Fan Favorite | Phone Skills Boot Camp

Transcript Performed by A.I. Please Excuse Any Typos.

00:00
just like anything else as you do it and you practice it and you hear your voice, then it’s like not as cringy and it’s fine. You get used to it, but it really, it’s like the way I equate it is kind of like if you have a coach or a personal trainer or something like that, that you’re working with, they help you see, you know, how to do something better. They’re helping you to make adjustments. You don’t hurt yourself. And the goal with role playing and practicing is you’re kind of

00:27
bouncing it off of somebody else so that they can hear it and you can practice it. It’s one thing to listen to it, it’s another thing to actually do it and then do it well. So yes, it can be kind of funny at first to listen to your own calls, but the goal is to be improving to make your life easier.

00:44
Right, because as you get more comfortable with it, it’s gonna get easier and then it’s not gonna be as nervous or scary as if when you first started doing it. Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Alex Nottingham, founder and CEO of All-Star Dental Academy. And with me is Heather Nottingham, no relation. She is the VP of Training and our phone skills instructor at All-Star Dental Academy. And this interview is part of a collection of interviews where we focus on business and personal growth. Our topic, surprise, surprise.

01:14
phone skills, please welcome Heather. Thanks Alex. Hi everybody. Happy to be here. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. Good to have you. Okay. So we’re talking about phone skills and at the practice gross summit, uh, and I’ll put a link in the description, all star dental events.com. That’s going to be may 17th and 18th. And on the 16th, you’re going to be doing a program with Robin Reese.

01:44
and Larry Gazzardo. Robin Reese is our director of All-Stars Hiring Service and Larry Gazzardo is our head instructor and you’re a phone skills instructor. And so you guys are doing a small group really focusing on phone skills. And we’ll talk more, a little bit more about that and how it’s small and customizable, which is nice. But for the general, just listenership, let’s talk about phone skills and let’s do it. So why are phone skills important?

02:13
Phone skills are basically the entry point for the entire practice. If you think about, you know, somebody does their research, they’re interested in finding a new dentist or wanting to get information or have their questions answered, the first thing they typically do is they call or they’ll email, but we’ll talk about that later. And so the phones are really the entry point to the very first impression that your practice

02:41
sets off to this new person. So is it going to be a good first impression? Is it going to be a bad first impression? Do you not even answer your phone? It really, everything starts there. And I think that was one of the biggest things that you and I discovered in helping create All-Star is before we had All-Star, we helped your dad, my father-in-law, and you did all the marketing. You had all of the right things in place for the practice.

03:09
In terms of leads coming in, but we realized that a huge missing key ingredient was the calls weren’t converting to appointments. And so once we were able to get that resolved and training and a system for answering those calls, we went from a million dollar practice to a 2.4 million dollar practice in less than 18 months. So without that, it’s like the entry point to the entire funnel of getting somebody into the office.

03:37
presenting treatment, we can’t do any of that without the phones.

03:42
Makes sense. And why do you think, because obviously we see how important phone skills are, and I, in the Down to Practice Excellence webinar, I’ll put a link there, I monetize how it’s hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just in phone skills and missed opportunities. Why do practices fail to prioritize phone skills? There’s a lot of different reasons, one of which they’ll say they’re too busy.

04:11
So time constraints, issues with busyness, but maybe not being productive. There’s also maybe they don’t see it as important. There’s somebody’s my phone’s ringing. Ignore the phone. How do I turn this off? Put a clip.

04:34
Just give me your phone. Here.

04:42
Continue. So they don’t see it as important. Maybe the staff doesn’t want to do training. That’s, you know, oftentimes a big one is that there’s resistance or pushback from the team that what we’re doing is fine, or maybe they’re stuck in their ways of doing things that they’ve always done them. There could be a fear of rejection that, you know, maybe if we, if we do something new or if we push a little bit more that patients are going to reject us or not like what we say.

