I grew up in North Carolina. That means Eastern-style barbecue. Slow-cooked pulled pork is what they serve behind the Pearly Gates. I voraciously defend the word “barbecue.” (It’s a noun, not a verb.)
It wasn’t until I moved to Texas that I learned that brisket is a fine art worthy of admiration all its own. Each component of smoking brisket is important to the outcome. You need seasoning, a smoker, gas, wood, and raw meat. However, you can have all the right components on hand, but without the exact ratio of spices and precise temperature control, you’re likely to end up with a raw or overcooked chunk of flavorless meat.
Believe it or not, operating a successful dental call center isn’t too different from smoking brisket. Bear with me. To be great, a call center requires a specific combination of resources and energy. To cook up an effective, client-focused operation, there are three ingredients every call center needs: the right people, the right marketing focus, and the right metrics.
Ingredient 1: The Right People
The first fundamental seasoning needed for a great call center is the right people. A potential patient’s first impression of a dental practice is over the phone when deciding whether or not he or she will choose to book an appointment. Oftentimes, the care given over the phone by the call center staff is seen as a reflection of the kind of care the patient will receive in the office.
So if potential patients become stranded while on hold, don’t receive the help they need, or encounter rude staff, they are likely to assume that is the sort of care they can expect if they were to book an appointment—thus, the importance of having the right people handling calls the right way.
The right people are a reflection of the right management, which makes all the difference for the patient experience. Having the right managers to direct the call center, create goals, and initiate feedback loops for staff to improve is key to the success (or failure) of a call center.
A good manager knows that phone training is not a one-time thing, but rather an ongoing process. Managers should keep a consistent eye on how their call center’s staff is performing and provide feedback accordingly.
By introducing a habit of feedback loops, where managers are regularly checking in with their staff’s performance, the call center staff is able to receive ongoing training as encouragement or corrections are needed. What ongoing feedback does for a call center is ensure the right people are performing with excellence on the phone to give every patient visibility into the care they can expect at the dental practice.
Ingredient 2: The Right Marketing Focus
The second ingredient needed to enhance the flavor and effectiveness of a call center is an optimized marketing strategy that will drive an increase in patient calls and appointments. Dental marketers often have a limited budget to get their advertising in front of potential patients.
A common misconception is that the more money marketers allocate toward marketing, the more patients will walk through the practice doors. But spending more does not always lead to more appointments. In fact, the best advertisement on the wrong platform will be ineffective no matter how much money is spent.
Most call centers have minimal insight into where patients are calling from.Did patients find the practice’s number on Facebook, Google, a recent mailer, or the website? How are patients responding to the messaging on these sources? It’s important to identify where calls are coming from and the outcome of calls to allocate marketing dollars more effectively.
This level of visibility is often achieved through tracking lines, which are unique phone numbers placed on individual marketing sources that allow marketers to pinpoint how patients are reaching the call center. Placing tracking lines on each marketing source provides clarity and helps drive more patient appointments for the practice.
Ingredient 3: The Right Metrics (The Secret Sauce)
The secret sauce is a call review process. Setting up a process or investing in a program to review calls allows visibility into every patient call to understand what areas the call center is excelling in and what areas it needs to improve on. This visibility can make all the difference when it comes to patient experience on the phone and, ultimately, whether or not a patient is likely to book an appointment.
When reviewing calls, it is important to look for missed appointment opportunities—calls where an appointment was not requested, the caller did not commit to an appointment, the caller didn’t leave a message, or the caller hung up on hold. These calls require follow-up by your call center staff to ensure patients receive the help they need.
By having a call review system in place, you essentially have a safety net to ensure every call is resolved with an optimal call outcome. When calls are handled well, patient experience improves, which, in turn, increases booked appointments.
Reviewing every inbound and outbound call allows managers to get a read on how staff is performing on the phones. How are calls being handled? Are patients hanging up on hold? Are calls converting to booked appointments? Where are we struggling? And, where do we need to improve?
When managers know how their staff is doing on the phone, they can step in to reinforce good calling habits and tweak the ways that could be improved.
Each component of smoking brisket is important to the outcome, but the strongest flavors always come through. Let the flavors from the key ingredients—the right people, the right marketing focus, and the right metrics—marinate and soak into your call center. This combination of resources and energy is key to an effective call center.
Mr. Johnson is a senior account executive at Call Box. Doctors and owners call him to increase their bottom line through enhancing the patient experience over the phone and converting more opportunities. He earned his MBA from the University of Delaware and graduated from the University of North Carolina, where he studied how the power of data can affect organizational change. To learn more about Call Box and our innovative tools to help your practice leverage the phone, visit callbox.com/dental or call (833) 259-9484.
