674: The Hidden Secret to Patient Loyalty: The First Phone Call – Robyn Theisen

Do you want more loyal patients in your practice? Of course, you do! To help you attract those high-value patients, Kirk Behrendt brings back Robyn Theisen, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to share the secrets of the first phone call. Win people over before they step into your office! To learn how a phone call can get patients to stay, listen to Episode 674 of The Best Practices Show!

Episode Resources:

• Send Robyn an email: robyn@actdental.com 
• Follow Robyn on ACT’s Instagram
• Send Gina an email: gina@actdental.com 
• Subscribe to The Best Practices Show podcast 
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Main Takeaways:

Put the right person on the phone.

Make a habit of taking physical notes.

Always start by finding out your patient’s name.

Find out the things that are important to your patient.

Ask every patient where they heard about your practice.

Learn about your patients’ expectations and lay them all out.

Have patients experience value before they come into your office.

Insurance should be the last thing you talk about in your conversation.

Quotes:

“We have been doing this a long time — myself personally, 30 years — and I'm still underwhelmed by talking to dental offices at how flat the phone call is.” (2:08—2:18) -Kirk

“In dentistry, we’re in a relationship business, so this first phone call is an opportunity for us to learn more than their name, their insurance, any of those standard things that we ask for. It's an opportunity to learn what's important to them, like, why are they choosing you as a dentist? What made them call you? What's going to make them stay? All those things can be such important things that we can learn from the first phone call with us.” (2:52—3:17) -Robyn

“The ultimate question becomes, is your practice relational or transactional? Now, everybody listening to this would say, ‘It's relational!’ But let's call out the inherent challenges of working the front desk. You, as a dentist listening to this, never worked the front desk. You have no idea how difficult it is. There's a lot going on up there. The second challenge is it becomes a very left-brained process because we have more software than ever — you have Dentrix, Eaglesoft, and Open Dental, and everything is about filling a box from left to right in the software. Active listening has kind of gone away as we've trained team members they’ve just got to fill the boxes. So, they're not really listening. It's their agenda against the patients’ agenda.” (3:19—4:04) -Kirk

“In a day and age where PPOs are flooding dental practices now at a higher speed, let's give the team members up front a little bit of grace because they often have to be able to slow down, listen, and connect with patients enough in order to even start this conversation.” (4:06—4:25) -Kirk

“To have an actual piece of paper is really helpful. Like you said, [teams are] filling it in in Eaglesoft, Dentrix, whatever that is. It's nice to have a piece of paper to write on and to make notes so that you gather all the information. I also see teams that will have the new patient form on a brightly colored piece of paper. That's an indicator for anyone walking up to them that they're on the phone with a new patient, so give them the time and the space to be able to talk to patients and potentially find someone else to work with on the business team to help them with what they need at that time.” (4:32—5:01) -Robyn

“Having the uniquely colored piece of paper is one of the most brilliant systems in a dental practice because when you have a fluorescent orange or a fluorescent pink — and I've even seen them in the fluorescent yellow or bluish colors — those are great because that is a visual cue for, ‘Stay away from me. Don't come near me,’ because all too often, if I'm a chairside assistant, I'm parking a patient right at the front, and they're staring right at you while you're trying to listen to the new caller. So, it's really important.” (5:44—6:14) -Kirk

“It is amazing to me how often [finding out your patient’s name is] missed. Typically, a patient will call, and they are asking you a question right out the gate. So, instead of taking the time to circle back and understand what their name is to create that relationship, we go right into answering the question. So, I would say regardless of what that first question is from the patient, take the time to reintroduce yourself and ask them their name. Find out what their name is. It is the sweetest sound that anyone can hear, is their own name, and people really love to be referred to by their name. Have that conversation. That starts that relationship.” (6:29—7:01) -Robyn

“We talk about cancellations all the time. You get one shot to make a deep connection with this patient. I highly suggest you use their name. Create that bond right upfront because people don't cancel on their friends.” (7:30—7:43) -Kirk