05:12
So, um, time is usually the biggest and resistance, I would say for those, those two. Okay. And so we have like voiceover IP texting, for example, emails. Um, and I think sometimes dentists think that when we do those things, that phone skills are then less important. Anything to speak about.

05:41
you know, technology and, and how that does that help or hurt phone skills or do we rely too much on that? I think that they’re important because we live in an age of technology nowadays. There’s no getting around it. You know, people like texting and like emailing and a lot of times people don’t maybe don’t answer their phones quite often or, know, it’s harder to leave voicemails. People don’t check those things. So I think that there’s a place for the technology, but

06:10
When it comes down to it, the offices that I see that have more success, there is still that verbal interaction with people. It’s a lot easier to cancel or break an appointment or to not schedule an appointment or have miscommunications about an appointment if it’s through text or through email. It’s just you, there’s no rapport. And so that’s the missing piece is I feel like even in

06:37
my father-in-law’s practice and in offices that we talk with, I’ll say that if you have some sort of testing, texting process or email or people are inquiring through a chat, the goal is always to try to get them on the phone because without that, you’re just a commodity. You’re like every other practice out there that anybody can text a price or do something. But we really want to find out who the patient is, what are they interested in, what are their needs.

07:07
How can we best help them? And I still think that there’s, it’s always going to be more ideal to do that over the phone versus doing it in a text. It’s just, you don’t get that same connection in VoIP or text or things like that. So we get lulled into sometimes the technology and almost kind of what you’re saying before is a lot of the office doesn’t want to do it. They don’t want to, they won’t find every excuse.

07:34
uh, to, not pick up the phones because it’s, and, and just to kind of talk about that, just the psychology of it is, um, it’s, uh, it’s not something that dentists are trained to prioritize or to, think about in the team. I mean, it’s more like widgets are transactional, right? Like, okay, I’ll do the appointment or I’ll do, um,

07:59
process a card or that’s safe. But now you’re having to build rapport. You’re having to, uh, people that are, are price shopping or whatever, looking to, to get outside one’s comfort zone. That that’s a barrier potentially. And I guess I’m getting ahead. I’ll talk about that. So, uh, again, let’s keep going through it because I have the phone skills instructor. I might as well. I have a bunch of questions I want to ask you and just kind of get through some of these that a lot of people, uh, mentioned. So we talked about technology.

08:29
It’s important to be mindful of that. What about call centers or answering services where we can just outsource it? Because again, it’s just, I don’t want to do it. My team doesn’t want to do it. And, and I think they don’t even know something. They’re good at it or that they’re doing a good job. But when you see you start tracking phone calls and listen to them, that’s what a lot of dentists say. Oh, I I’m overhearing what they’re saying. That’s not right. Oh no. But what am I going to do about it?

08:59
or worse, we don’t even know what’s going on and you see your conversion rate is terrible. So it’s like, let me just outsource it to someone or have the answer and sort of deal with it. Yeah, I mean, that is, I hear that sometimes. And, you know, it’s definitely the easy thing to just say, oh, I’ll just, you know, throw money at the problem and hope it goes away. The challenge with that is that you assume that people that work for the call center

09:28
are gonna be trained better than your team is. And quite often times they’re not. A lot of times those call centers have a lot of turnover. They constantly have a revolving door of people that are just getting newly trained on things. So it’s not always an ideal situation. There’s also specific nuances of your practice, right? So like you might have a certain way of doing things.

09:56
And then you have to make sure that that call center is also carrying that out and doing it. And the one thing I’ve heard from quite a few dentists is that the person that takes the calls from the call center, it’s really hard for them to build rapport and connection, which is the whole point of what we’re trying to do when your team does it. I think it’s easier for your team because they know the office, they know the doctor.

10:23
they know the experience that the patient’s gonna be getting, they can speak to that better than somebody that doesn’t know you that could be thousands of miles away in some center trying to talk up your practice. And then even if they do schedule the appointment, there’s not that continuity of then the patient comes into the office and sees that person or feels like, cause then they can pass the baton.

