How to Make Sure Callers WON’T Make an Appointment DON'T Do This When You Answer the Phone: A Million Dollars in Patient Life-Time-Value Lost From Phone Call Mistakes Failing to convert new patient phone calls is costing your dental practice literally HUNDREDS OF...
3 Steps to Get Patients to Show Up for Their Appointments – The Confirmation Triad™
We all know how frustrating it is to have canceled, broken appointments, or no-shows on your schedule. The Problem: From speaking with hundreds of dentists and team members each year, we know that cancellations are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, issues...
Call Conversion: A Critical Predictor of Success
We've been talking recently about monitoring your practice's performance. Taking a close look at different practice data - payroll, overhead, production, case acceptance, etc - yields what practice managers, coaches, consultants, and others call Key Performance...
The Importance of Dental Staff Training – RIGHT NOW
Most businesses, especially small and medium enterprises (including private dental practices) are still feeling the effects of poor dental staff training. In such circumstances, most businesses focus on survival and reduce funding to anything that seems non-essential....
Dental Office Phone Training: 5 Tips To Improve Your Receptionist’s Phone Skills
Although a potential patient may discover your practice through the internet or personal contact, most prospective patients will get in touch with your dental office on the phone. Your receptionist will have to manage the appointments of existing patients through the...
Case Acceptance Black Hole: Where Your Dental Dollars Disappear
Many dentists believe that all their revenue problems lie with case acceptance. But there is an interesting financial reality that parallels the patient journey from first contact through case presentation, case acceptance, treatment and follow-up. Essentially, there...
All-Star Quick Tip – Avoiding the “S” Words
Training mistakes to avoid include a reliance on the two "S Words." The first word is “selling.” Selling mean to impose on someone to have them to do something you want. Good at business? A focus on manipulating a patient is a losing proposition. Yes, as a dentist you...
Banish Broken Appointments!
A critically important challenge for a dental practice is banishing broken appointments. There is nothing more insidious than a patient failing to show up. When you combine the time and energy spent preparing for the appointment with the inability to recover the lost...
Dental Telephone Scripts: Stop Using Dental Phone Call Scripts!
I think that it is safe to say that most people - especially dental patients and team members - have a less-than-ideal relationship with dental telephone scripts (dental phone scripts). How many times have you called a company and the agent who answers sounds a bit...
Dental Receptionist Training – Trial by Fire?
I finally got around to writing a blog post that reflects my experience with dental receptionist training – the good and the bad. Setting the Stage So, to provide some context, Alex Nottingham is my husband and founder and CEO of All-Star. I am the co-founder and VP...
The 9 Essential Elements of an Extraordinary Dental Phone Greeting
When patients call your dental office, the first point of contact they have is with the person who answers the phone, which is why dental front office training is so important. The dental phone greeting sets the tone for the call and will help make your company look...
6 Ways to Combat Awkward Phone Silences
When I evaluate front office teams on their new patient calls, one issue really stands out: phone silences. The amount of awkward, dead-silence moments between the team member and the potential patient caller is surprising and concerning. If this happens in your...