Heather Nottingham discusses the value of cross-training dental teams to ensure consistent communication and service across all roles. It highlights how phone skills and verbal communication techniques benefit both front and back office staff, helping build patient rapport and improving case acceptance.
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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.
About Alex Nottingham JD MBA
Alex is the CEO and Founder of All-Star Dental Academy®. He is a former Tony Robbins top coach and consultant, having worked with companies upwards of $100 million. His passion is to help others create personal wealth and make a positive impact on the people around them. Alex received his Juris Doctor (JD) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Florida International University.
Episode Transcript
Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:02
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management, and training. Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Alex Nottingham, founder and CEO of All-Stars Dental Academy. And with me is Heather Nottingham, co-founder and VP of training. And our topic is, Everyone Needs Phone Training. Welcome, Heather Nottingham. Hi, Alex. Hi, everybody. Thanks for having me. We are so happy to have the co-founder. So, you’re the co-founder, I’m the founder. How does that work? So, we’re married. Same names. Okay.
00:31
So what are we doing? We’re doing phone skills, which is your thing. You’re the phone skills instructor. You are telling us that everyone needs phone training. I thought just the front office needs phone training. But what are you saying here to me, Heather? You think everybody needs phone training? Well, that’s a common question that I get from a lot of dentists is…
00:54
We’re doing training with our team and we’re definitely doing the training with the admin side of the team because they are the ones that answer the phones. Does anybody else on my team need training? I mean, they might not answer phones, so why would they need training? And I say that’s a great question. And it really, if you think about it like that, it makes sense that why would we think that other people need training, right? If they’re not answering phones.
01:22
So there’s a couple of reasons why I think that having everybody trained or as we call it cross-trained is important and helpful in the practice. So the number one thing is like I just said, cross-training. You have team members and let’s say you’re short-staffed one day, which…
01:46
In this day and age, it happens quite often where somebody calls out sick or somebody has to leave early or there’s an emergency that comes up or whatever the case is. You don’t want to be stuck having other team members that could potentially help but don’t know how to. And we’ve had it in, as some people might know, we worked for your dad’s practice, my father-in-law.
02:11
And it would happen quite often where, you know, we had four people up front, but all the lines would be ringing and all of us would be on the phone and it would still be ringing and you really don’t want it to go to voicemail. So unless you have, you know, a professional answering service or something like that, which they don’t usually give the greatest customer service either, you want somebody else from your clinical team or, you know, anybody else in the practice.
02:39
to be able to pick up that phone and give the same amazing level of customer service that your admin team is giving or is training to give. And even in your dad’s practice, we had it happen where one or two times, probably more than that, an assistant had to answer the phone or a hygienist had to answer the phone. And they maybe didn’t do the greatest job. So much so that sometimes
03:08
I remember we got some negative reviews and people say, oh, well, if they just answer the phone one time, is it really that big of a deal? Well, is it worth getting a bad review? Because they don’t know what to do or what to say. Right? So that’s the first scenario. And also dentists answer the phone sometimes. Correct. We think, well, I’ll have the practice where everybody will be segregated and only the right people answer the phone. That’s not true.
03:37
We can say, all right, let’s start with front office. We know they need we know they need phone training, the admin. OK, then we might go to the office manager if you have one sitting behind the golden desk. And in theory, the he or she wouldn’t have to answer the phone, but they usually do. OK, but we’re short staff, somebody sick. So now the assistance brought back or they have to cover. They answer the phone.
04:05
Or you have a hygienist who is decent with verbiage, or maybe they answer the phone. And we call and sometimes a dentist will answer the phone. So I think part of this discussion also goes to a training philosophy that we should train on skill-based, not just position-based. So from a clinical side, you have to segregate because you have different roles and responsibilities, such as hygienists and assistants. You can’t so go, oh, phone skills specialist.
