SPEAKER_00 0:01

This is not a podcast about dentistry. This is a call to leadership. For those who are carrying pressure, for those building something bigger than themselves, for those who refuse average, this is where discipline replaces chaos. This is where clarity replaces confusion. Where leaders are forged. Welcome to the Iron Dentist. I'm Dr. Bobby J. Grassi, and this is where dentists stop reacting and start leading at the highest level. Welcome to the free webinar from the ultimate patient experience, guys. This is about unleashing the power of the ultimate patient experience and how to truly get customers to come back every single time you want them to come back. And so what why are you here? Why are all of you here? Whether you joined online, this is this one's about dentistry, but why is it here? My intention is to help you grow your business. And how you're going to do that? You need to understand what your patients' needs are. You need to create that experience that keeps them from coming back from more, getting them to come back over and over again, and then ultimately leading patients, getting referrals from them. That's why you're here. And that's what you're going to grow when you leave this message of how you truly can grow a business. I don't care if it's a dentistry or nothing, we're going to focus on dentistry, but this is how you truly get patients wanting more. Just a little bit about me. For those who do not know me, I'm Dr. Bobby Grassi. I've taken a practice doing a 750K a year to over $4.2 million. It says 4.5. That's a little bit of typo and revenue. I've started as a general dentist in Lonely Flint, Michigan. I was raised by a single mom, raising three kids. I now do implant dentistry and orthodontics. I specialize my craft. I own Great Lakes Dental Design, which is a dental lab within my dental practice. I'm part of the dentist CEO brand, which now coaches and mentors other dentists. I've been doing this for over two decades, 22 years of experience of either being a dentist or coaching. So, guys, when you're here, I'm my intention with this whole thing is just to allow you to be the best you. How to truly catapult your practice, if you will, by just sharing some of my knowledge and graduated dental school in 2003, been doing this over two decades. I've been a dentistry field for almost 23 years. So I got a little bit of knowledge. Hopefully you pay attention. Hopefully, this is great. So let's go. What is the agenda though? We're going to start with the PACIC center care. What is your first suppression? What do they think of your practice? Well, how will your staff interact? What technology should you have to help do this? What is your post-treatment care? And then what team training should you do? And then finally, we're going to end this with a bunch of QA questions. So, you know, if you're on IG, I can see you maybe answer some QA's, but my staff at the DCO will give you some QAs and we can go for that at the end. So, what is the ultimate dental patient experience? What is it truly out? What you're going to learn today is creating the unforgettable dental patient experience that ensures your patients will return. Because at the end of the day, it's marketing is great. The phone will ring and you can get the person to come in. But how they truly come back, how do you truly get them to come back over and over and over? And if you don't have that, right? If you don't have the patients coming back or referring to the people, then you're going to be dead. At the end of the day, you got to keep growing. So, what to me, what is the ultimate patient experience? Why having a patriot-centric environment is so important? And what are the essential elements for this type of service model? Like, what do you need? Right. So, what is my what is the the patriarch center flows? What is my definition of patient-centric approach? To me, it's really simple. I'm going to I'm going to hone it down. The patient's needs always come first. I'm going to repeat that. The patient's needs always come first. We had it backwards in dentistry, and some of us have it backwards so much in dentistry that we put our needs ahead of the patient's needs. I'm going to ask you a few questions. You know, when you understand that what do patients want nowadays? They want extended times in the practice. They want to be seen when they want to be seen. Everybody has this barrier of time. You got mothers and fathers that are working multiple jobs or partners working multiple jobs. You're running around with a rat race of trying to get your kids to certain places. So they want to, you got to expand what the patient wants. You got to understand your patient's needs. And then when you can do that, they'll trust and they'll play a very important role in your past patient satisfaction. They're going to understand that when you put their needs first, when you service them first, when you meet what their wants first, you're going to create a patient-centric practice. That means you do anything possible to service your patient. And what the first thing you got to talk about is what is compassion? How does compassion relate to servicing your patients? Like, how did that even tie into a patient-centric approach? Because when you show compassion, when you're talking about patient care, when you can show compassion, meaning you understand their wants and needs and you're uh show compassion to that, they're going to be more apt to respect you because now you're treating them as a person. You're treating them, you're meeting their needs at once, you're making sure that their time is meant in time, all their barriers are addressed. You're communicating that's personalization that shows respect and compassion. Who doesn't love that? Like even when you talk to your kids, if you think about that, when you're showing