To become an exceptional dental practice, no matter what specialty we are in, requires ongoing commitment, dedication & patience. By simply having fancy visual branding elements such as tagline, impressive clinics, or pitching the world, we are the best, the ultimate destination for patients seeking dental treatment; we do not become a 5-star clinic.
The process is not overnight; it requires a pigheaded discipline and a cult-like culture of commitment to being the best. It takes tremendous amounts of work, honest hard work, and a clear vision that must be communicated top-down to every team member.
Many dental clinic owners are unwilling to work hard to become the best or don’t know what it takes to become an exceptional dental practice and create loyal patients.
This article will explore the 3 essential requirements to create an exceptional practice by examining some of the leading organizations such as Ritz-Carlton Hotels, Capella, Four Seasons Hotels, Amazon, Apple, and more.
Our First Priority Must Be To Focus on Creating Loyal and Raving Fans
No matter how good we are at preparing teeth, introducing innovations, technology and building an ultra-luxury dental clinic, if we do not have loyal patients and staff that we can retain, we will fail. It is a simple idea, but most clinics fail to do it.
To create loyal patients, we must make our patients fall in love with us. It is that simple. See, a person in love can never be distracted away, and they never pay attention to our competitor’s marketing tactics.
We want them to fall in so much love with us that they will ignore it even if we mess up or have a service failure. In my clinical years of practice, now and then, I failed. I remember breaking an endo file in a tooth’s canal or pushing up an implant into the sinus cavity. Yes, these events can happen to anyone who has been practicing a lot of dentistry for a very long time. But it is during these times, proving patients’ loyalty to us as clinicians.
Most doctors know loyalty is essential, but most don’t have the know-how to achieve the consistency required to create a loyal patient base.
Having a loyal base in love with our clinics that do not quickly become distracted by competitors’ savvy marketing techniques.
When a business has a loyal fan base, it can weather unpredictable storms. An example of such a company with a large loyal base is Ritz-Carlton Hotels.
The company has both loyal customers and loyal employees. In 2008, the global economic crash affected every industry, especially the hotel sector. Again, in 2020 with the company facing a global pandemic where many hotels were cutting rates or shutting down; The company was able to survive the storm because of loyal fan base. Even though guests had more travel options and reduced travel frequency, they stayed loyal to the brand by visiting local properties, dining, or renting rooms to work from home at these properties.
Their employees also stayed loyal, as many agreed to cut in pay or move away to other properties, sometimes across the world, where the company was less affected by the storm.
Always Anticipate Their Needs
People fall in love with us when we show through our actions that we care for them and anticipate their needs.
This intentional behavior begins by truly understanding our patients and keeping a record of their desires and preferences. To anticipate our patients’ needs, we must build a culture where our team members understand the difference between a job purpose and function.
The job function is what we advertise to hire an individual for a role. It is part of their job description. However, the purpose is typically linking to its mission statement; it is the ” Why ” of every company.
When employees understand the ” Why,” they begin shifting from being reactive to becoming proactive and anticipating patients’ needs. To create a 5-star dental practice, this must become the rule than exception we practice every day.
In the last chains of dental clinics I created before I retired from clinical dentistry in 2014; Our team was intentional in anticipating every patient’s need. For example, we knew patients arriving for major dental work required to be calm. Therefore, we always completed all of their necessary paperwork, collect funds, and offer them anti-anxiety pills beforehand. In addition, every patient was picked up by our driver; they were met at the parking lot with a wheelchair to ensure their safety.
During their appointment, their families were called and kept informed about treatment progress. A pre-selected menu of soft food was delivered from local restaurants for them and the rest of their family as we knew no patients want to be thinking about what to eat after major dental treatment.
Anticipating patient needs shows that you care for your patients and makes them fall in love with you.
Clinics must Understand The Pillars of Satisfaction
For a dental clinic to become exceptional, clinic owners and managers must first understand what it takes to satisfy patients. I like to refer to these as pillars of satisfaction. All of them are required for achieving a high level of satisfaction.
Here is are the list of the pillars:
1. Predictable Outcome/Service/Treatment
Without having a predictable and quality treatment, we cannot attain the levels of satisfaction needed to leap toward a five-star clinic. Yes, even in dentistry, where the treatment outcomes may vary from patient to patient, we expect to deliver predictable treatment. This is where I often speak about the Quality of Care is as important as the Quality of Experience. It is the latter that often we are evaluated as clinicians by our patients.
Companies such as Apple or Amazon could not have reached the level of success and won people’s hearts if there was inconsistency in their products or service.
2. Genuine and Caring Team
If we have the best service and treatment outcomes globally, but our team is indifferent in serving patients, we can lose our satisfied fan base.
Uncaring and indifference are the main reasons patients easily switch brands as caring is a natural human desire. We always gravitate toward those who care more for us.
3. Make On-Time Promises
A satisfied patient looks up to us in keeping our promises promptly. In today’s world of fast robotic applications with supercomputers taking over many human functions, our patients, including us as consumers, look for companies that can satisfy our needs and solve our problems right away.
This area is where clinics must focus on processes and workflow in handling capacities. In a typical 5-star organization, I can easily spot more employees per customer than it may seem necessary. This is not poor HR management but a great service design to address overcapacity issues so customers are never underserved and everything is delivered to them on time.
4. We Must Have Fast & Effective Resolution
Customer service or treatment failure is always possible, but how we handle this breakdown is more important. Research has shown that companies with a well-documented fast and effective resolution process where they can return the customer’s experience to a previous state where failure did not happen generally win the customers over as loyal fans.
One reason for this is that this is an opportunity for the company to shine and show they are truly professional in handling problems. Organizations such as the Ritz-Carlton, The Four Seasons Hotel, Apple, and Amazon empower employees to resolve issues quickly on their own without the need for approval from a manager. This fast and effective resolution process must be embedded in a company’s culture from the top management and trickled down to all levels.
Many dental clinics I consult with fail to empower their manager and employees to make decisions as dentists love micromanaging. Growing mature in this process, it is essential to let go of control if you desire to have an exceptional 5-start practice.
In summary, to become an award-winning clinic is not just about where you finished your dental degree or how many CE courses you completed.
It is not just about cutting that perfect crown tooth preparation or having the best-sealed root canal. It is the combination of many things that must be understood, mapped out, and planned with your team.
It is a lot of hard work up-front, but once the foundations are laid correctly, the systems can easily be duplicated and supported by our teams.
