Perception of Value

“If you want to have the exceptional practice that achieves all your dreams, it is all about managing the patients’ perception of how valuable your practice is.”

This is the thing can make or break a practice: patients’ perception of your practice. People who consider a place “average” are not as likely to spend their money there. When people don’t perceive value, everything is too expensive. So today, we’re going to look at some things you can do to ensure you’re presenting the value of your practice to patients including:

• Questions to ask yourself about what your patients are experiencing
• Managing patients’ view of your value
• A simple exercise to help you determine where your value is

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Hi, this is Dr. Bruce Baird, with the Productive Dentist Podcast, the 36th most popular dental podcast across the world, working our way to number one. Anyway, today, we’re gonna talk about several things. But I’m stuck here in outside of Fort Worth, Texas with temperatures that only you guys up north can appreciate. We had gotten down to about five degrees last night with wind chills minus 15. And we’ve got snow and then this is Dallas Fort Worth we the average temperature right now is 60 degrees. So we’re in a, we’re in a winter wonderland for sure. What I wanted to talk about was value today. And as we begin this new year, and all of the new things that that we’re that we’re facing, you know, with the pandemic continuing and with the with, you know, the the injections or the vaccines that we’re able to get. I know many of you are getting vaccines, I actually had COVID, a month ago, as most of you know, so I actually have the long term antibodies.

But what is how does value play a role? Well, what’s important is what is perceived as value. It’s, it’s each individual’s personal perception. And perception is value. So when people come into your practice, or when they meet you, what is their perception? What is their perception as they walk into your waiting room? What is their perception as they talk to your front administrative team? When are they greeted with a big smile? Are they are they? Are they called out by name when they walk in?

Or if it’s a new patient? Does your front office say, Oh, hi, you must be Mrs. Johnson? And they say yes, I am. Okay, we’ve been waiting for your we’re so excited for you to be here. And, you know, having said that, what would that patient’s perception be of your office if that was to happen. The other things that I look at, when we start talking about perception is again, facility, the type of equipment that you have, but also you have to share that equipment with your patients.

And when I say that, what I mean is, you know, if you have digital x rays, that’s a wonderful, wonderful tool. If you have CAD CAM, that’s another wonderful piece of equipment. If you’re printing things, printing dentures, and printing those things. It gets down to that, again, that wow factor, but it’s only a wow factor, when patients actually see it and see it working. how they perceive you is either going to be high value, or it’s going to be average. And people that perceive a place to be average, don’t necessarily spend their money there.

So when I look at a place this Think about this, when you walk into a restaurant, you perceive how good that restaurant is based upon your interactions that people have, what does it look like? How does it feel? Is everybody having a good time? I’ve told this story before I used to slide out when people were laughing in my office, I used to slide out in the hall and go, you know, this is a professional place. But the truth is, I love hearing laughter in the dental office now. And my response always to patients is wow, somebody is having a ball. Let’s go. They’re having a party. Let’s go Let’s go there. And so, you know, but when I walk into a restaurant like Del Frescoes They remember my name, and they know what drinks I like. And the waiter comes over with, hey, I’ve got a few new wines for you.

That for you, you might want to try, we’ve got a new special. Hey, you know what we can do with lobster. Now we don’t have this on the menu, but we can cut it up into little pieces and actually deep fried in our, in our onion ring batter. And I’m like, I’m all in, you know, I’m all in. And my perception of value there is super high. And I don’t mind spending more money, I don’t mind spending more money.

And the perception of my office in Granberry has been this. And we built this over a period of Gosh, we built it over a period of 35 years. And at first, it was not very high value, perception of value that you have when you walk into my office is one that, you know, where you’ve heard from other people, that we have all the latest technology, and we’re the best when it comes to dentistry, but we’re also the most expensive, is that a bad thing? I don’t think so I you know, I want people to come knowing that we’re not a cheapo depot, that if they want to have the best dentistry done that they want to come to our office, and that is that perception.

And it’s the value that you create, that creates that perception. Does that make sense? So so when we when we think about those things, think about every little thing you do in your office, when we’re submitting a crown, I always tell the patient, you know, this is kind of this wow factor. I said, when we submit this crown, we’re using a submit that bonds to the tooth and releases fluoride. And it’s almost totally insoluble and the patient goes, wow, that’s a perception. That’s a perception of value.

When they are with your hygienist is your hygienist talking about themselves all day long? Or whining about whether or whining about things? Are they asking questions of the patient and engaging the patient as they would say, a friend? You know, and what I love in our office, we’ve got hygienists that have created amazing relationships with their patients. And what does that do for value when it creates unbelievable value and the perception? When they go out? And people start talking about a dental practice? What do you want them to have them? Do you want to have them talking about you, and how much value you bring to the community.

