Your front desk is impacting your dental practice (both positively or negatively) a lot more than you think.
 
If you have taken the time to hire the right people, they are likely making you money. If you haven’t done your due diligence, you might have hired people who are actively tarnishing your brand value and reducing your monthly revenue.
 
Dentists are usually so busy that they don’t have the time to actively monitor what their front desk is doing.
 
See, whenever someone wants to learn more about getting treated at your practice, they will have to talk to your front desk first.
 
Im my experience, there have been many cases where the lady at the front desk was either being rude, carefree or simply unattentive to people who were calling in.
 
Whenever I sign on a new dentist as a client, I almost always go on to their website and add my information in the “Contact us” section so the front desk can call me back.
 
70% of the time it normally takes them 2-4 days to call me back and when they do, it is just a call with a generic message saying “We’d like to book you in for an appointment. Please call us back…”
 
30% of the time I don’t even get a call back!
 
Very rarely do I get an email from them.
 
And I don’t believe I have ever received a text from any dental office intending to follow up with me.
 
My point is this: If you have front desk staff which isn’t doing their job properly, you are losing patients because people only go to dentists they trust and the actions of your front desk reflect directly upon you.
 
If you aren’t actively monitoring your front desk, you are also probably getting negative reviews on Google with complaints about your staff.
 
This reminds me of something which happened a few months ago.
 
I had the pleasure of working with a dentist in Parma, OH.
 
He requested me to talk to the front desk to explain how I will help them bring more patients in.
 
When I called in, the receptionist was rude to me. She didn’t realize who I was and frankly wasn’t even interested in talking to me. She seemed bored and irritated out of her mind.
 
I mentioned this to the dentist and explained that this lady is directly affecting his monthly revenue because of the negative energy she is bringing in. He has since then started monitoring what goes on at the front desk.
 
Is this the case with your practice?
 
Only you can answer this question.
 
However, I would go so far as to say that if you have unprofessional front desk staff, you are losing at least $10,000 to $25,000 in monthly revenue, depending on how successful your practice currently is.
 
That said, there’s a simple remedy to make sure your front desk carry out their responsibilities properly.
 
Here’s a quick checklist to see if your front desk staff is helping you rather than hurting you:
 

• Are they even interested in working there?

 

• Are they cheerful?

 

• Do they go out of their way to accomodate people?

 

• Do they frequently have bad days?

 

• Do they get work done on time?

 

• Can they listen to constructive feedback?

 

• Do they ask prospective patients what their problem is? (Only 10-15% of front desk staff does this in my experience)

 

• When someone comes into the office, do they greet them with a smile?

 

• Do they engage people sitting in the waiting room?

 

• Are they actively working towards increasing your revenue? (If they aren’t, you have to incentivize it by giving them a monthly bonus for the job they properly do).

 
Action: See how your front desk staff is talking on the phone and how often they are following up with prospects. Also check your Google reviews – they are a dead giveaway that your staff is doing something wrong. If your front desk isn’t doing its job properly, let them know what you expect of them, give them 1 more chance or let them go.