“[Using your patient’s name] is the first opportunity to start building that relationship — the trust and the loyalty that they will develop with the office.” (7:59—8:07) -Robyn

“Find out what's important to [patients]. ‘What’s the most important thing about your visit with us today? What prompted you to call us?’ Find out what is important to them and what made them choose you. That is going to give us a lot of information about what they are looking for in an office, and it also gives you a lot of information about what they're potentially running away from. So, if somebody says, ‘The most important thing is I want to be seen on time,’ now I know what's really important to them and what is going to keep them loyal to me. Also, if we're consistently late with them, that's also going to push them away. So, you can learn information on both sides of things when you ask them what's really important to them. And it's more than a dental visit. What is really important? How do I build the relationship with them? I think that question is so often missed.” (8:18—9:05) -Robyn

“[Finding out what's important to your patients] gives you an opportunity to really understand, are they a good fit for the practice? Do they have the same value system as you? What do they look like for a long-term patient? What do we need to do to be able to keep them loyal for the things that are important to them?” (10:08—10:20) -Robyn

“Your favorite people that you'll ever bring into your practice care about the same things that you care about. So, as you slow down, you ask the right questions, ‘Why us? Why now?’ somebody is trained upfront to ask those questions, actually collect that information, and share it with the team, over time, you're going to find you're filling the schedule with the right type of people.” (10:20—10:39) -Kirk

“You have to be somewhat unique, if not very unique. In order to get outside of the PPOs, you have to be really different. You can't just be a little bit different. There's got to be something unique and special about you, and that's the thing that gets missed a lot of times when people are trying to get away from PPOs. You’ve got to create some value on the phone.” (10:39—11:04) -Kirk

“The referral source is a really important piece to ask. I believe that's something that's missed often, is asking patients how they heard about you . . . When we talk about scheduling people based on insurance and limiting some of that as you're trying to make transitions with insurance, one of the big things, a delineation is, if you're referred by a patient of ours and a friend of our practice and you have Delta Dental, that's different than the patient that calls in because they saw you on a list. And so, finding out that information, where they were referred from, gives you an idea on the loyalty to the practice or what they're looking for from your practice and if it's a fit or not. It also is a marketing piece. So, if you are tracking where your marketing dollars are going and where you want to put those to attract other patients, tracking that for marketing reasons is really important to know how many people we're getting from different sources.” (11:11—12:08) -Robyn

“Don't just take their first answer when you ask, ‘Where did you hear [about us]?’ [Always ask], ‘Where else did you hear about us?’ because they might have seen something else. People usually need multiple points of contact, or they didn't just hear it one time. They heard your name a second time, a third time. ‘Oh, I think I . . . I've heard a lot about you guys,’ and it's important to collect all that information.” (12:22—12:44) -Kirk

“Don't just be so focused on the information. Give some energy to the information like this: if my [patient] said, ‘Mike, my neighbor, he's a patient there and he loves you guys.’ You have to say, ‘Oh, we love him too! We take care of the whole family,’ because that's called transfer of trust. It implies that my friend that I love, that you love, we're all going to love each other when we get to know each other, and that's a really, really high IQ moment for anybody that's answering the phone, is to make those connections.” (12:47—13:21) -Kirk

“Google is a referral source that we hear often, where patients are hearing about us. A question I like to ask is, ‘Yeah, I hear that a lot from patients. Share with me what you read on Google that was important to you. Share with me what stood out to you.’ Again, it's another indicator of what's important to them. What are the things that stood out in the reviews that were really important to them that brought them to you? Those are great things to know about patients and things that you can build on in conversation.” (14:03—14:26) -Robyn

“It's taking the opportunities, like you said, to ask that one next question. What's that next question to really learn more about them, what's important to them, what we're looking for, what they're looking for, what we need to avoid, or what we need to provide more of? Those are important questions and important things to know.” (14:44—14:59) -Robyn