10:50
That was one thing that I did really well in my father-in-law’s practice, your dad’s office, is I talked to them, they’d get this great experience, and then they’d come in and they’d be like, where’s Heather? I want to see her. And then I would introduce the patient to the doctor and to the team and we’d do a little tour. So it was like, it just helps make the connection and the rapport stronger. When you have somebody that’s not in the office, it again becomes more and more transactional.

11:20
Um, to the point where it’s, you’re losing that. Like homey feeling. So, because there’s, you said, there’s no continuity. You’re on the phone and you come to the office and somebody else is there. And it’s also that we want our entire experience to be predictable from the marketing to the phone call to when you come in. And if there’s a disconnect or if we’ll ever reason.

11:44
the phone call was good and you come in, the patient experience is bad or the marketing is good and the phone call is bad. It’s like, right. It’s every excuse, you know, for our defenses to go up and say, this is not a place to be. They’re disingenuous, at least be consistently bad. Then I know what I’m what I’m getting. It’s almost worse when you sound like you’re good and then you’re bad or better to be bad and then over do it when they come in and you see their expectations. There would I would put one caveat to the call center that

12:14
You know, if you’re finding there’s a lot of overflow and calls are going to voicemail, that’s not good. Sure. You don’t want to have, you know, if there’s not enough people to answer phones, number one, you need either need to get more people or evaluate when are your highest volume times and maybe have a part timer or more people that can answer during those times. But you don’t want it going to voicemail, ideally not. So I would prefer if you don’t have enough people to answer.

12:42
and there’s so many rings that have happened, maybe then it goes to an answering service or something like that where you have a live person talking to them versus a machine. And then the message gets passed to you very quickly and then your office can still follow up with them. That would be the caveat, I think that, you know, because going to a voicemail, they’re most likely gonna just keep going down the line, especially for a new patient.

13:08
keep calling the next office that answers. It’s nicer to talk to a live person than a machine. So yeah, like you said, we don’t want to throw common sense out the window where there’s technology has this place call centers and answering services have their place. But if we’re relying that as our core, it’s a different story. And I get it. There’s volume practices that may create their own call center. Maybe I still think it’s limited to have that

13:38
special touch and customer service. Because even if you are providing good phone calls, but they come in that person’s not there. You know that, that isn’t the it’s like, look, you call a great hotel. Oh, yeah. Example, right? Like they, when you call them and they talk to you and they see you, it’s nice. Well, that was exactly what happened when we stayed at the Ritz in the Cayman Islands. And it’s still one of the best

14:05
customer experience hotels that I’ve stayed at, that we’ve stayed at, because somebody calls about a week before your trip just to confirm when you’re gonna be arriving, your travel plans, do need special accommodations? And you’re thinking like, wow, what hotel does this? And then not only that, you talk to the person and that very person meets you at the front desk upon check-in. And I’m like, you’re the actual person that I talk to.

14:32
and you’re meeting us here, I thought it was just some person in a call center somewhere else, but it was really our, you know, new stay concierge. And then they walk you to your room. It’s like, that’s the kind of high level customer service that we’re talking about. So tell me what are the areas of phone skills a practice must master.

14:59
Well, we have our great call process at All-Star Dental Academy. So that embodies pretty much all of the things that I think are very important or vital to a practice. So of course, greeting the patient, making sure that they feel welcome when they call, finding out how you heard, how they heard about the practice and then building rapport. So the R in great stands for rapport.

15:27
So making that connection, understanding their needs, going over common, know, um, seeing what their questions are, um, engaging the patient, sharing the sizzle. There’s a lot of stuff, you know, over being able to overcome objections, asking for the appointment. mean, the great call process is it’s a five part process, but it, within each of those five steps, there’s different things that you want to make sure to do.