04:34
go do some hygiene, unless they’re trained as a hygienist, that would get you a lawsuit. But when it comes to what we do at practice management training, team training, we believe that the skills become the foundation. Everybody should be skills trained versus segregated per position. So if everybody has the basic skillsets of practice management, phone skills, broken appointments, case acceptance, the entire patient experience, and all of those, then now you’re an.
05:03
Operative, operative organism. And, and the other thing as well, even if you, if you don’t, okay, do that position, then well, you can appreciate other people. So, okay, so step one, kind of Bill, because you’re probably step two, we’ll go into deeper into this, or probably I saw your thunder here. But, but yes, the, we don’t know, we should cross train, we don’t know who’s
05:33
Was I previewing your step two a little bit kind of getting into it? Well, well and so We talked about the you know cross training. Yes. I mean the best companies do cross training. They do in 500 Everybody does that it’s really important to have that. I almost think of a sports team Right, like if you think of and I don’t really watch
05:56
sports too much goes for it. Let’s see. Let’s try. Let’s see if your analogy works. I’ll correct it. So like in football, tell me the rules. What are those little lines on the no. So like in football, let’s say or basketball, whatever you want to use every there’s different positions that the players play and they practice those positions right individually or with those people that play those types of positions. But then they also practice altogether as a group. That’s really important because
06:25
you need to have that consistency amongst the whole team. It’s true. If you have one person in the practice that does a great job answering the phone, what if they don’t get that person that day? Then, you know, it’s inconsistent and people get frustrated with that. When I used to answer the phone and they’d be like, you’re so great to talk to. And then if they get somebody else, it’s not so great or not so helpful. They’re like,
06:53
Yeah, but Heather used to be so helpful and you know, she would go the extra step and she would like check my insurance or do and that’s very frustrating for people to have that inconsistency. It makes the business look bad. So everybody training together so that my level of service and verbiage is the same as the next person that answers the phone so that they’re not calling up and getting annoyed with that one person and saying, you know what, put Heather on the phone. I don’t want to deal with you.
07:21
You don’t want to have that. You don’t want to have it all rely on me or that one team member. Cause what if that person’s no longer there? Then it’s like, what are you, what are you going to do? Right. So from a functional high level cross training, we get it. The fortune 500 do it. And I’m thinking sports, the kicker should be able to throw a little bit. Cause if you want to do a trick play, Hey, your hygienist might trick somebody in a good sense.
07:50
surprise them with great customer service, who knows? But the pitcher has to know how to throw to a base, not just to the mound, because if the ball goes to, what do you do? So there’s functional reasons to cross train. We get that. Let’s go a little deeper as well. So the next thing would be, let’s say for argument’s sake that they’re like, we have plenty of admin team members, we don’t need our clinical people answering the phones.
08:18
Fair, there are some offices that they don’t need to answer the phones. I always say that phone skills is just the starting point of verbal skills and communication for when the person actually comes into the office. So the things that we’re saying to them, the way that we’re answering their questions, the same questions that they have on the phone, they’re gonna ask when they’re in the dental chair in your office. So if they’re like, well, why do I have to get?
08:44
you know, an exam, why can’t I just get a cleaning? Or why do I have to get x-rays? I don’t want x-rays, I just want this or I just want that or that’s not how they did in my old office or, you know, what do you charge for this or is this going to hurt? How long is this going to take? We want to have the verbiage and the standard answers that everybody is on the same page once again, from a communication standpoint, whether you’re in the front of the office or in the back of the office.
09:12
I had a terrible experience at a dermatologist office once before years ago. Dent, not dentist, the dermatologist was amazing, great, beautiful office, like state of the art office, very high end and they had great reviews. I went in there and I asked a very common question to somebody at the front and she’s like, you know, I don’t know that I have to ask somebody in the back.
09:38
And then I asked a very common question to somebody in the back and they’re like, you know what, I don’t know that. You’ll have to ask somebody at the front. And so I’m getting bounced around between all the different parts. And then when I called to schedule my appointment, nobody knew what the heck was going on. It was all disorganized. And when I started reading some of the negative reviews on their site, there was always complaints about the doctors are great, but their team is not organized.
