The False Sense of Excellence

Dr Phillip & Simon Palmer, January 2013 - Most people would be familiar with the term “a false sense of security”. It is a term used when someone feels secure and safe in a place where they should not, where it is actually dangerous.

A “false sense of excellence” occurs when people think highly of their abilities when really they may not be as good as they believe.

A large percentage of dental practices have a false sense of excellence when it comes to their service levels. Let me explain what I mean...

If you asked almost any dentist why their patients return to their practice, they would say that it is due to the personal relationships they have with their patients and the high service level in their practice which they believe to be better than their peers. Many will illustrate this further by giving anecdotes of:

- patients who have been coming to see them for a long time;
- patients who still come to see them when they visit from far away; 
- how much of their new patients come from referrals and how little they spend on
  advertising;
- the families where 3 generations are coming in. 

While it is possible that all this is happening, it only tells part of the story. The part that they know. These practitioners are only able to form their opinion based on a partial view of their patient base. The ones that are coming back!

The ones who leave do so quietly, never telling you, nor even asking for their x-rays. Just think when you change where you go to do business. If you leave, you just leave, rarely saying anything. Most dentists are losing 15-20% of their patient bases every year. 

If you are not sure of the extent to which this applies to you, go to your dental software and get a printout of all your patients who haven’t been to you for 5 years, and look at the names. Now I know that you will probably think that many of those are still coming back to you one day. Maybe. But most are gone...never to be seen by your practice again.

What has happened to these patients? And why? 

In Prime Practice we sometimes use the metaphor of a bucket to visualise our practices patient levels. Imagine your practice as a bucket and all the patients as drops of water in the bucket. In this metaphor every time our service levels are of a standard that cause patients to leave it is the equivalent of having a hole in the bucket (a patient leak). Dentists can upset their patients in a myriad of situations that may not be obvious to them as business owners but in ways that they would not put up with themselves if they were in the patient’s shoes. Patient leaks in a practice could be due to: 

- difficulty in getting an appointment; 
- poor empathy and rapport building; 
- poor aesthetics and comfort levels of their waiting room;
- being kept waiting too long for their appointment;
- fees being seen as too high (or not commensurate with perceived value;
- a feeling that they were being ‘sold’ treatment that they didn’t think was necessary;
- And many more. 

To run a successful practice you want to have as few patient leaks as possible and this means constantly looking for and identifying the weaknesses in your practice’s service levels and fixing them. In business terms this is called having quality control measures in place.

How do you identify the patient leaks in your practice? What quality control measures can you put in place?

1. Asking your team. Ask your team for feedback and suggestions. Your team members have a great vantage point to notice weaknesses in the patient service levels. Patients are more likely to tell them than you of their feelings, and/or complaints.
    
2. Asking your patients. Offering patients an anonymous survey to complete about their experience gives you a chance at getting an honest bird’s eye view of the patient’s journey through your practice.
   It will give you insight into the weaknesses in your service levels and team and an opportunity to fix these patient service leaks. By working on these we can make our business stronger and allow it to grow unhindered. (Dental Patient Surveys is a new service launched by Prime Practice and Dentist Job Search to help improve the patient experience). Visit the website at www.dentalpatientsurveys.com to arrange a free trial today.
    
3. Mystery telephone shopper. The cost of mishandling phone enquiries can be thousands of dollars of lost income. The level of skill with which a phone enquiry is handled is crucial to converting phone enquiries to new patients. Check- in on your practice’s phone experience from time to time. How long does it take for your team to answer the phone? What happens when patients call outside hours? Have your team been trained in the best ways to convert phone shoppers into patients? 
    
4. Attend courses aimed at increasing your service levels so that your business can thrive. (Prime Practice is running “Thriving in a Changing Marketplace” around all capital cities of Australia starting in mid March 2013).