them compassion and that mutual respect, that's when people come in droves. They don't want to be patient number 105. They don't want to be patient. They want to know that they're they're a person, they're a part of something bigger. And so I'm going to dive into compassion a little bit. My definition of compassion versus empathy, and I think people mistake this in dentistry. I think we mistake this in life. I hate the word empathy, but I'm going to talk about it. Now you might say, well, why would you like that? Compassion to me is embracing or understanding what the patient wants and needs in relating to them without taking in their anxiety. We've all had the dental patients or we see around people that are anxious or scared to be in the practice. You can show compassion without taking all their emotion in there. Because most of the time, people don't want to be in the dental office, right? So be compassionate, but don't be empathetic. Empathetic is you feel what they're feeling and it tackles onto you. When you do that, when you take on empathy, you might distract the patient. So make sure your role of compassion and understanding the patient's feelings is key. But the impact of compassion, the impact that it shows, the impact that you even care, maybe something outside of dentistry. When you when you remove the doctor coat, if you will, or your staff coats, you show that compassion, man, they'll be doing whatever you want. So the importance, when you show the compassion, you also lead to the role of respect. And we talk, we we use this word respect like this loosely. When you understand what the patient's barriers are, when you understand what their needs and wants are, and you show respect and you communicate and you acknowledge the patient as an individual and not number 105, as we said, when we when we give them the ability to control their own treatment plan, if you will, to set parameters and guide them down a path. So many times dentists don't guide, they tell. But if you can get the patient, if you're compassionate for what they need and want, you'll understand their needs and you treat them with respect and you guide them down the path, great things will happen. Then what does that do? That's gonna build the trust. Because when you can have compassion, when you show compassion, when you respect them, they're gonna feel heard. When you feel heard and you feel wanted, you tend to trust people more because, like attracts like they think you are becoming transparent. You're not the car salesman, if you will. And we all know dentistry is sales. I mean, who are we kidding? We need just like McDonald's needs to sell cheeseburgers and people to buy cheeseburgers or crumble cookie people have to sell cookies in order to make a profit. We need people to accept treatment plans, but nobody wants to do business with people they don't trust. Nobody wants to do business with people they don't that doesn't show compassion, that doesn't treat them with respect. Nobody wants. So when you're when you're communicating, make sure you're transparent, make sure the patient understands what they want. And there's ways to ensure effective communication by just asking questions, repeating what they say, repeating what they want, personalize every single thing, tailor every single thing to their mental needs, their experience. What is what is so unique about the patient? What are their needs? What are their preferences? So my definition of personalization of patient care is exactly that. Can I personalize every single one of my patients' care to fit their needs? Can I make it feel like their treatment plan is so unique to them? Can I make them feel like this only matters in their mouth? Yes, we do a thousand crown preps, but how does this person feel like this crown? Oh my God, he customed it for me, or she customized this plan for me. If you can personalize that care and you understand their needs and you provide that personalized care, patients will have the wow experience. When you look at what patients do, when you look at how they come back in your treatment plan or the Google reviews they give you, it has nothing to do with the quality of work. Nothing. You can write that down. If you're able to take this note down, this is important when I say that. Your Google reviews that you see online have nothing to do with the quality of your work. And so many dentists focus on their quality of work and take a CE courses, and they don't focus on patients' needs, patient-centric practice. How to fit, I mean, even if you had to think about that, they don't focus on their staff training. You never hear in a Google review how great your crown prep is. Never. You hear the office is clean, you hear the staff is friendly. And it's so frustrating as a dentist, like it's absolutely annoying because here we are providing all the care, we're doing everything, and they never mention us. Never mention us once. If you're on IG, give me a heart if you can understand that, right? They never mention us once, they never say how great the dentist is most times. They'll say the staff is friendly, the staff is this, the office is beautiful. So when you're talking about your office, what is the role of the reception and waiting area to set the tone of the rest of the visit? Like when you think about that, the first thing that should have been the first slide, but when they first come in, what are they seeing? And if I'm gonna encourage you as a as a dentist, as a healthcare professional, or even as a business owner, if you're on this call and you're just a business owner, not a dentist, we're all business owners. What does your reception area look like? I mean, when is the last time you walked into your reception area and really saw what the patient's seen? I would encourage you to do this monthly. I'd encourage you to