15:54
But number one, I would say above everything else is rapport. Without rapport and without that personal connection to the patient, potential patient, they’re not going to feel that trust. If they don’t like you, trust you, respect you, they’re not gonna make an appointment. They’re not going to show up for their appointments. When you have a rapport with them, it’s like a friendship. It’s like a…

16:19
a connection, you don’t want to let them down and cancel the appointment unless there’s a really important reason you need to. You’re going to come in with trust built, be excited to move forward, listen to treatment recommendations, and then move forward and ideally keep coming to the practice and refer friends and family. So there’s so many different aspects of phone skills, but I would say the number one is going to be rapport.

16:45
Do me a favor. Don’t talk about it because then we get plosives. Okay. Rapport. And that’s like that. I talk about the tip of the iceberg. It’s such a simple concept, but there’s so much that we can work at improving that area. Emotional intelligence, getting past the fear. That can be a whole other thing. Getting past the fear of phone calls and dealing with phone calls.

17:14
with respect to that because we’re big fans of making sure that you record your phone calls. We don’t believe in mystery calls. We believe that it’s important to record and listen and grade on the service based approach in our membership or online training. We include grading as long as you have a way to record your phone calls. We help you with that. Then you can listen. It’s a very non threatening way. So let me ask you kind of a bonus like question here is like what

17:44
How do you address that fear or concern in an office about role playing, listen to phone calls? Cause this is all new stuff. Yeah. I mean, it’s when I did it, it’s extremely helpful to role play, to listen to your calls. I would say that was probably one of the single biggest ways that I improved on those things. Um, but

18:09
I’m not going to lie. It’s awkward at first. It’s like when you hear your own voice and you’re listening to recording or your role playing, it can be uncomfortable at first, but just like anything else, as you do it and you practice it and you hear your voice, then it’s like not as cringy and it’s fine. You get used to it, but it really, it’s like the way I equate it is kind of like if you have a coach or a personal trainer or something like that, that you’re working with, they help you see

18:39
you know, how to do something better. They’re helping you to make adjustments so you don’t hurt yourself. And the goal with role playing and practicing is you’re kind of bouncing it off of somebody else so that they can hear it and you can practice it. It’s one thing to listen to it. It’s another thing to actually do it and then do it well. So yes, it can be kind of funny at first to listen to your own calls, but

19:05
The goal is to be improving to make your life easier, right? Because as you get more comfortable with it, it’s gonna get easier and then it’s not gonna be as nervous or scary as if when you first started doing it. Okay, so I see phone skills are important. How do I train my team on phones? Well, just like you had said before, I mean, obviously our online training program is a great way to do it. Great, no pun intended.

19:35
Um, it’s, uh, you go through that and we give you all the steps and the information, the recipe, if you will, to go through and learn the great call process. There’s role play examples, things like that. Um, in addition to that, a lot of offices work with a coach. So working with somebody that’s been there, that’s done it, that’s comfortable with it, that makes you feel comfortable in role playing and gently kind of helping you improve.

20:04
So that’s another option. In the office, like you said, listening to calls, your own calls, you can have your team member listen to their own calls on a weekly or every other week or monthly basis. You can have the team listen to calls together. It depends on the practice. So you can role play with each other. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of different, there’s seminars, obviously our.

20:30
phone skills, bootcamp, you we’re going to be doing all that. So there’s a lot of different ways that you can accomplish it. I think the commitment and consistency is most important because the we’ll talk about the bootcamp at the moment moment. But I think what’s nice about the online is you’re getting a little by little you’re training on it and you’re in your listening and you’re making a commitment to it because we can fall back into bad habits we want to or habits that may not be as desirable.

20:58
because you want to be great on the phone. So we got to be continuing the role play and practice and look forward to it and be proactive about it versus that this now. Now I lost a skill and so on. So it’s a constant commitment and that’s the commitment to excellence. That’s and that’s with anybody. I mean, even myself, I’m I’m still a student practicing. We role played the other day. There’s different scenarios that constantly looking and learning. And how did that verbiage work and should I adjust it?

