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Dentists Hire Too Fast and Fire Too Slow
Dental schools are filled chocker-block full of curriculum, leaving precious little time at the completion for the information required to actually run a successful practice. If you were opening your doors right out of school (uncommon but not unheard of)…
Continue Reading »Team Attitude to the Economy
Is the recession over? Can anyone turn on the evening news without some pundit or another going on about who said we were ‘out of the woods’ – or did the market make another ‘correction’? Why is a ‘correction’ usually…
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Height of Lunacy
On a recent campaign for a dental practice – we sent all instructions for handling traffic from the lead generator to the front desk via email. This was done several days in advance of the launch date. When the campaign hit – the phones lit up like a Christmas tree. We got a frantic call from the dentist – saying his receptionist was going into ‘overload’ because the phone wouldn’t stop ringing and she didn’t know how to handle it. She apparently had no clue what was going on, and claimed to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
I called her – and asked what questions she had about the instructions we had emailed to her. She shrieked – ‘You sent them by email? I never check my email! In the future, print all emails off and fax them to me!” I kid you not.
Today we had to schedule a UPS pickup for some marketing tools from a printer to be sent directly to a client. I don’t use UPS every day, but they provide a reliable and affordable service. When I called – I was told if I wanted to arrange this pickup on the phone I had to agree to a $2 surcharge for the pleasure of doing so. This was absurd, so I did as they suggested and went to their website. This is a new policy for them. I had to register (separate from my UPS account) and it took about 10 minutes total time. Now – I can schedule single or multiple pickups – print off all relevant waybills (and if necessary actually fax them to the pickup point), keep all relevant shipping information on my own UPS account record, track progress of the shipment, and receive an email when it is either delivered or delayed enroute. Of course this only makes sense.
We see dental practices with no internet access – as difficult as this may be to believe in 2010. Frequently it is sort of a ‘badge’ for them – a Luddite call to arms to fight technology. Sometimes the dentist says he is afraid of his employees spending all day on Facebook (if he/she are aware of the social networking sites). Sometimes their computer technology came over on Noah’s Ark (we do have an office with a 12” monochrome monitor and a software package that was discontinued 15 years ago). When a patient sees these museum pieces at work, do you think they might question your clinical equipment and CE commitment?
The point is – the internet technology is here to stay. You can submit insurance claims, send photos to your lab and to your patients, send X-rays to your mentor for advice (although if you don’t have internet you aren’t digital anyway), download anything you need from supplier websites, submit 3rd party finance applications to lending institutions, and just get on with it. If you are a ‘no internet’ practice – get selfish and consider the fact that the dentist who will be hopefully purchasing your practice at some point most definitely believes in the internet.
When you consider the low price of entry there is no reason not to be connected. If you are connected – you as the employer have a right to insist on your employees keeping their job skills current. If you have one of that diminishing breed of receptionists out there who refuse to learn how to communicate by email – that qualifies as an excellent reason for dismissal. Use it. After all – where but a dental practice do you see employees refusing to work with supplied tools in the manner that they have been instructed – and a business owner who just shrugs and says ‘Shirley doesn’t like computers’? They sure the heck wouldn’t get away with that in the real world.
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Great Post! Very informative especially for beginners. This information can be used as a guidance in their internet endeavors….
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