10:06
And I’m thinking if I’m gonna get stuff done here or dermatological treatments, I don’t want them to not know what’s going on, right? Like they need to know what’s going on. If you’re spending money on dentistry and they’re like, I don’t know what the treatment plan is, you need to talk to this person. No, I don’t know if the insurance is covering it, you gotta talk to this person. You can’t have that. It has to be that everybody knows what’s going on. Everybody is aware of the play, like in sports,
10:36
no matter who you talk to, there’s consistency, or there’s a process of at least sounding like you know what you’re talking about. So you get to that point. So the verbiage, like I said, even if you don’t talk to the person on the phone, it needs to be a unison of what’s happening from the front of the office to the back of the office. And so the verbal skills that you learn on the phone are gonna benefit you because it’s just basically communication, how to build rapport, how to make a connection with people.
11:06
Well, sounds simple, but not a lifelong process. Understanding personality types of patients, understanding how to overcome an objection or how to answer common questions and do it in a way where we’re having positive language and we’re framing things properly. So all of that is beneficial to the front office and the back office, both the same. And I would say that I would challenge.
11:34
practices, dentists, leaders to look at their vision that they want to be in and all of them want to be service based. They want to be known for that. They want to be honored to provide great treatment and have a wonderful following and that’s service. And so we want to commit to getting everyone trained on service. The question is, how do we do that? So if we cherry pick every position, where are you going to get service based training? Right?
12:04
for the assistance, for the hygienists. And you have to create their own environment for each one sent them to their own program. I mean, at our live events, we do do breakouts for hygiene assistance and all that, which is fun. But I think there’s more common between all the positions than different than all the positions. And so that’s why, again, I mentioned it earlier, we teach in our live events and our online program, skill-based.
12:33
Processes so our phone skills course, which is the pinnacle course. We do case acceptance. We do scheduling all that It’s all about rapport patient person outside you talked about and so That everyone needs to know and I don’t want people to get sidelined. Well, I don’t do that. It’s not my job We don’t want to hear that. That’s the kiss of death with an employee. It’s not my job Everybody wants to have those skill sets. You’re writing something down because you want to say something very important
13:00
I know I’m making my note. What are your notes? What is this a debate? I know so we don’t. Hold on, Esther. I don’t know what you want her policy. No, choose me. Well, so another reason for cross training, especially with the front is you never know when somebody is going to be a superstar from one side of the team or the other. Like I remember we had insurance coordinators or clinical assistant that.
13:25
had great verbal skills. And sometimes people want to move around or try out different positions in the practice. And coming from a retail sales and management background, I was always looking to who was in the right seats on the bus. So I had one person on my team, she did not like interfacing with clients or with potential for retail, it’s clients. On the sales floor, she loved
13:55
organization and numbers and processes and systems. So I put her in the back of the stock room going and doing inventory and things like that. That’s where she excelled. But another person that’s friendly, that’s bubbly, that likes to be out there interfacing with clients, that kind of person’s going on the sales floor front and center. So with your team, you can kind of see like, who do you have?
14:20
Are they good at what they do? Can they work multiple roles in the practice? And if you have somebody that’s really excited or motivated or good at interfacing with clients, patients, then you might want to consider cross training them so that they can do some of that and they might be even better at that than you thought. You never know until they have that opportunity.
14:44
And at All-Star, the company, we like our coaches, many of our coaches work in the company and they’re getting a chance at this. We don’t know where they’re going to shine. I’ll tell you this. Let’s go back to just the idea of answering a phone. So we get the point that I got it, I got it, my dad told me that the skill sets of service are found in phone skills and can be applied other places. The great call process, which you did videos on, trademark process.
