Do You Deserve a Tip?

“Is your office serving patients so well that they deserve a tip?”

On a recent trip to the Maldives, my wife and I experienced truly exceptional customer service from Qatar airline. In fact, the service was so good, that as we were exiting the plane, my wife asked me, “Are we supposed to tip them?” That hit me between the eyes. 

People are starving for exceptional service. From the leadership, to the team, to the practice, how do we present service to patients in our dental offices? Do we go the extra mile? So today, I’m talking about how you can lead that charge in your practice and go from a good practice to a sought after practice:

• Getting the team to understand your vision
• What details make that “extra mile” service
• Motivating the teams’ attitude

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Hi, this is Dr. Bruce Baird with the Productive Dentist Podcast. And this is episode number 99. And it’s taken me a while to get from 98 to 99. Just letting you guys know, I had I was gone to the Maldives for a couple of weeks and and then I had a little surgical procedure that kind of went arrived but feeling good now and everything’s everything’s looking good. I want to share with you today, something that happened on the trip to the Maldives.

But anyway, to talk about our trip, and kind of what to me is about customer service, I got the opportunity to fly business class with Qatar. And it was it was amazing. I mean, the people you know, and I’ve been a I’m a three and a half million Mater on American Airlines. So I’ve been doing this for obviously flying a lot, teaching and and go into courses and doing all the things that I enjoy doing. But I’ve never had a feeling like I did on on Qatar airlines.

And it was funny because they up in first class. And when we boarded first I mean it was, you know, like boarding a first first class in the US This is boarding business class. And we were in these in these q suites, which I mean, when we got on of course they’re serving you champagne, and they’re serving you drinks or whatever you want, while the rest of the plane is loading, which is you know, appropriate because you’re paying out the wazoo for those kind of tickets. But the it was the way that the people came around and asked questions. And do you have any questions? They showed the menus that they had, and it’s all a la cart service. I mean, it is, you know, you can pick what you want when you want to eat it.

They’ll make smoothies for you, they’ll do everything but the the flight attendants would come around and just ask really great questions. You know, is there anything else that I can do to make you more comfortable? Is there How did you have you enjoyed the flight so far? This is five hours in Have you enjoyed Is there anything that we can do to make your you know, to make your stay better? And you know, we just keep going it was kept going on and on.

They made our bed for us. And in the queue suites. My wife and I they actually made kind of a queen size bed. The beds are right next to each other and it was just, it was incredible. But the thing that the thing that hit me was when Cynthia my wife asked the question when we got to The end of the trip, she asked the question, “Are we supposed to tip them?”

And that absolutely kind of hit me right between the eyes? Are we supposed to tip? I don’t know. It seems like we probably should. But I don’t think so I think this is just the service that they provide. And in we both kind of laughed about it, and but then it kind of hit me. What kind of service are we providing? In our dental practice? Is it the kind of service that and this was not just one person on the plane? This was everybody. Every time I turned around, there was somebody asking a question or, or just saying is, Do you need anything? Can I help you with anything? You know, toothbrushes in the bathrooms, Cologne, you name it, there was everything you needed? Is that the way your practices is that the way our practice is, in when a patient? You know, and I’ve had patients actually say, I’m going to give a tip.

But, you know, over 35 years, that happened a few times. But do we give the kind of service that would allow us to have to have a tip?

So do we give, do we give typical service. And when I when I started thinking about that, I started thinking about how and we talk about this a lot at productive dentists podcast, but from the doctor, to the leadership to the team, to how we present ourselves and everything else. But going that extra mile, that’s what I see. That changes you from being a good practice to being a great practice to being a sought after practice.

And that’s the one that has the that has your entire team on the same page. And we’ve talked about it over and over. But I think a lot of that is you know, getting to know your own team, and having them understand your vision and what kind of practice that you want to have. Because it’s absolutely critical that everybody is on the same page, it sure seemed to me that if Qatar they were all on the same page, they must do a morning meeting and talk about it. All of the things that we talk about smiley face frowny face when we come to work, are we in a? Are we in a good mood?

Or we are what are we here for. And I really believe we’re here to serve those patients, and what happens to productivity when you’re truly serving people, you’re not telling them what they need to have done. But what we’re doing is we’re being a consultant with them, we’re sharing them what we would do if it was us, our team from the front desk, they come in and you know, when patient comes in, they’re greeted like how are you? Is there anything I can get you to drink it? So good to see you, Mr. Johnson, how’s your week been? Or if it’s a new patient, you must be Mary of your Mrs. Wilson or whatever.