“Another big piece of this is we've got to find out what [patients] expect, and we've got to tell them what they can expect.” (16:02—16:08) -Kirk

“Patients, or people in general, like to be parts of groups. So, if you can let them know what they can expect coming in or orient them to what they can expect coming in — new patients come in in different ways to different offices. So, if it's that they come in to see the hygienist first, or they come in to see the doctor first, whatever that is, I know one challenge that we run up against too often is patients expect a cleaning, or they expect to come in and see the hygienist and have a cleaning. That isn't always possible. So, I find if you can give them exactly what's going to happen before they come in, you have less conflict with that.” (16:11—16:47) -Robyn

“Back to the group thing, that's really important because we never want to feel like we're so unique and we're a unicorn out there. I want to know that I'm talking to somebody, and they get me. So, if I have some jaw pain that's turning into headache pain, I want to talk to somebody on the phone who says, ‘Listen, we have a lot of people that call for this exact reason. You're not alone, and you're calling the right place. Our doctor is an amazing doctor, and she's an even better human being. Let me share with you how this works at the first appointment.’ We want to know what to expect. Your patients should never hang up feeling confused, thinking they're going to get a cleaning, and they're getting a comprehensive exam instead, or that they're not going to get their teeth cleaned at all when they were thinking they were going to get their teeth cleaned. It is so cool when you can make promises and keep them. Isn't that powerful?” (17:18—18:09) -Kirk

“Typically, your patients are going to expect that they're going to be there for an hour. So, I find with offices that are having you there for 90 minutes, for two hours, where you may say, ‘Expect to be here for 90 minutes,’ I follow up with, ‘You can expect to be here until 9:30 a.m.’ That's how people put it in their calendar. They block out times in it, so being specific about the time that they are going to be there, I have found, has eliminated or cut down on that variation of, are they going to be here for an hour, hour-and-a half, when we say 90 minutes? Adding a time has really helped with patients knowing exactly what to block out on their calendar.” (18:53—19:26) -Robyn

“[Another question to ask patients is] the insurance piece or the more transactional information. You've gathered all of this information for you to be able to build the relationship, and now that there is pertinent information in their insurance benefits, if they plan to use any of those, what relationship you have with that at the office . . . Patients focus on the things that we do. And so, by having this at the end of your phone conversation, you've gathered all this information, now you can ask that information before you know where to schedule them and where to put them into your schedule.” (19:43—20:18) -Robyn

“We've trained patients to think that [insurance is] the first question they should ask. I think patients ask that question at the beginning because they don't know what else to ask, and we feed into that by continuing to make it a huge ordeal. So, if that's the first question for a patient when they call in to me and I'm answering the phone, it's like, ‘That's a great question, and I will get to that. Would you mind if I ask you a few questions to learn more about you before we get to that?’ so that I can assure them we're going to get to that information. I want to know more about them before I jump into, ‘Do you have Delta? What's the subscriber number? What's your date of birth?’ all of those things. I want to build the relationship first, and I lose the opportunity if I go right into the insurance piece.” (21:04—21:43) -Robyn

“If you don't train your team members to think during these phone calls, they're going to react because they know you want those chairs full. So, they're going to take all these phone calls that are coming in at record speeds from these PPOs and less desirable ones, and they're just going to fill them because they haven't been trained. So, what we're encouraging you guys to do is just slow down, think, create a relationship, teach your team members about your schedule, what matters to your vision, and you can start to create the practice that you really dreamed of year, over year, over year as you start to do this.” (22:47—23:22) -Kirk

“Now, we've gathered all the information. We know where they're going to fit best within our practice. What are the optimal times to put them? By saying that, of where they're going to fit best in our practice, I also want to put them in a place that I know they're going to have the very best experience in our practice. We've got times that are reserved for different types of new patients, or we have new patient times that are reserved. And so, it's fitting them into that right spot to make sure that it works best for your team so that they have the ultimate new patient experience when they come in.” (23:28—23:57) -Robyn