Whether that be in community activities in, in being a part of the community, all of these things play, literally play a major role. I’ve seen associates that come in, and they expect Well, I’m gonna, I’m just going to work here. Well, that’s not what I wanted in my, and I’m in a rural area, small town. But we do have over 30 dentists now in my small town. And if associates going to work in our practice, I want them creating value. I want them creating value across the board, being out in the community, whether it be a church meeting people, yes, I’m a new dentist at Granbury Dental Center. It’s you know, oh, I’ve heard so many good things. Oh, it’s amazing. And others. It’s the way that they Converse.

It’s the way you talk. And it’s not just you as the doc, you know, we’ve talked a lot about going into our complete exams, and doing comprehensive exams and doing risk factors. And that perception of value is never higher than when then when the patient says, Well, why is no one else ever gone? In this much detail with me? And what does that create for the patient? That creates a different experience it creates? Okay, the word wow factor. That’s okay. But I just love the perception of value. That’s one of the things that that can make or break a practice. You know, when you’re stressed out? I promise they know it.

You know, the patients know it. When you’re stressed out, the team knows it. I go back to my smiley face frowny face in the break room for those of you hadn’t heard that. I would walk in for probably three years and there’d be a smiley face or a frowny face in the break room. And I asked somebody what is that? And they said oh, you need to ask someone so and then you need to so once I finally went and asked Emily and Emily said that you Every morning when you come in, we put a smiley face or a frowny face up. Well, what does that do to the perception of value as a patient walks in?

Because if you’re stressed and if you’re stressing your team and everybody else, that perception of value..gone. And if that happens long enough, it changes the course of your practice for the future. And what is important to me in helping you is to help you figure out what are some other additional ways, you know, showcasing the new dental work that you’re putting in, you know, take a look at this beautiful crown and your team does a lot of this.

You know, I’m I’m very much a delegator, you can ask my kids and ask my wife, they will tell you that I’m a delegator Deluxe. And, but my, my team is one of those that, you know, I delegate, and they want to have additional things to do, they don’t want to just suck spit all day. But the way they do it is as important as the fact that they do it. You know, I’ve had team I’ve had team members that, you know, yeah, okay, I’ll do this, they walk in, okay, you’re gonna need to bite on this, you’re gonna need to do that. That’s, that’s, that’s a very different approach than what I want to hear.

Because I want every experience in my practice to be that, over the top experience, when you have a patient, using an example, you have a patient in severe pain, you know, how do you help that patient? their perception of value is getting me out of pain? You know, but how do you do that? Are you empathetic? You know, I know when I have patients, I go, and I use these terms. I go, bless your heart. I am so sorry, you’re having this much pain. I tell you what, let’s do. Let me put some numbers up here. Let me just put some numbers at that. That little topical, that’ll help numb it. And let’s let me just give you some anesthetic so that this pain will go away right now. Is that okay? Oh, I hate shots. I know you do. But you’re not going to feel this one. Okay, I’m going to go very, very slow. I know. But I’m scared. I totally understand. I totally understand there and then you numb them and they feel better?

What is their perception of how you dealt with that situation? What would be your perception as a patient, if every team member had that same philosophy, if the person who answered the phone at your front says oh my gosh, let’s try to get you in right away. And my philosophy and our practice for emerges patience has been when can you be here. And that’s always been my philosophy, when can you be here.

And so it’s just changes and and hopefully you’re, you’re able to kind of get the gist of what I’m sharing with you. Because it’s not about going through the motions. If you want to have the exceptional practice, if you want to be a practice that achieves all your dreams, the things that you’ve done, we’ve talked about planning, we’ve talked about goal setting, but it really is attitude, your attitude is going to really determine the old the old adage, attitude determines altitude.

Perception equals value, a patient’s perception of how great you guys are, is your value. And if they don’t perceive you to be that good, and you don’t have that much value, and you’re going to be I can charge whatever fee I want for whatever it is I want to charge. But when people don’t have that value, when they don’t see value, or they don’t perceive value, everything’s too expensive. And they’re then they become just shoppers. And so they become just a dental shopper, because they think everybody’s the same. So what things can we do to make it where we’re not the same? Everything we do.

And what I’m going to ask you to do is to get out a piece of paper right now and write down 20 things you do 20 things you do. That gives patients a perception of value. And if you have any questions, please email Bruce productive dennis.com I would love to do a podcast on those questions.

So I look forward to talking to you guys next week. And thank you for listening to the podcast. Thank you for making us the 36 most listened to podcasts in the world on dentistry. So I look forward to I look forward to next week.