Heather Nottingham shares insights on conquering phone fears, embracing change, and delivering excellent customer service. Be a confident ‘peach’!
Resources:
About Heather Nottingham
Heather is the VP of Training & Phone Skills Instructor at All-Star Dental Academy. She is a former retail sales trainer and manager for Bloomingdale’s, Kate Spade, and Theory, and a top new patient coordinator for a multi-million-dollar high-end dental practice where she personally increased revenue by over a million dollars in less than 18 months. She has over 24 years worth of customer service, training, and phone experience, and designed the All-Star Dental Academy Phone Success Course as well as the GREAT Call® Process.
Episode Transcript
Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:00
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management, and training. Hi, everybody. Heather Nottingham here, VP of Training and co-founder of All-Star Dental Academy, and I want to welcome you today. We’re dressed in, I’m dressed in my sequin peach shirt. I feel like Taylor Swift because we’re here today to talk about
00:29
Being a peach on the phones. So answering the phones can definitely be intimidating. I know, because I’ve done it for a long time and I still do it. And oftentimes we’re afraid of rejection or failure. I mean, it makes complete sense. We’re picking up the phone to an unknown person who’s calling, they’re gonna be asking us a bunch of unknown questions. Many people say they like surprises, but do they really, right?
00:56
People typically like surprises that they deem as positive, like a surprise party. But if it’s not viewed as positive, it is less likely to seem like a surprise and more of what you would call a problem. Like if somebody is calling to yell at you over the phone or about their bill or insurance, whatever it is. This is why oftentimes a team, whoever, resists training on the phone or just trying something new in general.
01:22
Why would we wanna do something that we’re afraid of or do more of what we’re afraid of? Just to give you some comfort, everyone experiences this, even me on the phones. And even today, just being completely honest and transparent when they were like, oh, do a video for All-Star. I’m like, no, I don’t wanna do it. It’s like, it’s a new thing. So it’s okay, getting over our comfort zone, getting out of the routine thing that we’re doing and doing something new.
01:52
And I’m the phone skills instructor, guys. So if I get nervous on the phones and I get nervous doing videos and things like this, it’s okay for you too also. But part of me being really good on the phones is I’ve practiced over and over again for years and I’m still a constant student even now. So this is something that I’m learning that I would like to share with you about being a peach. What if you didn’t care what people thought?
02:21
How liberating would that be? Right? What if all you focused on was just pouring yourself into giving the greatest customer service and just being as nice as possible and serving the patient regardless of the outcome and let’s call that being a peach. So my advice to you is I want you to be the best peach that you can be. However, know this. You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world.
02:51
and there’s still going to be somebody out there who hates peaches. That was a quote by Adida Montese. So basically you could be the best at whatever you do and there’s still people out there that don’t like my voice or the way that I answer the phone or our verbiage or my hair or the way I dress. That’s okay. If they don’t like you, it’s not personal. But you know you’re a wonderful peach.
03:20
and that’s all that matters. So make sure you go out there and be a peach. Thanks everybody, have a good day.
03:32
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at allstardentalacademy.com.