do it almost every week. You know, how comfortable is it? Is it welcoming? How can you, you know, what is the one thing that people are stressed out about? What's the smell like? What's the ambiance? How do you reduce somebody's anxieties? What is your decor? We're going to discuss this interaction. What does the decor look like? Is it warm? Is it inviting? Do you have a fireplace? Do you have a waterfall? Do you have sounds? What other amenities can do? Do you have charging stations for your patients? Do you have coffee, fresh coffee? Do you have the the the the the not the generic water, but real water? So they feel like they're valued and important, right? What is the impact that your staff has? How does your staff interact with them? Do they greet them with a smile? I'm talking about with a smile. I'm not talking about, hey, you know, um, Mrs. Smith, welcome to Grassi. I don't want us have time. Have you ever been to a place they don't even look up? You know, people aren't even looking up. They're like, oh, I'll just sign the piece of paper here. And every time I'm gonna practice, I'm like, man, what would it feel like if you were wowed? I mean, how great is it that I'm looking at this camp right now and you can see my face, you can feel my energy. Could you imagine a roll or staff of having energy? Could you imagine how important it would be? Do you can you even imagine how great the decor is in your practice? When you can look at somebody and you're smiling with your eyes and your decor looks great, and there's a fireplace and there's an avias and you're hand them coffee and you're and you're introducing them to your practice. I mean, that is what is gonna be the wow thing. I mean you're gonna you're gonna separate yourself from all your other peers when you counterframe. Is it cold? Is it warm? I mean, do they hand you a warm beverage? Do they give you a comfort menu? Are they are they are they are you are are you is it relaxing? Do you have headphones for them? Do you have massage chairs? I mean, you can get as creative as you want, but all these things are what's gonna separate you from your counterparts. I always laugh at people, they always compete with other people. Don't even compare yourself with other people. You can be your unique self. You know what makes you feel good. You know that when you go into somebody's house, if they greet you in the opening door and you walk in and it's nice, and there's there's flowers in there, or there's or beautiful plants, or or there's a warm coffee and you can smell the aroma of coffee. I mean, it's just like, man, it feels like home. If you can make your dental practice feel like home, if you can reduce the anxiety by by whatever candles or what get creative, you're gonna win. You're gonna win. So never underestimate what your decor looks like. That's the I mean, that's the first line of things. You know, they always say don't judge by don't judge a book by a cover, but in all reality, they judge you by what your office looks like. I mean, is it modernized? Is it not? Is it outdated? Do you have old paint on the wall? Is your carpet ripped up?

unknown 12:50

Right?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I mean, why would anybody come to you? Is that a wow experience? I mean, it's like going to uh you know, McDonald's or going to a holiday in versus a Ritz. When you go to a Holiday Inn Express, it don't look the same. You want your dental practices, you want your business to look like the Ritz. And even extra amenities, we've talked about this just to touch on that, right? Power stations for your for your for your clients. Everyone is on their cell phones all the time. Nobody, I hate it when my kids always have this battery, right? They always say my phone's dying. Well, how great is it is if you have chargers in your chairs, right? How great is it at the other amenities that decrease anxiety and stuff like that. If you have maybe virtual reality anxiety, self-anxiety stuff, you can get them in the virtual reality mode. You can have TVs, you could have coffees, you can have whatever you want to put. I mean, I have a basketball shooting hoop in my waiting room for the kids. Why? I know it's annoying. I hear it banging all the time, but it's not about us, it's about becoming patient-centric. It's about fitting the needs of the patients, making them feel comfortable, right? And then how important is your staff? And this, other than your decor, you know, have you noticed I don't talk about about our treatment plans right now about patient-centric while experience? Because why do I say that? Because nobody cares about our skill set. Nobody cares. They care about how they feel, they care about how you make them feel. And are we meeting the needs of the patients? Are we meeting the needs of the patients? So, what is the importance of the staff interaction? Probably more important than your training. How often are you training your staff? How personable are they? How effective is your staff interaction? What impact does the staff interaction have on the patient experience? What is the what is the what is the role of the front desk? How do they communicate? Right? To me, the front desk, we already said the person that comes in, the greeter, they better have a smile on their face. They better have the warm, friendly touch, and and they better be so excited to show them. And they do the patient tours in my office and they show them all around. And the reason why they do the patient tour is because remember, I want them to make it feel like it's home. I want them to be like, feel like they meant this is where I want to be. They show them all around. So nobody wants to be confused, right? Nobody wants to not feel comfortable. It's no different than when you walk somebody in your house, you show them all your rooms, at least I hope