Why effective verbal skills are essential for front desk

Do you ever think that 'verbal skills' is talked about ad nauseam? Why is that so? The reality is that the majority of your activities at the front desk involve communication verbally or non-verbally and this is mostly with your patients and potential new patients (leads). 

Phone calls, emails, texts, messages, letters, treatment or admin documents and of course, live in person - our words and demeanour influence and affect outcomes. On top of that, we are sometimes communicating with anxious, fearful, upset, confused or uninterested people which makes the task even harder. 

Your verbal communication skills need to be positive and effective in order to achieve the desired outcomes or objectives. So you can see why we focus on developing great verbal skills and continually improving these skills, and why it must be your career-long objective to excel in positive verbal skills.

At the front desk, you will be required to use your verbal skills to do the following tasks and achieve these outcomes:

• Answer the phone enthusiastically and promptly
• Take messages and return calls
• Convert leads and shoppers to appointments
• Answer queries, provide information and education
• Resolve issues and manage complaints effectively
• Prebook appointments -schedule in advance
• Triage dental emergencies
• Motivate patients to keep scheduled appointments (avoid cancellations)
• Provide reassurance and comfort with post operative advice
• Encourage specific times and dates to schedule
• Remove obstacles and barriers to patient concerns (find solutions)
• Build a personal and trusting relationship
• Collect outstanding monies
• Discover patient needs, wants and expectations
• Save failed appointments
• Discuss treatment options and benefits
• Collect personal and sensitive information
• Conduct sensitive or difficult conversations
• Balance between friendly tone and business requirements
• Add value and quality to the patient experience
• Rearrange schedule without negative consequences
• Fill openings in the book successfully and efficiently
• Collect feedback from exiting patients

It's quite the list of objectives, isn't it? 

You can assess how effective your verbal skills are quite easily. For a day or two, record on a log sheet the outcome of situations such as:

• Attempting to schedule a recall in advance for 6 months time
• Motivating a patient to keep an appointment time they want to cancel
• Calling a patient off the stand by list to come in sooner
• Converting a 'shopper' into scheduling a NP comprehensive exam
• Phoning a patient in advance to warn dentist is running  late
• Collecting a payment from an overdue account
• Reactivating a patient with incomplete treatment

Analyse the outcomes - if you were successful, what or how did you communicate to achieve that outcome? If you weren't successful, what contributed to that and how could you improve in the future?

I have written about improving positive verbals in other blogs so please feel free to read more!

Would you like to learn more about honing your front desk skills? Join me in my Facebook group: Front Desk Superstar - by Aspire2d