Would you ignore a message your friend or family member left for you? Probably not, and if you did ignore it by accidentally misplacing it, you’d be incredibly apologetic…..right? Of course you would, but you get messages from patients every day that, unfortunately, get ignored or passed all over the office until they get lost.
We had an opportunity recently to review all the calls an office received from their website phone number….a great training opportunity that was an offshoot of a local SEO company’s services. A message was taken and the patient was told it would be routed to the proper person. The next day the patient called again……asked to speak to the person to whom she was told the message was routed…..and that person had no idea what she was talking about. The message was then promised to be routed to the business manager. Next day, the patient called again…..you guessed it….the business manager had no idea what she was talking about. Can you picture how annoyed this patient was now on day 3 with no resolution and no real feeling anyone cared about ther call. While I wish I could say that was just an unusual example, we hear from way too many people regarding their dental offices to think that’s the case.
Every office needs a good plan for delivering messages…..one that doesn’t start and end with tiny pieces of paper……to be sure all are addressed correctly. Here are some ideas we hope will help:
- Follow up when you deliver a message to be sure it wasn’t discarded because the person who received it didn’t understand what you meant
- Keep all messages you receive in one place and check that all have been returned before you leave for the day
- Offer to help research and return a message if someone is swamped…..and accept the offer graciously if you’re the person needing a bit of help
- Make an interim call to the patient….or ask a fellow staff member to do so….if you need a day or two to get or research the correct answer
- Finally, please remember to apologize if it took a bit longer than usual to return the call. If you’d do this for a friend, you should be willing to extend the same courtesy to your patients