you do. Because by showing them all the rooms, by showing them where everything's at, they feel like they're welcome. And that is the biggest thing I think people fail when it comes to the wowing the patients. Is does your greed to look right up the minute somebody comes in the door? Hi, Mrs. Smith, welcome. And could you imagine the experience that would be if they already knew the name of the person walking in the door? And it's not really hard because they already have a schedule in front of them, and there's only going to be so many patients that are going to come in your building at this time, especially the new patients. I mean, especially the new patients, if you create something where there's the where you know the new patients coming in and you treat them like the Ritz Carleton, that's gonna wow them. But even when that's done, what is the role of the front desk? How do they interact with the patients? Are they talking on the phone? You know, how does how do how does the front desk communicate with the dentist? How do the dentists communicate with the assistants? How do the assistants communicate with the hygienist? It all plays a huge part in establishing trust because the more continuity you have, the more ability you have in your your synergistic approach in a team approach, the better the experience. I mean, an example that I have is there's many times, even in my dental procedures, where we're just not on the same page. It happens. It's gonna happen to all of us. I'm like, I can't believe this guy is doing the ultimate patient experience and he's admitting his flaws. Of course, we all have flaws. What's up, Dean? Welcome to the call, brother. But uh, we all have flaws. But the reality is this is that if you embrace them and you work on them and you become better, and you become better and have a synergistic approach of how to truly encompass your staff to be on the same page, it's money. The minute you're not on the same page, the patient feels that experience, and it's now not the great experience because you you're not a one machine, you're not working together. See, dentists in their life don't train their staff enough to be great. You need your staff to be way better than you. You need your staff to communicate so well that if you're not here, they're just an extension of your voice. People need to know what they're getting in your culture, they need to know that they're gonna get the wow experience. There need to be needs to be concise and clear a communication about their appointments, about their billing, about how to even handle patients' inquiries. Like, how do people handle the objections? How do you discuss it? Your staff needs to know all this, they need to know exactly what it is you want. Because if the patient has to second guess, if the patient doesn't quite understand, that's when you're gonna have the problem. And that's when the communication breaks down. Even when the the role of the hygienist or the assistance in communication, how do they talk to the doctor? How do how do we how do we transition from patient to me? How do we pass the authority, if you will, to each other so that the patient doesn't feel like number 105? How do they feel heard? We talked about meeting the patient's needs. So, uh example in my practice is you know, a person will come in, welcome to the practice, Mrs. Smith. They'll get a tour of my practice. You can steal all my hacks all you want because I'm here to serve you. You know, they'll get a tour, they'll come in, that we'll walk them through the whole office. All my staff knows it's a new patient, they'll greet them, say, Oh my God, welcome to the practice, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We might give them a new patient gift. We may do certain things like that. They then the the front desk, the the greeter walks them to the hygiene room, and then the hygienist, they transition, hey, uh hygienist so-and-so, this is Mrs. Smith, and that we go through the transition, and there's that communication. And then when that communication happens, it comes back to me. Hey, there's a new patient or exam room seven, whatever it is. And they already were transitioning this and we're passing authority. It's important that we all, when you're explaining procedures, that you're all on the same page. And you probably can't put an emoji in here. You can't maybe can't even put a heart on IG, but have you ever had the time where you explain what the patient needs and you leave and your hygienist is something totally different? Or your hygienist thought of doing something even though they can't diagnose, and you come in and you contradict what they say. What happens? It's a confused patient. They're going, What? Who do I even trust? Who do I follow? Remember, they're gonna trust your staff way more than they trust you. They think we're getting rich off of all the dental care. That's the facts. Those are not the facts, but they're gonna trust your staff more. So the more your staff can explain procedures, the more they can explain it the way you want it in your culture that you create, in your business that you are in. Hence the dentist CEO brand. You are a business owner, you're a brand. The more you can communicate that, the more you can explain the procedures the exact same way, that's when you're gonna build the trust. That's when they're gonna go, oh my gosh, I picked the right place. That's when they when when me and my office manager, who is the best in financial planning, when we're on the same page and they can speak the way I speak, that's why all my staff, when they're doing something, whether it's in orthodontics or implants, they got trained the same way I get trained. Because they should speak the language, they need to understand it. When we all speak the same language, then you're gonna get build the trust with