“Whoever is teaching this in dentistry, ‘Get them off the phone as fast as possible, in three to four minutes,’ that's crazy. I don't get that at all. If you pay attention to metrics in any other industry, you'll find that the longer people are on the phone, the more that they spend in any business. Now, I realize in a dental office you can't be on the phone for half an hour. That's not what I'm saying. But I think if you care enough, you do what Robyn is talking about, I find the right time slot for you.” (24:00—24:28) -Kirk

“Don't just schedule them and hang up. Do something really special. People remember what's said first and what's said last. Ninety-nine percent of all phone calls in dentistry are like, ‘Well, you're scheduled for next Tuesday at one o'clock. We'll see you then. Please arrive early. We're going to email you your health history forms. Have a great day.’ Say, ‘Listen, you're scheduled for next Tuesday at one o'clock. If you have any challenges, I want you to call me. I'm here for you. I'll be the first smiling face you see. I'm going to send you your health history forms. Please fill them out beforehand. And hey, before you hang up, can I share one thought with you?’ What is every patient going to say?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘I want you to know, I know you were scared a little bit before you called. You called the right place. You're going to meet our dentist on Tuesday. She's awesome. You're going to love her. And what you're looking for, that's what we do. So, I want you to have a great day — oh, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait.’ I'm going to throw a curveball. ‘Before you hang up, who else may we schedule from your family? I know you're new to town.’ That's the bonus round.” (24:45—25:47) -Kirk

“When you practice this, and you have a system for this, and you feel confident in how you're asking the questions, it doesn't have to take a lot of time — and it's so worth it. The time that you spend to not be hurried and to really be invested in the relationship with people, it is worth it. So, be confident and ask the right questions. Ask that one more question and build the relationship with those people from the very beginning.” (25:52—26:17) -Robyn

“Whoever is answering the phone, make sure that they enjoy answering the phone, because we do see that people are just thrown into this position. They're like, ‘I hate talking to anybody,’ and they have to fake it all day, which causes a huge energy drain for them. When you find the right person who enjoys creating smiles on the phone, you're going to see it's going to be so easy on everybody, and you'll have a practice that's busy forever.” (26:25—26:51) -Kirk

“[The first phone call is] a really important two or three minutes in your day, so take the time to be invested in learning about people. It actually is so much more fun when the phone — when I was a business team member, when you ask questions like this and can really get to know people, the conversations and the phone calls are so much more fun than the transactional, ‘Let me tick off my list of all of the things I need to gather from you.’ So, practice it and enjoy it. It's great for your practice.” (26:58—27:21) -Robyn

Snippets:

0:00 Introduction.

2:44 Why this is an important topic.

4:04 Take physical notes.

6:15 Start by finding out your patient’s name.

8:08 Find out what is important to your patient.

11:05 Ask patients for their referral source.

12:44 Help patients experience value over the phone.

15:00 Reward positive behaviors.

16:01 Lay out expectations for patients.

19:36 Save the insurance conversation for last.

23:22 Schedule patients at the very end.

24:18 Take your time.

26:24 Make sure the person answering your phone enjoys it.

26:52 Last thoughts.

Robyn Theisen Bio: 

Robyn Theisen brings an entire life and legacy of dental experience to the team and every team with which she works as the daughter and sister of dentists. With almost 20 years of experience in dentistry, her roles ranged from practice management to operations at Patterson Dental to coaching teams. Robyn’s passion is empowering teams to realize that they can dramatically impact the lives of the people they serve by implementing skills and systems to remove barriers to life-changing dental treatment. She has done it for decades and does it every day with dental teams.

Outside of coaching, she enjoys time with her husband, Rob, and two daughters, Emerson and Ruby. She loves traveling, music, fitness, and cheering on the Michigan State Spartans.