#874: Vibe Check! Patient Experience A-Z

The Dental A Team Podcast

Rereleasing one of DAT’s most popular episodes!

Want to know the secret to wowing your patients? Kiera shares it in THIS episode. Some spoilers to ask yourself:

1. What experience do you want your patients to have when they enter your practice? Fun? Relaxing? Modern?

2. What companies have the type of experience you want your patients to have? The Dental A-Team’s model companies are, for example, Disneyland, Amazon, Apple, and Google.

3. What would mimicking those companies’ experiences feel like in your practice?

4. How can you ensure that every team member provides the same experience?

Once these questions are answered, you can roll your practice’s vibe into your social media and other marketing efforts.

Episode resources:

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Transcript:

The Dental A Team (00:05.742)

Hey everyone, welcome to The Dental A Team podcast. I'm your host, Kiera Dent, and I had this crazy idea that maybe I could combine a doctor and a team member's perspective, because let's face it, dentistry can be a challenging profession with those two perspectives. I've been a dental assistant, treatment coordinator, scheduler, pillar, office manager, regional manager, practice owner, and I have a team of traveling consultants where we have traveled to over 165 different offices coaching teams. Yep, we don't just understand you, we are you.

Our mission is to positively impact the world of dental. And I believe that this podcast is the greatest way I can help elevate teams, grow VIP experiences, reduce stress, and create A -Teams. Welcome to the Dental A Team Podcast.

The Dental A Team (00:51.064)

Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and all right, let's chat about how you guys can do the patient experience. As you guys know, patient experience is something really big in every single practice and making sure you guys are really solid and set for it is a huge indicating factor. What do I mean by patient experience? Patient experience is everything from A to Z. How do we answer the phones? How do we walk our patients back to the rooms? How do we present treatment plans?

Honestly, the number one thing you should be asking when you dive into this patient experience is, what do we want our patients to experience? Okay, so let's start there. I'm gonna walk this down with you guys. What companies, what experience do you want your patients to have? I would start there. Do you want it to feel spa -like? Do you want it to feel fun and peppy? Do you want it to feel relaxing? Do you want it to feel professional? Do you want it to feel modern and chic?

Do you want it to feel family -friendly? Every single one of those you guys could feel a different color scheme You could feel a different style You could have just a completely different experience based on what you want your patients to experience So at Dental A Team, I want everybody to have an incredible experience and that means I want it to be fun I want us to be very approachable very Just I always say I'm cured it from the block. I'm not a dentist. We're not scary So we have cartoon characters

We want you to feel like it is very doable. We want it to be very simple and we want to have a lot of ease. That is what we want our clients to feel. And we want them to feel that they're going to get results and they're going to get massive results working with us. That is the experience. I want you to walk in with the most white glove. We take care of you. You have never been treated better by another company. We respond within 24 hours. That is the vibe of Dental A Team. And I will tell you that did not come overnight. We have worked really hard on that.

We used to not have VIP patient experience. We used to have a lot of struggles in our company, but that is the experience. When I think of a client calling us, I want them to have happy people on the other side. I want us to be very complimentary. I want us to be very understanding. I want you to have a ton of fun when you work with us while seeing insane results. That was my vision for Dental A Team, and yet it's changed over the years. So that's first and foremost, like what is the actual experience that you want? Number

The Dental A Team (03:15.424)

is come up with companies that resemble the experience you want. So the companies we model off after our Disneyland, you guys think about Disneyland, they go above and beyond on every single thing that they do. That's what I want Denali team to be. I want our company to go above and beyond. I want us to do things to just blow your minds like our swag boxes for summit. Super fun. All of our clients just got a book called the Humanized Leader by Mary Pat Knight. I want to surprise and dazzle our clients.

with amazing value. Everything we ever do has value behind it. Disneyland, everything they do is to create magic. That is something, that's a company we model after. We also model after Amazon. Amazon is insanely easy. Everybody uses them. They are the best out there right now. Okay? So Amazon's a huge company we model after. We also model after Apple in the sense that everything they do, you guys can judge me or not, you can agree or disagree. Apple, everything they do is very simple.