your clients. How does we talked about patient experience, we talked about compassion, we talked about respect, we talked about creating the ambiance or the amenities that you can give them. But how does technology like how can technology possibly play a role in the ultimate patient experience? It's no different than this. If you see somebody on a flip phone versus a smartphone, you're gonna view them differently. You're gonna think the one of the smartphones not up on the or flip phone's not up on the times, but the someone who is on a on a smartphone, if you will, is up to the new times, iPhone 12, 5, 6, whatever. No different than a technology. You know, when I look at practices that are not growing, they're not keeping up. They're not keeping up with technology. Maybe some of you don't have CBCTs, right? Maybe some of you don't have digital x-rays, maybe some of you are still doing phone uh film drips. I mean, come on, dude, we got to get up to the times. Digital x-rays, you know, it's not a bad investment. You can tell, show, do. You know, are you doing what is the impact of modern techniques? You know, are you doing uh um uh uh AI presentations with overjet? I mean, if you have young dentists and you don't know, think about this. If you don't have a continuity between teams and staff, but you have this technology where you can show them. I used to have this thing a long time ago called Spectra. And Spectra was like Doppler radar for teeth, right? Where it was so hard to diagnose occlusal decay. And if you're a dentist on this phone or you're listening on live and you're a dentist, thumbs up with that or hard on IG, but you can never really prove to a patient that they had occlusal caries, right? Or cavities. And so you'd have to show them, oh, here's some stain, even though it was hard. It was like, but it's hard. And everyone tells, well, it's hard and there's not decay, but it's not true. So I used to have this spectrum and I'd go click and I'd take a picture and it would pop up, and they have different techniques now. But this is almost 12 years ago, and it looked like Doppler radar for T. And that little tool, that little camera that I could show. show people and technology, they thought, man, I was way out of my time. And I literally explain it that way. Whether you have sleep studies, whether you have things, amenities that can, you're not even treating your patients as far as just teeth. You're overlooking at the whole wellness, right? A CBCT machine that can take a 2D print x-ray and convert it to 3D and you can show them without always charging. That technology, when you do stuff and you show them that it's painless and virtual reality anxiety stuff and things that you can do, even as simple as headphones, modern technology in your practice, will, they're going to think they're part of something bigger. You're new, you're creative. I mean I'm 50 years old, but I got to stay up. You got to stay up with AI technology. You got to keep moving. And when you keep moving and you show attendees that's just going to enhance the patient experience. The more modern technology you can give your patients the more especially the younger generation. Right? That's why when you we even do marketing contents or whatever it is you know people websites and texting and in in and it still works email campaigns still work but how great is a video like how great is it we can do this right now right I have this in my dental practice they see this technology guess the first thing the patient says what does he do back here? Oh he does podcasting he does coaching he does this that's modern technology I'm using it to my advantage. And the patient thinks wow right so when you when you encompass all this in your dental practice and I've talked about examples of effective technologies but the ultimate approval whether it's whether it's a Ceric machine right whether it's milling machines in your practice like I have I told you I own Great Lakes Dental Design as well. So I have three or four top end milling machines but it doesn't matter the fact that you can take a prep to somebody a patient who does a crown prep right and this is not about training planning but it's about patient experience and trust then the fact that you can take this prep and you can say I'm going to prep this to you and I'm going to get it back in one day or one hour or two hours whatever you say and you can deliver it the same day you prep it I mean what experience is that you know what they're usually used to I got to come back in three weeks and I got to come back in two weeks. I mean if you can create a system and a rhythm what you don't think they're going to say oh my God you're the greatest thing says slice but they don't look at your prep design they know but you can show them and you can even show them how you're designing it right in front of them and you can show them how you're staining and glazing it and put it in the oven wow I mean even us as dental professionals since we've been doing this still we still think it's amazing. We think it's amazing what technology can do whether you got 3D printing I mean there's so many ways you can go with technology don't underestimate the power of technology don't underestimate the value it has in your practice because if you can use your technology and not always charge for it because don't underestimate the power of another patient. Right? How much does each new patient give you in my practice every new patient that comes in is almost $4500 of revenue. Like why am I sharing that? Because it's just what it is like I'll ask you to I don't care the tech what the technology costs right it's so important. And then we did the technology but there's a part that people miss the most about the patient experience it's the follow-up like how it's sales I don't care if you're a car salesman