15:11
You can utilize that in many places in your business. Now, being able to answer the phone, think about what is the jewel of a service-based business? It’s rapport. How can we build rapport quickly, effectively, and sustainably? Part of it is everybody’s gotta be trained on rapport because once you break rapport, whether it’s from your marketing, your messaging,
15:39
to the phone, to coming in. You might have great phone skills, but then the team members aren’t good, the hygienist, the experience isn’t good, and then you broke rapport. You gotta be consistent. Everybody, we’re cynics, we’re trained to look for danger, and one mess up, danger, not interested. Now, phone skills, people say, oh, I know how to answer the phone, until we hear a live call, and they don’t. Put you on the spot. But if you can answer the phone,
16:09
whether you do it or you role play it, and you can build rapport quickly, I don’t care what position, now you’re a better assistant, hygienist and dentist. Absolutely. Because there’s a question you got, you may wanna give them time, but they don’t have patience to sit there and let you jibber jabber for too long. And you better know how to handle that and not frustrate them, understand their personality type, build rapport with them, not be commoditized. If you’re…
16:38
looking to be at a network where we help clients drop insurances. How do you have that conversation about asking for insurance or the price question, all those things that if anybody can do that, if you can even role play and practice that on the phone, even if you’re not somebody else on the phone, you’ll be tremendous in every other position. Right. And it quite often times leads to not quite often for sure leads to higher case acceptance because…
17:07
Think about it, if you can’t, some offices say, well, we’re okay with our phone skills, but we really need help with case acceptance. Our case acceptance rates are lower. And then I listen to the calls and I’m like, are you really don’t need help with that? Because if you’re doing just a mediocre to subpar job, getting them to make an appointment, how are you gonna present major treatment to that person? If you can’t even get them, like some offices,
17:35
We say, if you can’t get them to schedule an appointment for a cleaning, right? Which is not that much money. How are you gonna get, and sometimes it’s covered by insurance, how are you gonna get them to accept treatment? Right? Like that completely plays into it that if you can get the basics of setting that amazing first impression, like you said, building rapport, getting them to schedule an appointment where they actually show up, a lot of case acceptance happens
18:05
in the first phone call. True. So, you know, when I would talk to patients, potential patients, I was building rapport, making a connection, making a great first impression with them, building trust. Sometimes I was even pre-qualifying them to find out like, what are you interested in doing? How much money have you set aside for doing this? What is your plan? How many other offices have you talked to about this? And…
18:30
Talking to them about, I mean, obviously we can’t diagnose them over the phone, but talking to them about, you know, understanding their money and what they’ve set aside. And so when they come into the office, I would go right to my father-in-law and be like, here’s their situation, here’s what you’re working with, this is what they’re interested in, this is what they’re not interested in, don’t talk to them about this, they’ve been setting aside money, here’s what they want to do, here’s their timeframe. So then he messed it up. Yeah. Well,
19:00
treatment, court. Well, it makes it easier. But again, the premise of this is everyone needs phone training. Correct. So if my father had the phone training, we didn’t have it then. Imagine he would have understood when you gave him, that was the frustration. Let’s talk about it. You created the phone training because when you came into my dad’s office, despite the fact that I send a ton of marketing, they weren’t converting. You had no background in dentistry. You used your Bloomingdale’s training to come up with a system.
19:28
And then we doubled the practice in 18 months, more than doubled. And that’s the basis of what we teach. But imagine if you did your job and gave it to the dentist, they would know, oh, I got it, I’m ready. I see what it was funny. We were on one of our mastermind call with our mastermind dentist and I was kind of joking around but I chewed ice and I wonder if I broke something. And one of the dentists there is my dentist, a friend of my father’s. And
19:56
I said, oh, I don’t know if it’s a comment. All of them started joking. They started throwing all this verbiage at me, like five dentists at a row were like throwing verbiage. Oh, your condition. Like, wow, they know the verbiage. If the doctor knows and is trained as well on phone skills, they know what you’re doing. They can appreciate it. They can translate into, I understand the personality profile. That’s what they do. They’re ready to go. So we all have to train. We started with cross training. We get that. We understand that from sports. We understand that from Fortune 500.