21:28
Um, so it’s like you said, habits are very easy to slip back into. We had a team member at your dad’s practice. remember that she was an insurance coordinator, but I could sense that she had a really great personality. She was outgoing. She liked talking to people on the phone. And I said, why are you on hold with insurance companies all day? You should be doing new patient calls. And so we trained her and she was so excited. She was converting all these big cases and all of these.

21:56
appointments over the phone. And then she felt like, okay, I’ve got it. I have the verbiage. And so I think three or four months went by, she didn’t do any training. And then the calls, the level of conversion started going down. She started slipping back into the old habits and ways of doing things, you know, so training is a constant and never ending endeavor that we have to do. Yep. Constant and never ending improvement. Can I? Yes. Tony Robbins.

22:26
my mentor, one of his many models he talks about. who should be trained on phone skills? That is a question that I get a lot and pretty much hold on one second. Just a little tip. You do a lot. Don’t do that. No, just talk. All right. Go ahead. So you said who should be trained on phone skills? That is a question that I get pretty much every day.

22:56
And I believe that it’s important for the entire team, including the doctor, everybody to be training on phone skills. I think that whether we call it phone skills, communication, verbiage, building rapport, it’s something that everybody pretty much will have a part in at some point or another. So even if let’s say the clinical team members don’t answer the phone most of the time.

23:24
There are times that somebody might be out or somebody’s sick or we need help because there’s overflow at the front. So in that situation, we don’t want to just throw somebody on the phone that doesn’t know what they’re doing. So I would say that phone skills are important to everybody. The doctor as well, because when the doctor hears what sort of verbiage they like and what they want for their practice, they want to make sure that the team is then carrying it out.

23:53
And finally, for sure, the admin team or whoever is going to be answering the phones, but everybody can benefit even if you never answer the phone. Let’s say that you’re not, you don’t really need to be cross-trained. You’re never going to answer the phone or have the opportunity to talk to patients on the phone. Phone verbal skills, being able to answer common questions, overcome objections, share the sizzle about your practice. Those are all things that take place in the chair as well.

24:23
And so really we’re talking about verbiage and communication. Like if somebody is objecting to that’s too expensive or why can’t I just get an exam? Why do I need to get x-rays or why do I need to do this? It’s the same questions that come up in the chair that do over the phone. And when the team has a streamlined way that they’re communicating, it just makes the practice look more cohesive and more professional versus

24:51
They talk to me, they have a great experience with me over the phone and it sounds like the Ritz Carlton. And then when they get into the office, the experience is totally different because the other people haven’t been trained on verbal skills. So everybody in my opinion can benefit from the verbal skills and phone training. What are the barriers to training? kind of alluded to it, but what, what stops practices once they, once they see it’s a problem or it’s an opportunity to grow.

25:20
What’s the barriers training on the phone? I mean, I, I think I touched on it a little bit before that time can be a barrier. You know, we’re too busy. Everybody’s doing something more important. Quite often team members will be put on the phone that maybe don’t even like answering the phone. It’s like, do you like doing that? Or they’re just doing it because that’s part of their job description. I think when you ask team members,

25:50
who wants to answer the phone or who likes answering the phone, sometimes you don’t get a lot of people that want to. And so it’s important to have somebody in your office or have several people in your office that really enjoy it because if they don’t like it, it’s going to come across that they’re in a rush or they’re busy or they don’t enjoy doing it. And they’re just doing the minimum to kind of move things along and get to something else that they’d rather be doing. For me, I love talking to patients on the phone. mean, I…

26:19
talked to them all day long and it was fun for me. So that’s a barrier. Team pushback can be a barrier. If you have people that have been there for a while and they feel like they know, like the I know it all people. And we get that sometimes where they say, I already know that, or I’m already doing that, or this is, I don’t need to learn this. I’ve already been doing this for 30 years. And quite often when we hear those

26:47
people answering the phone, they’re some of the worst that that I hear. It’s like, are you sure you’re doing it? It’s so those are there might be others. Can you think of of any others that come up? I think I mean, I think you address the big ones. We address the fear question to write that it’s just new and uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s the doctor that doesn’t want to pay for additional training. I mean,