I don't care if you're a cell phone salesman yes it's sales guys I keep using that word sales dentistry sales like how I mean you ever buy something and nobody ever talks to you again like how great would it be if hey you bought a car somebody calls you a week later saying how's your car going like how great do you need me to do anything? How great is it when somebody follows up with you even as their dentist but you know what's even more powerful not your staff not your front desk when you do it when the doctor does it when the person that does the care actually calls them back. This is how I built the practice by the follow-up care. Like how you when they show that you're right compassionate show respect they trust you and then you follow up then you're now you just have high integrity and now you're doing exactly what you said it's not about a number to them they're about real people like how they're real people that you care about. And we always say we're in this field of dentistry that we actually care but yet we don't even have have most dentists don't even follow up they do the implant and then never hear from again thank you so much room 105 thank you for your money like how the importance of post-treatment communication like how the follow up even improves the health care. So when you follow up you know post op post-treatment care whatever written instructions they give written instructions right procedures done uh written instructions here's your written instructions and then verbalize it you verbalize it so tell show do that's what I say right show them videos do whatever you want this is what you can expect you can do it pre-op and post op here's the clear instructions here's your written instructions here's your clear instructions how you take care of yourself but to go a step further I mean really really really to cat up all this and go to expect a step further follow up with your voice on a phone not some AI texting thing which is cool and in CRM machines customer relations management machines for y'all you don't know what CRM stands for. I'm talking about your voice don't forget old school like writing the letter to the new patient welcoming into their practice I I should show you this stuff I have I have my own I have uh a stuff with my pictures on it it says hey thanks for coming to Graci Del Wellness hope you had a great experience I can't wait to provide your care like I'll read it an old letter just a letter handwritten letter can't read my chicken scratch nobody cares about my chicken scratch it's about me caring the following up how was your experience tell me more doing a video get creative with technology do a video on your phone do a video say oh my god welcome to the practice put it in an uh an emails list campaign whatever it's not hard do one video customize that video to each patient that one minute two minutes three minutes you spend the patient is is undeniable and then follow up afterwards when you do a procedure every person that you give a shot to you should follow up with like I'll I understand it's a lot of time I understand we all don't do it I don't even do it every day you should I do it 99% of the time I can't say I'm perfect but like I how to grow a patient your how do you grow your practice and create that patient experience is the follow up and then when you follow up when you're compassionate you show respect you show trust you're following up with them what did what type of patient feedback do you get and the importance of patient feedback is where you make your changes you got to collect the patient feedback you're gonna get the patient feedback and then you're when you get that patient feedback good bad or indifferent good bad or indifference you're gonna you're gonna implement the changes how do you collect patient feedback you could say hey hey just tell me about your visit you could have a suggestion box you could have create surveys you could do direct interviews you could any means possible to get their feedback is great I don't care if you have to go through a Google review thing and search it and they're not telling you and you read every one of your reviews like how they're important now most of the time you're gonna read the five star reviews and then you get all butthurt about the one star review yeah we all get one star reviews right we all do it and the real it is is is take that there's patients you know what I always say the silent killers right the ones that tell you nothing when you see a patient doesn't schedule do you have enough courage to call them yourself I do I call them hey whoa whoa tell me what's going on you know what what happened what was the disconnect I just need to learn and I'm gonna give you I will tell you this right now what what what can I learn from what can you learn from every good or bad experience there's always something to learn you're not a failure don't think somebody doesn't like you know look at most people will not I mean most people like you in a sense but there's not you can't please everybody you can't you're never gonna make everybody happy in life and in dentistry especially it's almost like what have you done for me lately that's why the patient experience and the wow factor is so much more valuable. This cannot be overstated you need to create the experience you also need to get the bad feedback as well as the good so that the bad doesn't happen to somebody else so that you can adjust like how I'm a very passionate guy you can't tell and sometimes it goes on in my presentations and that rubs people the wrong way great I interview them I say that great thank you for thank you for giving me your feedback some of them come back some of them don't but at least I understand what I need to work on and learn from that. So testimonials testimonials are huge feedback they're huge for