Ten Easy Rules of Dental Phone Call Training Online

There are so many aspects of the day-to-day dental front office job that often it is just expected that the front desk staff knows what they are doing. Unfortunately, this often leads to mistakes that can hinder a practice. These mistakes demonstrate a lack of respect for the values and expectations that you put in place for your practice. What differentiates a successful dental practice that stands out amongst the rest—compared to just being an average dental office—is that patients are eagerly calling to book an appointment. They are more than willing to come in and only have positive things to say about your office. To achieve such a level of service takes time and effort. Thus, training your dental team members on the best way to handle dental phone calls is an important and valued part of building a prosperous practice. This dental phone call training not only requires patience, but there needs to be a positive work environment that supports the training. Read on to learn ten easy rules of dental phone call training online:

Rule #1: Be a leader with a clear vision – even for the way you answer the phone

Running a successful independent dental practice starts with the dentist/owner. It is critical to your long-term success that you learn to be a leader. That means working on your interpersonal skills, business planning skills, and having a vision for how you want to provide care, holistically, to your patients. Without that guidance, your team will make it up on the fly and the result will be inconsistent and sub-par.

Rule #2: Invest in your team – they deserve it

No new team member comes into your dental office with the required skill set to be successful with dental phone calls. Every aspect of answering calls needs dental phone call training, and the sooner you recognize that fact, the quicker your team will be up to speed and handling calls as you want them handled. So be ready to invest the resources – time and/or dollars – to give your team the training they need to implement your vision.

Rule # 3: Don’t fail to answer a call

Not answering the phone is simply a heartbreaking way to lose out on a potential new patient. It’s also a huge waste of marketing energy. If you find your team overwhelmed by calls during business hours, celebrate the success of your marketing for a moment, and then figure out what system will suit you and your practice best for handling overflow calls. And here’s a hint within the tip – an answering machine/voicemail is the absolute worst solution. Look to hire more people to handle the call volume. If that isn’t feasible, then try to find an answering service that aligns with your patient service goals. When that call isn’t answered, the potential patient will generally just move on to the next number on their list. Don’t let them get away that easily!

Rule #4: Establish a system to follow up on missed calls

As a follow-on to tip #3, each of those missed calls is potential revenue, so devise a system that will take advantage of those opportunities. Are missed calls followed up on immediately? Does someone stay in during the lunch hour to make those calls? Try to imagine what approach will suit your practice best.

Rule #5: Track Call Conversion Performance

It is important to have a feedback mechanism for your phones. What does that mean? In the simplest terms, you can keep track of the number of calls that come in vs a satisfactory outcome for those calls. What is a satisfactory outcome? That’s for you to determine, but one metric is that you track how many potential new patients call vs the number of new patient appointments made. The magic happens when you begin to see patterns. Receptionist “K” takes ten to fifteen calls a day and books three new patient appointments. That’s roughly a 33%-40% conversion rate. If you have more than one receptionist, you can measure them against each other. Now don’t mistake this as a prescription for antagonistic monitoring. Indeed, your goal should be just the opposite. You want your team to succeed, and if you can determine that a specific receptionist needs more training, then that is a positive and constructive outcome. If you identify that all your receptionists are underperforming, then you can take a look at the biggest business system around calls to identify deficiencies. More data is better! All-Star Dental Academy’s online dental phone call training program has proven success with taking underperforming receptionists and turning them into all-stars!

Rule #6: Always have a continual training protocol in place in your practice as a well-trained, efficient office is a maximally profitable one.

Just as tools require maintenance, so do your people. There is something called the “training effect,” where, over time, new skills fade. Refreshing those dental phone call skills via online training not only gets those skills back to a state of high performance, but the skills also get more internalized such that over the next lull in training, they fadeless. Make sense? So, if you have a mature training regimen, you will learn to train new skills, and then revisit those specific skills after some time to refresh and deepen them.

Rule #7: Remember that dentistry – even on the phone call – is a people business

It’s easy to get lost in the shine of new equipment, especially for dentists that are fans of “stuff.” But it is important that you keep in mind that your patients start out – and remain – people throughout their experience with you. That means you need to treat them with warmth and respect from the first phone call and strive to form a friendly and trusting relationship with them. Dental phone call training online is a way to minimize the resource commitment while still working on improving your team’s critical skills.

Rule #8: Smile when you answer the phone

Patients know when their receptionist is having a bad day. You can hear it in the tone of their voice. One super-easy way to improve this situation is to simply smile when you. Answer the phone. Give it a try with a friend. Have the call you and answer with a frown. Then repeat but answer with a smile on your face. You will be amazed by the difference! 

Rule #9: Don’t fear a dental phone call training coach

One amazing way to accelerate skills growth is to bring in a dental coach who can work with your team on dental phone call training. All-Star Dental Academy offers the services of online virtual dental phone call training coaches. They can work individually or with a number of your staff to train in the fundamentals all the way through advanced rapport-building techniques.

Rule #10: Be excited to answer a dental phone call!

One of the easiest ways to turn around sagging performance on dental phone calls is to reframe the reason those calls are coming in. Too many dental receptionists see the phone as a nuisance. But the reality is that every single phone call – even if it is a sales or marketing caller – is an opportunity to generate business for the practice. If you treat dental phone calls with the appropriate respect, then calls will be answered with a friendly attitude (and a smile!), energy, and a desire to help.

These ten rules just scratch the surface of best practices that successful dental offices use. The day-to-day dental front office job that often it is seen as a chore should instead be reframed into opportunity. When your dental phone call team demonstrates the proper respect for the values and expectations that you put in place for your practice, the patient will benefit from a helpful and friendly receptionist. It just takes consistent training – that you can even do online – and the right attitude. Give All-Star Dental Academy a call and see how their online dental phone call training programs and their coaching services can help you achieve a more professional and friendly phone call system.

Donovan Castaneda

Donovan Castaneda is a passionate storyteller living in Arkansas who loves to share his unique insights into various topics such as politics, lifestyle, culture, and food. He has written and collaborated with multiple publications, and believes in living life with the intention of finding joy and inspiration in every day. Aside from writing, Donovan works as a facilitator in professional development workshops, and continues to learn and to explore life, new people, places, ideas, and opportunities.

About the Author

Donovan Castaneda

Donovan Castaneda is a passionate storyteller living in Arkansas who loves to share his unique insights into various topics such as politics, lifestyle, culture, and food. He has written and collaborated with multiple publications, and believes in living life with the intention of finding joy and inspiration in every day. Aside from writing, Donovan works as a facilitator in professional development workshops, and continues to learn and to explore life, new people, places, ideas, and opportunities.

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