It's very easy to use. Children can use an iPhone. AirPods connect in. They think of little easy ways to make it all connect together. Of course, it doesn't always work. That's OK. But even like the boxes that they send to you are amazing and simple, a simple design, easy to use. I love that everything's white. All the cords are white. Everything is square. It's very clean cut. They have a very strong brand. That's what we thought. So those are the companies we model after Disneyland, Apple.

Google, Google's another one that we model after, because Google is so simple. They're on top of it. They have a very fun culture. Their employees love to be there. How many of you have wished that there was an easy way to get that dang operations manual done? Well, guess what? We are here to deliver. That's right. Join us for an entire eight hours and get eight hours of CE, Friday, September 17th, for our operations manual creation. That's right. We are literally going to walk you and your team through step by

workshop style. It's virtual and you're going to get that operations manual started and quite a few pieces completed. So join us on Friday, September 17th. Utilize our coupon code podcast ops. That's podcast OPS. Head on over to thedenaliateam .com backslash events. I cannot wait to see you. Let's get that operations manual done, done and done. Bring your entire team and I'll see you guys there.

The Dental A Team (05:36.952)

So I would choose number one, what's the experience you want your patients to have? And then number two, what are some companies that your practice models after? What's really helpful is what I'm trying to do is paint pictures for your team members to be able to model and mirror. All of us use Amazon, all of us use Apple, all of us use Google, all of us, hopefully, and if not, call me up, I'll be your friend, have gone to Disneyland. So those are very easy pictures for my team to understand. These are the companies we wanna be

This is the experience that we want our clients to feel. And so for you guys in your dental practices, creating this patient experience is going to be tenfold for you. You're going to be able to have them then tangibly taste it, feel it, experience it. And then from there, we start to fine tune our handoffs, our phone calls, because now I can think of, OK, if I was working at Disneyland, how would I answer the phone? Well, I'm going to answer it a lot differently than when I say,

We are always amazing on our customer service, right? Like people can physically feel the difference. They can see it. If I were working at Google, how would I treat our clients? How would I treat our patients? If we were Amazon, Amazon's quick. If something's not delivered to your house, no problem. They fix it for you. That's the type of culture that we want our patients to experience. So I really want you guys to pay attention to what is your patient experience? What do you want your clients to have? And then what are the companies that you're practice models after? Choose them.

Doctors, this is usually driven by you, office managers you can influence. We've got to make sure it's the feel, vibe. Our dental practice in Colorado was a very hipster feel. We wanted people to feel like it was modern, it was chic. Because we literally played Drake. That was the music we played. We did not appeal to all clients and that was fine. Our doctor had a mohawk, she called it a prohawk. We had a very, very unique practice. We had modern, we were downtown Denver and that was the vibe we wanted. We had modern art in there.

And it was a very fun, different culture vibe. We attracted those people. We wanted them to have this very chic experience. So we had this coffee bar, we had different menus, we had different pieces because that was the vibe we wanted them to have. I did not tell them companies we should have modeled after. That would have helped my team understand more tangibly all of us being able to offer the exact same patient experience. And then you want to make sure every team is providing the exact same type of patient experience. You don't want them to go to Kiera and have one experience.

The Dental A Team (08:00.802)

and then go to Tiffany and have another experience. You want it to be a very similar experience whether they see your dental assistant, your hygienist, your front office, the dentist. All of us are speaking similar languages. And not all of us have to have same personalities. Tiffany, Brittany, and I all have very different personalities. Yet we all have the same type of style, the same type of fun, but yet we come with our own flair to it. And that's what you want to make sure your practice is doing. I'm really impressed.

with offices that are able to be consistent on their patient experience. If you guys have not read the E -Myth Revisited, read it. There's a really great story where they talk about the haircut. It's a famous, famous example where this guy goes in to get his haircut and the first time he gets like a neck massage, he gets a glass of brandy, I think, and gets an amazing haircut. The next time he goes in, they don't give him the head massage, they give him a glass of brandy. The next time he goes in, he gets a head massage.

but no brandy. And the idea behind it was he actually stopped going because it was not consistent. And so having a consistent patient experience every time they call, how are we answering the phone? How do we handle their billing? How do we handle their handoffs? How do we communicate inpatient charts to ensure that every patient's having the exact same experience? These are pieces that are really going to grow your practice, which it sounds silly, it sounds ridiculous, but that consistency piece is going to help

I know a lot of consultants, actually just sent Brittany and Tiffany into an office that I was in. Yes, they're going to bring a different flair. However, the experience, not the how -to, but the experience, the way our clients felt of positive, they're able to do this, that they feel empowered, that it was a fun experience, that it was done with ease. All of that, our client should have picked up. It should have felt like Disneyland. It should have felt like Apple and Google and Amazon. That's how it should have felt.