27:17
Well, that that goes back to my my area whereby it’s just if you you got to be consistent from the top, if it’s not a priority, your team is not going to respond. You have to see it. Doctors and practice owners that are listening as a priority and an issue and not just that. That’s something I just need to fix. It’s it’s a cultural thing that we need to change. And even the dentists and practice owners are

27:47
doing the role playing. see that when they embody it and they look forward to it and they practice, even if they’re not answering the phone, sometimes they have to call patients back, but they show that they do it. They use it in their exam. If it becomes part of what you all do, that’s the teams that are successful. Like, oh, we all use a great call process. So we all do this. Then once it becomes embodied and that’s for the visionary, the

28:12
the owner to make sure that happens. So it all flows to the team. When I see a great team, there’s always a great doctor leader behind it. Always. Sometimes you get lucky, but the luck doesn’t stay that long. There’s got to be someone that it follows with respect to that because people want to be part of something. Right. Sometimes I’ll see like an incredible office manager that sees it. But then if the doctor doesn’t care that

28:36
it’s disjointed because then one person cares, the other person doesn’t care. And the team’s like, well, I don’t have to do it because they don’t care about it. The other thing is sometimes the doctors, it’s not that they don’t care. It’s that they don’t even have an awareness that there’s a problem. Right? So like if you’re not tracking your calls, if you’re not listening to the team, if you’re not practicing and role playing, you just think everything is hunky dory and you think it’s great. And then, you know,

29:04
Meanwhile, it’s like terrible when we listen to calls. Sometimes people don’t record the calls. So yeah, it so first is the doctor dentist owner, whatever situation that may be. They they have to see, like you said, they have to know it’s a problem. So first is make sure you’re tracking your calls, listening to phone calls, seeing conversion rates. And even if you’re not doing that right now, the spy and listen, does it sound like

29:33
So I’ll put a link to our webinar, Dental Practice Excellence, and you can listen to what I teach. The phone skills is all from Heather’s stuff. And say, does this sound like that? And if you can listen to phone calls, even better. And here, does that make sense? Is it converting? So first you’ve got to identify, is there kind of a conversion or a problem there? Then do you have the strength and the fortitude to fix it?

30:02
and to make sure it’s a priority. And if it doesn’t go there, it’s not gonna happen because what will then happen is if your team leaders or office manager or people are pushing back, that’s a big problem. They’re not doing, again, what is your level of commitment to patient service because now you’re having them to do new habits, be potentially uncomfortable. So it all has to be orchestrated in…

30:28
in a way that I acknowledge is a problem. know where my team is. I’m going to make it a priority, but do it in a gentle way because that’s critical. And your team has to understand that you commit to personal and business development. And when you do, yes, you may have turnover as a result to people that don’t want to be part of that type of culture, but then later,

30:57
you start to attract better people that will be part of that. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I always say to dentists, because I talk to dentists every day, that we’re not telling them that they’re doing anything wrong. Usually the offices that we work with are pretty good offices. I mean, they do things well. So I always say it’s just like when you as a dentist do clinical CE.

31:22
It’s not that you don’t know dentistry, but you’re always looking to get more efficient and more effective and then different techniques and newer things. It’s the same thing for the team. We’re not saying you’re doing something bad. You’re doing a good job. It’s just that we always want to be improving so that we can better serve our patients. The more that we improve to serve our patients, it’s going to make our lives easier because if we know what to say and what to do and be more effective with it and convert more calls to appointments, then

31:51
the people are showing up and then they’re accepting treatment. The office does better. The patients are happier. When the office does better, the team makes more gets to make more money and bonuses and go on fun CE trips and things like that. So everybody wins. So it’s not, I wouldn’t say like, oh, we’re doing it because they’re doing something bad. It’s because you’re doing something well and the best musicians, artists, whatever. Like I said, Taylor Swift, whether you like her or not, she practices.