building a practice they're huge for for establishing trust in outside online in the online presence right so when you're getting the feedback and communication and changes and you're building the patient's trust you're enhancing your patient experience at the long haul so the importance of the patient feedback is just really to enhance the patient experience for the next person. How do you really implement the feedbacks how do you get the information how do you establish their trust and create that experience that's second to none and as two we talked about the compassion the respect the trust that modern technologies communicating with your team but getting that feedback and really working on it. I have an I'll give you a great example I was going to cut down a tree in one of my practices I know I know for you guys that love trees I was going to cut it down because every time I looked out my window I had this tree that I could not see the road and I felt like it was blocking my my practice I felt like it was blocking my practice from marketing actually being seen right and so what ended up happening was this patient I remember I was saying this in the chair and I remember stating to the patient um hey I think I'm gonna cut down this tree what do you think she almost absolutely came out of the chair and refused to be my patient like true story like she was not going to be my patient and I said whoa whoa whoa whoa I'm gonna be her name nameless I can't tell you so what do you mean she goes if you cut down that tree I'm not gonna be your patient. So what do you think I did? I didn't cut down the tree as a matter of fact I great I carved her initials in that tree that still stand in this tree to this day. And every single time she comes back she looks at that tree and guess what she says that's my tree. So I mean I hurt her I did not do it even though I wanted to I had to be patient centric and now she feels an invested interest not only in my practice but I value in that tree. I value she told 10 other people about it and they go man he really heard me and she picks on me and we joke about it but that was one of the greatest feedback things I've ever gotten by me just opening my mouth right so don't under don't overestimate or underestimate the power of that. Right? And so we discussed really how the patient visit the reception the follow-up how it contributes to the overall patient experience we we discussed that and we discussed the role of each element in the patient experience how do you communicate and implemented the feedback we have we the importance of a comprehensive approach when you treat the patient as a whole right every member of your dental team every one of them from the reception area to the greeter to the dentist to the hygienist to your if you have a lab tech to the lab tech they they have the most important part of being that cohesive unit to create that wow experience and when you understand that every role of the dental team matters and not just yours and matter of fact they matter more than you that's when you're going to create the wow experience for your for your practice when you can have the teamwork of patient care when you can impact each uh the impact of each team member touches the patient experience when you understand that that's when you have the Super Bowl winning team right so it's not just about the patient experience is bigger than you it's the whole team that's how you're gonna win this game of life if you're a baseball guy you'll win the World Series if you're a football woman or guy or girl you're gonna win the Super Bowl for for God's sakes the Women's Worlds Cup's playing right now how do they win the World Cup? By being a cohesive team knowing where everybody's at communicating at the same time that's what's going to build the trust so the the role of your patient experience is bigger than just everybody else it's everybody. So ongoing dental training improving their quality enhancing the patient experiences when you you need to train every single time you need to keep training you need to reiterate training because it doesn't matter if the phone rings it doesn't matter if it markets to get the phone ring but if your staff doesn't know how to communicate on the phone if your staff doesn't know how to talk as things go on the times evolved if you're not sharing the new technologies if you're not engaging them and making them train over and over again then you're not going to have the enhanced patient experience you want. You want you got to continue to work on yourself find ways to improve find ways to communicate better find ways to learn from your mistakes and you will create that wow experience. Get creative have your team get creative have them get creative of how you can create that right and then then once you got that wow experience this is what you're all this is the golden nugget I don't know why I'm talking about this because I'll just create the way experience how do you get them to come back what can you do what strategies can you do you guys have loyalty programs create a loyalty program you know during their regular checkup reminders what is your excellent service how do you get them to trust you do you have uh do you warranty your work do you do you set up parameters like when I do amply dentistry it's warrantied for the rest of your life period end of story if they get two cleanings a year it's warranty for the rest of your life how many of you will do that that's creating a patient centric approach that's thinking outside the box they they're literally I love that your dentist is telling you that by the way that's awesome but I I I it's literally how can you get them to to trust you even more because when you put your money where your mouth is when you say you're gonna back up your services they're gonna refer to you they're