20:26
But I think where we kind of move towards is that the next we talked about how at All-Star our online program, our whatever we teach, it’s skill-based, not position-based. We don’t advocate that. It’s a lot of people like, I’m going to train your hygienist, your assistant. Yes, you can do that on the clinical, but from practice management, I warn you, don’t segment people because now you have people that are training on a philosophy of service that are segregated. We want them all training on the same thing.
20:56
together on service. They’ll say, my hygienist never answers the phone, never is gonna answer the phone. They’re too busy. They don’t have the time or the patience for the training. And I say, hygienists, not that anybody’s more important, but they see patients all the time, right? Quite often, more often than the dentist does. So your client interfacing or patient interfacing all the time. So that’s a great opportunity to
21:25
see them to build rapport, connection, talk about the previous treatments that either you’re seeing or that the doctor had acknowledged in previous appointments. But biggest issue from a cancellation and broken appointment perspective that I see in offices is hygiene cancellations. That’s what offices tell me and the dentists tell me is, I don’t get a lot of cancellations and broken appointments in my schedule. I’m booked out, you know, three, six, nine months
21:55
but my hygiene schedule falls apart all the time. And I say, well, that’s interesting because you didn’t want them to do training. Phone skills and verbiage, who’s making the re-care appointment? Is your front office making that appointment or are they making the appointment from the chair? Most of the time, like 99% of the time, the hygienist is the one making the appointment for that re-care from the chair. Pretend instead of there being a phone there,
22:23
They’re still scheduling an appointment, whether it’s in the office, in person, or on the phone. That’s a good point. Like what you said, take this away. Now what? It applies to everybody. If you remove this instrument, everybody uses it. So just imagine the phone doesn’t exist. We are always talking to people. And the last point we made was that the phone, answering the phone is the test. If you can be masterful on the phone.
22:55
in any position, you’re golden and more so everybody. And then the front doesn’t feel the admin doesn’t feel alone as well. We’re all in this together. They’re like, wow, I see what you go through. The kicker, the least important. Well, they’re important, but segregated, you know, in terms of a football team, they still, they still go, go, go, you know, they’re all in it together. So the point is,
23:24
Yeah, yeah. Well, and or punt it, but they’re all in this together and that’s what you want to do. But like I said, the test is, is a live call or a role play call. You’d be surprised when you say, oh, I get it. I know it. Do it. And then see how you score. And just practicing together as a team. Everybody do the verbals. Absolutely.
23:44
Yeah, it’s so important. Don’t segregate your office. Right. Unite your office around service. And that’s phone skills. That’s phone skills training. So Heather, as we wrap it up, you are the creator of the phone skills program. And that’s part of our online program. We talk about case acceptance, scheduling, customer service, everything you need for practice management, service based training. I will give those that are listening the
24:11
free webinar we do, alls backslash webinar where I give away the core of our training. I’ll give you some secrets that you can use right away. If you want to go deeper and learn more, we have an online training program and I will make this offer for those that are listening. If you watch the webinar and do your homework, you can make a call or make an appointment with Heather. Call me. The co-founder. She will talk to you.
24:37
Yes, for a long time. Yes, he loves talking to you. I do. And you’re going to say, I wish I had you on the phone. I see why you doubled your father’s, your father was all practice. So she’ll tell you, she’ll customize, give you some tips on how to use. Because again, I love our online program. I love our membership. We have a lot of features. And we also do. And we also, because if you ask to hire me, I’ll say, unfortunately you can’t afford me because I have a star, but.
25:05
We have a hiring service where we can find you amazing Heather superstar level team members. So we can help you. And we train. Yeah, we train. We don’t fire. We just hire and train. We don’t hire. We don’t, we don’t fire. We hire and we don’t get people on insurance. We get them off insurance. So yes, do that and then reach out and Heather will be happy to talk to you about the program, customize some ideas for you, Heather. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for training with us.
25:35
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25:47
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at allstardentalacademy.com