32:21
Right? She doesn’t just go out there and say, I’m a professional musician, so I’m not going to practice. For three months before her concert, she runs on the treadmill, singing her entire set list, which is like three hours, and does that for months in advance to prepare. So it’s the same thing. She’s a professional and we’re all professionals on the phone, but that still means that we should be practicing and always looking to get better. So.

32:49
That makes a lot of sense. also you, as you as you listen for those that are members or look to become members, you speak to them, you talk about their specific situation, because we’re talking in general generalities. Heather, if you can get her, you can speak to her and talk to her about your specific practice. And then also, for the ones that are crushing it, they’re working with a coach and getting that feedback. So

33:14
We’re giving you kind of the big picture of how this works, but then to really make it work, it is a process. You’re not alone. You have expert support to help ease your culture where it needs to be. It isn’t like this is it. It’s a slow process. Just as we teach getting off insurance is a process that we teach. You never do it overnight, but it’s a process, but you’re committed to it. So tell me about the phone skills boot camp here. This is going to be a program we’re doing a day before our summit. It’s a, it’s a small,

33:44
Uh, and I always say this as this, this podcast is being dropped or, or being made available. Um, we’re almost at 50 % for the summit and then already 50 % for the phone skills because it’s a small group. It’s only 20 people. Uh, so it goes pretty quickly. So that’s the day before the event. You can take it and you don’t take the, the main event you can do, but while you’re there, I might as well do about both. But so with the phone skills.

34:14
boot camp. What is it? Who should come? You know, anybody that wants to improve their phone or verbal skills, I think it’s gonna be good for I like the fact that it’s a small group, because it’s going to be very intimate and safe for us to all talk and be candid and role play. It’s not going to be like hundreds of people. So the fact that it’s a smaller group, if you want to really like dig in and get improvement on things, it’s not going to be just sitting there lecture.

34:43
It’s not going to be like that. It’s going to be communication, workshopping things, talking about, like bring your hardest questions of when you get objections or patient complaints or questions, whatever it is, anything that you deal with over the phone and frankly, even in the office, because it’s verbiage, but most it’s going to be pertaining to phones. But not even just phones, it’s going to be looking at the new patient.

35:11
calls, existing patient calls, how to maximize those. We’re also going to be looking at what happens if somebody texts or emails. How do you then get them on the phone or what is the process for that? I the follow up process, because there are certain ways that even if somebody emails or texts, we can still build rapport. We can still use elements of the great call process. But we’re going to be digging into all the elements of great, certainly.

35:39
greeting, rapport, engaging the patient, asking for the appointment, taking information, follow up appointments, re-cares, know, and outbound calls. mean, there’s so much we can cover on the phones. It’s a lot. But the most important thing is we want you to come and bring your specific issues or questions so that we can talk about it and role play those out together.

36:05
so that when you leave, you feel super confident about going back to the office and putting those things into action on Monday. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And because it’s a small group, it can be customized. We have things that we want to cover. But remember, our online training is very exhaustive. So it covers many of the topics. So we don’t want to just repeat that. But some who are not members, we will give some introduction.

36:30
But a lot of it is going to be things like, I guess, was a boot camp. When you’re finished with that day, you’re going to be very prevalent. You’re to have a lot of say in it and you have the best of the best out there doing it. So we do this once every two years, type of boot camp. So it’s a great opportunity. You can learn more about the event at AllStarDentalEvents.com and I’ll put that link in the show notes.

36:55
I’ll also put the dental practice excellence webinar in the show notes where you can learn today more on phone skills. And we also have a guide to practice growth guide as well, where you can kind of get some clips of some of the quotes from the speakers that will be there. That’s fun. And I’ll put in all those goodies in the, in the show notes and resources for you. Uh, Heather, I want to thank you so much for being on the program.

37:22
Remember to yes like subscribe share with your friends. This is phone skills is very yes, very important Yes, this guy this guy this girl. So thanks again everyone and until next time go out there and be an all-star