And I know that office felt that way and they felt massive value from it. So that way your team can start to feel that way. Then you guys can go on to a fun brainstorming exercise of, so let's say our practice was Nordstrom. That was the example of the dental college I was at. Midwestern University in Arizona, the dean told us, Kiera, I want our office, our dental practice to feel like Nordstrom. Great, I got it. He was like, you always have excessive composite out for them.

The Dental A Team (10:20.118)

We never have it feel like we're running out on supplies. You go above and beyond. Yes, that meant that I had to definitely go into some of those students' drawers and recoup all the composite that they were hoarding because they were scared that we wouldn't have enough. However, my job was to always make sure that there was more than enough out there because he wanted them to feel like they were at the Nordstrom of dental schools. And that was literally what we created. So let's say you'd say your practice is the Nordstrom of dental practices. How would you treat your patients?

Well, when they come in, you're probably gonna give them a really nice folder. They're probably gonna have nice velvet or leather chairs to sit in. It's gonna be very relaxed. You're gonna be playing more spa -like music. Your team member's gonna come out and call them by name and not shout across the waiting room. You're gonna escort them back. You're probably gonna have very neutral, beautiful colors in there. All these things are the experience that that patient's having, and then staying consistent with that patient experience is going to allow your entire team

to deliver again and again and again. And people love consistency. People love knowing that when they come to the dental practice, it's going to be the same. It does not matter if you change team members. Like I get it, it's the great resignation across the nation. I understand. But what is the experience they're getting? What do you want them to? Have you even thought about these things? Cause I know I haven't. And then I don't even know where I made it up. just, I hope I probably read it in a book, but I just thought I need my team to be able to understand who we are and what we are and what we're not.

This is kind of part of marketing as well, because then that will fall into your social media. It will come across on all your marketing materials that go out. Every marketing material that we send out to people should be fun, should be positive, should be lighthearted and empowering. That is the vibe. That's what we're pushing out. It should be easy. Our podcast is always quick, easy, down and dirty things you can implement. There is a reason that is our brand, that is our style. So once you guys figure out this patient experience, then roll it into your marketing, then roll it into your social media. But practice this.

Ask your team, have them feel it, talk about it every single week, literally in the Dental A Team. You guys, one of the reasons I love doing the podcast is because I got so sick of listening to certain podcasts where people would say something on the podcast and I'd go meet them in real life and that wasn't how they were. And I've tried and vowed that if I say something on the podcast, guys, I'm sure I've made some mistakes. I try really, really, really hard to be honest and authentic. So when I say that we do this every week, that is not an exaggeration.

The Dental A Team (12:43.118)

every single week in our level 10 meeting with our whole team, whether I'm present or not, they just did the meeting without me today, we go over our core values, the companies we model after, and what our experience is every single time. I don't say our experience is what our niche is, what our mission and vision statements are, what our core values are, and the companies we model after every single week, because I believe this is something that should be over -communicated so your whole team knows what they should be experiencing and what you want your patients to experience. So with that, guys,

Action time is come up with the feel you want them to feel. Come up with the companies you want them to model after. Come up with what that experience should feel like within, like tangible. So what should our handouts be? What should our phone calls be? What should, when they walk into the office, what should it be? What should they be getting for their injections? How should we be explaining Perio? Every single one of those pieces. And then over communicate it every single week. Ask your team. Continue to refine, refine, refine.

because patient experience is all about consistency and making sure your team knows that this is your culture because I believe patient experience number one is driven by culture. All right, you guys, as always, thank you for listening. If you find this podcast helpful, download it, subscribe to our podcast, share this with a friend, leave us a review. I love hearing from you or email us, [e-mail]. I'd love to hear from you. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on The Dental A Team Podcast.

The Dental A Team (14:06.062)

that wraps it up for another episode of the Dental A Team Podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you next time.