And, and so it’s that it’s that attention to details that really kind of, you know, it kind of shook me because I was like, are we really doing this? And so and I can say that in every aspect, whether it be our team at productive dentist, whether it be that team that I have a compassionate finance and comprehensive finance and Abella or is it the team at granberry Dental Center? You know what, you know the difference? People are starving, starving for excellence. They’re starving for customer service. And Customer service is not difficult. It really isn’t. It’s it’s the old adage, I mean, treat others as you would like to be treated. But doing it with an attitude of service, doing it with an attitude of gratitude that these people are coming in to see you. It’s different, it is different. And you know, it’s different. And I know it’s different.

But are we leading that charge in our own business? are we are we driving change in our own businesses to have that kind of question asked by every every person that comes in your office to Should I give them a tip. I mean, this is over the top type service. Now. The problem is that I see in dentistry and and this is an across the board. So I’m talking to those practices that have gone through a lot They have grown their businesses, and have learned to run on schedule and have learned to schedule based on productivity and learn to be good leaders. Because this is to me. It’s like getting a cake without icing.

You know, once that icing is put on it’s, it’s, it’s perfect. And you can’t get there when you don’t have the cake recipe you can’t get there when you don’t have the, the systems in place. And and can you do this in a startup business? Yes, you can. But you’re going to have to really pay attention to details. systems are not that hard to learn systems in themselves. And I’ve said this numerous times over the years. But, you know, there’s not that many systems in a dental practice, you know, cash receivable, insurance filing case, presentation skills, I mean, you can break it down fairly quick.

And but you want to have a philosophy of care, that is beyond any question. And, you know, when you go to that, you know, we’ve all been to a restaurant, or we’ve all been to a place where somebody has just serve you just above and beyond, and you give them that great tip. Well, why not have your entire office serving patients that way. And having that as not just a philosophy, but a way of doing things. And it starts with guests, who starts with us, starts with us, as the leader, the doc and all of us can be leaders. But once you start to see things change in attitude, then all of a sudden, productivity begins to skyrocket. So what I always tell folks is, you know, get your systems in place, when you do it.

Let’s just say you just opened your practice, Well, the first thing you could do, the easiest thing you could do is, is come across with that attitude, come across with that attitude of gratitude, come across with that I’m here to serve you, your systems may not be that good. You may not have them all in place yet. But what I’m telling you is people can forgive. If you’re in a situation where they, where they understand it, my daughter, Micah is gotta got her first real job. She’s at the YMCA. And yesterday was Mother’s Day, and she was the only employee at the front desk, and she was all worried about it. And I told her honey, just be yourself, just be nice. And she said, Well, what happens if I have to go to the bathroom? Because I’m the only one there. So put just, you know, if somebody is there waiting for you just say I’m so sorry, I’m the only one here.

But just be yourself be, you know, be kind and, and be helpful. Anything that they need. And those are the things that and she called her last night, she got off, I think at 5:30 or six o’clock, and I called her and she was like, Oh, it was so great. She had so much fun. And she was kind of funny, because she said, Well, I didn’t really, you know, I like working with other people at the front desk, and will tend to talk and visit and do those kinds of things, kind of busy stuff. But she said yesterday, I was by myself. And I got to I organized the front desk, there was a little leak in the bathroom.

So I went and put a trashcan under it. I went and cleaned a couple areas. Because you know, she was very focused on doing a great job. And I can tell you, that’s what we should all do so. But it all started on a flight from Dallas, Texas to Doha, on Qatar and I flew four legs on Qatar during this trip. There’s a reason why they’re ranked the number one airline in the world. And I think that there’s a reason why you could be the number one dental practice in the whole world. And it comes down to it comes down to attitude, it comes down to a comes down to a sense of purpose, it comes down to a it comes down to customer service, it comes down to taking care of people the way you’d want to be taken care of.

So anyway, just thought I’d share that with you guys this morning. This is podcast 99. Next one up will be 100 podcasts we’ve done over the last couple of years. I’m sorry, it’s been a month. I promise I’m going to not miss a bunch here. I’m going to I’m going to stay on track. So you know God bless you guys and I hope you have a great week. And remember, it’s it’s that attitude of service and let’s make that happen. Have a great week.