practice owner, you kind of have to know all this before you hire someone, for instance, for the front office, because it's a lot harder to take someone in a front office position that may not have the personality to fulfill some of the things you're talking about now and try to train them to do that. Versus, like I mentioned earlier, this doctor went to Nordstrom and he just found the most incredible customer service focused person there was and said, hey, you know, I'd love to get you into the dental space. They really need to take training from a company like yours, Converge Dental or wherever they want to get their training prior to hiring. That's right. We encourage doctors that we work with with two things. Number one. You have a vision for your practice, and that vision does not need to wait to come into fruition when the right people are in there, when the right team is together, because that's going to take forever. Implementing that vision and creating the foundation for the practice, creating the right culture, creating the systems and processes, and putting all of that in place, then introducing the right team member or a team member that they're either are the right person with the right personality. They can learn the skill, but they have the people skills. That's the key. Or they bring in a person that engulfs the core values of the practice and the vision and then is willing to learn that and self-improve, I guess, to... Take the training to be trainable and then help the doctor as a restorative dental partner to create the vision that is ultimately there. It is very important to when you're hiring individuals or. team members, it's important to make sure that they are hungry. They're hungry to learn, and they're open to be trained, and they are smart. They have the people skills. And sometimes, again, as you said, they might not have the personality, but are they willing to learn it? So those are the three qualities to look for in a person when you are hiring. Now, through your experience as an educator and through your experience running your company, Converge Dental, which sounds like a phenomenal operation to teach dental professionals this very important part of their practice. Do you feel that dentists are deficient in their customer experience and their image when a patient first interacts with that office? Are a lot of the dentists just not focusing on that and they're very focused on the clinical work they deliver? And is this hurting them? to the point where their practice may not be growing as it should? Yes, that's a great question because it all depends on the focus of the doctor. The doctor, unfortunately, unfortunately, they wear so many hats. There is so much responsibility on their hands that sometimes... that are very important are overlooked. Customer experience is the main one. Sometimes they look just for the numbers. Are they reaching the numbers? Are they making sure that they're making their goals for the year, for the month, or on a daily basis? But what goes beyond that they're not paying attention to is, number one, customer experience. But in order to get that customer experience, It's important to train the team, provide the training that the team requires to deliver that exceptional customer experience. You have a lot of times you have people that are willing, but they just don't know how to do it. And inconsistencies, because there's no systems and processes in place in the practice, that's when the delivery of customer experience is not there. Are they missing out? Yes. As I said in the introduction, if you want to be a customer, that is just marginally successful then you just continue what you do but if you want to dominate the competition and see your practice grow and be profitable organically start focusing start either partnering with dental coaching or consulting companies that will help you and super focus you on this idea of let's get the foundation down let's make sure that the team is trained and have the skills and become leaders within their own areas of expertise to deliver, number one, that exceptional customer experience, number two, to gain that vision or go towards the vision for the practice. Hence, that's how the practice grows organically because now you have patients that are loyal. Now you have patients that are out there talking about you and your practice and the team that works with you. Ella will be right back in a second, but first, if you're doing Endo, then you need to know about Jay Merida's new Root ZX3, the latest generation of their world-renowned Apex Locator product line. In addition to its sleek design, smaller footprint, and larger high-contrast display, the Root ZX3 accommodates the revolutionary HF module, which utilizes high-frequency conduction. Once you snap on the module, which is quick and easy to do, the RootCX3 becomes an invaluable tool in helping you prepare the canal system. Using its high-frequency conduction, the HF module effectively ablates pulp tissue, residual dental filling materials such as gutta percha, and tissue in and around root canals. It can also tackle procedures such as gingivoplasty, gingivectomy, hemostasis, and excision of intraoral lesions. For more information about this revolutionary advancement in endodontic treatment, Yeah, that's totally true. Everything you're saying makes total sense. And I do think the customer experience is the foundation for the practice to grow. And it also gives the practice owner independence from the encumbrances of insurance companies at times or large corporations that are buying up offices and you end up working for them. When you have, like you said, a very loyal following, you have the ability to have more freedom in the direction you want to go with your practice because these patients will stay with you. And if their insurance doesn't cover it, they'll hopefully find the resources to pay for it without going to another dentist that does have the insurance that aligns with their insurance. So that's like the stickiness and the loyalty that is just invaluable to the future of a dental practice. And that's really amazing work that you do at Converge Dental. We'll talk more about that on a future podcast, but I want to ask you one more question before we wrap it up. When it comes to feedback from patients, so let's say you're implementing a customer service approach, what suggestions do you have to gather feedback from patients on their experiences and willingness to recommend the practice to others? I'm going to answer that question, and then I'm going to add on one more thing before we finish with the podcast today that's going to help our dentists thrive in their practices. Number one, when you have confident leaders within your team, they do not feel any hesitation promoting dentistry, of course, with the needs of the patient, but they also do not hesitate asking patients for referrals. They don't hesitate asking patients how their experience was. Or how can we improve on the experience that we provide to the patients? So, for example, when the clinical team brings the patient up front to the receptionist, that handoff, that's a perfect opportunity for the receptionist or the front office personnel to ask the patient. How was your experience with us today? What can we improve on? That's a perfect time to ask. And you'll most likely get the responses right there and then. And that's also an opportunity that we teach our dentists and our teams that we work with. Ask the patient for referrals. And how do you do that? A lot of front office receptionists or people are afraid to ask. There should be no fear in asking because you can simply say, We love patients like yourself. We would love for us to see your family members or your friends or whoever because we love patients like you in our practice. That's a compliment. And then you're asking them for something as well. Most likely they will say, sure, no problem. And, you know, one day they will refer somebody. Personally, I've experienced that in my practice when I work with patients. When you do that handoff and the front office receptionist is able to ask those questions, we had so many new patients come to the practice as a referral. Our practice grew organically. We did not really advertise much, which takes me to the next comment I wanted to make. There is an economic purpose of customer loyalty. Right. This is where you have decreased advertising expenses. You have the repeat customers are multipliers. They are the ones that go out there and talk about your practice and refer other people to you. They are not incentivized by better opportunities out there. You know, when somebody gives like a dollar off from a cleaning, they're not going to go over there. They are loyal to your practice. Those are the key things to think about when you're. implementing or thinking of how do I design my processes with a customer's perspective in mind. Yeah. And all these things you point out are great for customer retention as well. Not only referrals, but when you work hard on a patient, like you said, you don't want them to be teased into another practice by some special offer. And that brings me back to the first point as we started the conversation is it's the team, the trained and skilled team that has been cultivated to have that confidence. That's what's going to create that exceptional customer experience on a consistent basis. What's the best way to reach Converge Dental? Just Google Converge Dental, two words. Yes, you can go to convergedental.com. That's our website. And you can ask for a free discovery session with us. You can go or contact me at Ella at convergedental.com. Those are best ways. Or social media, Converged Dental. Check out our reels and fun things out there and what we offer. Thank you so much, Ella, for being on the show. And I know we have a few more podcasts, so we look forward to doing them as well. Thank you. Sounds great. 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