gonna kick back to you I mean you're just gonna ensure the patients will return because why you have a built-in loyalty program but two they know you're gonna back up their work they know you're gonna back up the work so to kind of summarize this whole thing right because you guys got a lot of things you want to do right summarize this whole thing of the page review the patient's going to approach remember the patient centric approach is the patient needs come ahead of yours can you create an environment where all their needs at once ahead of yours do you see same day two things do you have a spot if they want to be uh a uh a scene as it as a uh a cleaning on the same day do you have a hygienist on standby how do they how does your staff talk on the phone are they look do they talk on the phone when a patient's in there right how are you communicating between staff members how are you communicating between the patients how are you getting your feedback and your follow-up here all these matter these are questions you got to ask yourself these are questions am I running a practice the right way but at the end of the day dude my job is always here to help you grow so I am launching a program you know six month mastership program guarantee to get results for your money back if you're willing to do the work I promise you I will show you how you how to double your practice no matter what it is so whether you're an implant dentistry just just general dentistry whether you're a hygienist that wants to double their business no joke it's money back guarantee you can book a one-on-one personalized discovery call with me from thedentisto.com slash double your revenue but for the first two people that sign up you can email me at the info at dentistco.com the first two people that sign up I'll do it for free for three months it's a $15,000 value I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is my job is to make sure that all of you on the call if you have an interest if you're truly committed to putting in the work to double your revenue or triple your revenue or just get better results in your life then you need to what it's gonna cost you nothing for the first two people that sign up. So info atendisco.com I would love to do that I would love to help you catapult your career so I'm gonna open it up for questions if there's any questions on IG I'm gonna open it up for questions I can clarify any concepts that you might be off on and then we're gonna wrap up this session so if you have any questions feel free how do you recommend implementing patient centric approach in a dental practice to create a comprehensive patient experience are there any specific strategies or best practices you can share let me read that again how do you recommend implementing a patient centric approach in a dental practice to create a comprehensive patient experience okay so like in examples like I said I I I I've touched on this and I'm gonna do it again um is trying to create systems and processes where the patient's needs come first. I don't care how you're gonna block your schedule if you're gonna you don't have enough time if you're I'm a single practitioner I do have an associate uh uh I guess now but when I did this for my year I was always by myself so I had to have a way in my schedule that I always saw toothaches I truly believe that I treat my patients as if it's my own family member. What would you do if a person had a toothache in your family you would stop what you're doing and come in. So could I create that system within my practice? And I built in these these little things in my schedule that that my staff knows hey here's where the toothaches are coming in. Now you might not always get to be able to do the toothache I'm using the toothache as an example but you at least can treat them you can see them because if you don't see them they're going to go somewhere else right page centric. Do you have extended hours? I understand you can't work all your hours are you extending your hours are you meeting the needs of the second shifts, the third shifts are you doing seven to sevens and two or three or four days a week are you just working Monday to Thursday or you're working Monday through Saturday I don't work six days a week but these are ways to get creative right and then and then how do you it a strategy that I would do is if you're having a hard time getting hygiene patients in one of the strategies I was doing train somebody to be cross-trained. So have a hygienist get trained to do front desk duties and maybe they have a double pay structure or they're paid as a hygienist wage and believe it or not the minute somebody wants a new care they can they can come in and clean their teeth. Now that's only going to work if you have enough operatories so you got to first ask yourself a question do I have enough uh building capacity or operatories to do this? I don't know but those are some strategies I hope that helps another question um that's it any more questions in the chats anything on IG okay I don't think so well guys once again thank you so much for joining uh if I missed a question I apologize um thank you so much for taking your time out I hope this helps and like I said I'm looking for two people at least two people where you're gonna have my services for free where I can truly show you the W revenue just email me at the infothedentistco.com and you guys have a wonderful day. Thanks for listening. We'll talk soon. If this episode challenges you to think differently or lead better share it with someone who's committed to growth and personal responsibility subscribe so you don't miss future conversations on leadership, discipline and performance. And remember leadership isn't a title it's a daily decision. This has been Dr. Bobby J. Grassi and we'll see you next time on the Iron Dentist Podcast.