Why is it that some businesses are so dynamic, they are almost electrified? Everything about their office sparkles and shines, there is an energy that seems uncontainable and yet other businesses have absolutely no life or energy. They appear to be so lifeless they come across as a big flat dud. When you walk into their office you feel let down.

As a business management adviser I always ask the same question. What is your “corporate branding” ? Since I specialize in working with dental offices, most dentists and staff look at me and say “I don’t know, what does that mean”? What it means is-What is your office known for and how does that translate into something tangible for a patient to see, feel, understand and experience. The answer that I have received many times over is we are known for being nice or having a family atmosphere. It is sad to say but that is a fairly typical answer.

What I am really looking for is the office that answers “We are known to have the highest patient satisfaction, we care deeply about our patients and we provide a patient experience” not just a dental appointment. The reason most dental offices do not answer that way is because they do not believe that about themselves and they know that they do not always do their best to offer that kind of experience to their patients.

You do not have to have a wonderful new state- of- the art office or the fanciest dental equipment to offer an extraordinary or wow experience to a patient. Offering wonderful care and service can translate into many things. It can mean having a great staff, offering state of the art dental care by offering the newest services and products and it can mean giving the patient more than they expect. When these things happen which is a mindset or the corporate culture of the business it changes the dental office visit into an "experience" and not just an appointment. If the whole team is not operating as a team to give the patient the same experience time and time again, verses an appointment then your business is not living up to its true potential.

I will use the restaurant analogy for this example. In restaurant world there is the front of the house which means the reception area in the dental office and the back of the house which are the treatment rooms. If you go to a restaurant for a “fine dining experience” everything has to work in the front of the house and the back of the house for the diner to have the same fine dining experience. It is the same in a dental office. If the front office staff is not organized, efficient and professional, which translates into wonderful care and service then it does not really matter what they do in the back of the house because the experience with the front of the house will sour the patient’s attitude about the office. And likewise with the back. If the patient does not have beautiful and painless dentistry then there is nothing the front of the house can do to salvage the bad experience with the back of the house.

In a restaurant if your meal is not expedited in a timely fashion then the diner will subconsciously be upset and will not really be happy with the meal. They will have an attitude about the experience. If a new patient comes in the door and has to wait for their appointment and they are not warmly greeted and welcomed then they will have an attitude about their experience in your practice. In order for a restaurant to work well together they have to have organization, precision, communication and they have to expedite flawlessly. The same goes for the dental office or any other type of business.

If any of these four areas: organization, precision, communication and expediting flawlessly are weak then the patient experience will not be one that is memorable enough to distinguish it as an "experience" instead of just a dental appointment. If your corporate brand is to offer “a wow patient experience” then I would recommend that you and your staff sit down together and discuss these four different areas of the practice to see how you can improve offering that "dental experience” to your patients. Remember to recognize and reward your staff members who do already deliver extraordinary service. Do this frequently and you will maintain the momentum of delivering a wow experience each and every time to your patients. This type of extraordinary service will allow you and your staff to reap the personal and financial rewards, that goes along with the pride of knowing you are offering your patient a truly extraordinary dental experience.