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Putting Your Best Face Forward: Training Your Front Desk Fred Joyal

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You probably don’t think about this when you show up to work every day, but your practice is a pretty intricate system, similar to a car or even a human being. Every aspect of your practice – from your operatories to your Web site – plays an important role in the success of your overall business.

So what role does your front desk play? Your receptionists and the rest of your front-desk team likely interact with your patients more frequently than you or your hygiene team, making your front desk the most widely seen part of your practice. It’s the first thing new patients see when they come in and your staff are the first voices they hear when they call your practice. The dentistry you provide for your patients might be the heart of your business, but your front desk is certainly its face.

I think we can all agree that your front office plays a crucial role in the success of your practice. And yet, most practices never allow their team the opportunity to receive formal training. With all that rests on their shoulders, isn’t it important to ensure that your team has the tools they need to take your practice to the next level?

An increasing number of dental practices are answering “yes” to that question and sending their front-desk team to training seminars. Programs like Jay Geier’s Scheduling Institute and workshops conducted by practice management experts like Mercer Advisors and Lioness Learning are dramatically improving dental practices by improving their front desk. Practices are also making use of the resources provided by the American Association of Dental Office Managers to gain additional skills and make valuable connections. Their reasons are obvious. Countless case studies and testimonials have demonstrated that practices with an expertly trained front office experience higher production and a more loyal patient base than practices where the staff has received no formal training. At 1-800-DENTIST, we recently used our extensive experience fielding patient phone calls to create Front Desk University, a two-day seminar designed to give dental teams the skills and tools they need to motivate a greater number of new patients to schedule, show up and accept treatment. Our program, like the others, is built around the philosophy that a good patient experience pays off in patient loyalty, and no one at your practice has the ability to mold the patient experience quite as much as your front desk team.

More and more, dentists are realizing the value of providing training opportunities for their staff. But equally important, in my experience, the team members themselves have proven to be enthusiastic supporters of any chance to sharpen their skills.

Take Jerri Hatzenbiler, for example. Jerri is the practice administrator for Dr. Steven Greenman in Westlake Village, California, and a recent Front Desk University attendee. She recently spoke with us about her training experience and her general approach to the job. Jerri is part of a new breed of front-desk employee – one who sees and understands their role in the practice as being crucial to the success of the business. In doing so, they acknowledge the challenges they face in the role, and experience greater job satisfaction when they’re successfully met.

“I’m thrilled to work in an environment where I’m empowered as an individual and accountable for my own success,” she said. “I know that when I get a reward, I’ve earned it.”

That success begins with how your front desk handles the phone. So much is lost and gained in the way your team takes incoming calls, and with how busy things get at the front desk, that’s very easy to lose sight of. Phone calls are answered quickly and coldly, and often placed on hold for far too long. Sometimes they’re not answered at all and allowed to go to voicemail. With all of the tasks the front desk is responsible for and with the steady flow of patients arriving at the office, it’s easy to see the phone as a constant interruption. However, it’s important to remember that the majority of all new patient relationships begin with an often nervous and uneasy initial call to your office.

“Treatment acceptance begins the minute a potential patient picks up the phone and calls our practice,” Jerri elaborated. “First-time callers don’t talk to the doctor, they talk to me. They pretty much make up their mind about whether they’re going to give our office a try in the first 30 seconds, so it’s important that I establish a rapport with them.”

One reason why the phone can be a problem is that, believe it or not, most people don’t have natural phone skills. It’s something that comes with experience, and while talking on the phone used to be an everyday occurrence, that’s no longer the case for a growing number of people. With the proliferation of text messaging, e-mail and social media, the younger generations don’t rely on phone conversations as an important form of communication. Quite frankly, they’re not as experienced on the phone as we are. They don’t always feel comfortable and relaxed when talking to someone on it. Combine this with the high stress of the front desk – something that can cause even the most experienced team member to handle phone calls inappropriately – and it’s easy to understand why so many potential new patients are lost over the phone.

“We are not simply answering the phone,” Jerri explained. “We’re getting the wheels moving on any type of treatment acceptance. The success of this practice has everything to do with how I answer the phone because through what I say, I’m assuring them that they’ve called the right office and that I can help them.”

Much of putting patients at ease depends on simply understanding their frame of mind. Remember, patients – particularly patients who haven’t been to a dentist in a long time – do not think like dental professionals do. They don’t realize the importance of maintaining their oral health and the damage they’re doing in putting it off. And they certainly don’t realize how much dentistry has changed over the past decade. New patients need a sympathetic ear and, more than anything else, they want to feel like you care about them and their problems. That takes time, patience, understanding and maybe just a little bit extra.

“We roll out the red carpet for our patients,” Jerri said. “We’re fully present when they’re here. We’re not distracted. We’re diligent about taking notes on what’s going on in our patients’ personal lives. It’s human interest – they’re not just an account number to us and we do what we can to make sure they don’t feel that way. We care about them and take the time to spend time with them while they’re here.”

Patients have expectations when it comes to going to the dentist, and unfortunately they usually aren’t very positive. Most people still associate dentistry with pain and often expect dental professionals to be clinical and uncaring. Patient loyalty is built on exceeding these expectations and providing an unanticipated experience. This includes far more than simply providing them with good service and a toothbrush when they leave. It means doing everything you can to make certain they feel important and cared for. While this care may extend far beyond the front desk, the front desk is where it begins and ends.

It boils down to treating your patients like friends or family, which is something your staff can play a considerable part in. Whether it’s smiling as patients come into your practice, asking them how they’re doing or inviting them to relax and make themselves at home as they wait for their appointment to begin, your front office sets the tone and makes sure the patient experience starts off on the right foot. Your patients will form their opinion of your practice based largely on their interaction with your staff.

“We schedule time in our appointment book to chat with and get to know each and every one of our patients,” Jerri said. “We’re diligent about taking notes on what’s going on in their personal lives, so that we can call them by name, we can ask about their son’s recent acceptance to college, new grandkids, etc. That’s all very important to us.”

It’s also important to think about the experience your patients have when they leave and the role the front desk plays in that. A patient can have an amazing experience all throughout their appointment, only to have it blown at the very end by a lapse in good service. Remember, a patient’s experience doesn’t end when the doctor or hygienist is done with them. It doesn’t even end when they leave your office and head home. A person’s experience as a patient of your practice continues until they leave you for another dentist, and if you realize this and continue providing them with the unexpected both inside and out of your office, the thought of leaving your practice will never even enter their minds.

A strong front office can make this possible. They can keep tabs on patient birthdays and send handwritten cards from your practice. They can update blogs, Facebook profiles and Twitter feeds. If anyone working your front desk is a good writer, they can compose articles for your practice newsletter, or even just sit down for an interview or profile for your Web site. If you receive referrals from a patient, your front desk can call the referring patient or write them a card thanking them. As the face of your practice, there’s much they can do. But first it’s important that they gain the skills to do it.

“My dentist really believes in this,” added Jerri. “He’s been a dentist for 25 years, and he’s still getting coaching and training. It’s the same for the rest of the team. He looks at it not so much as an expense but as an investment.”

Front desk training is to your practice what a great set of veneers is to your mouth: it ensures that you’re showing your best face to the world. That’s a great investment – one that pays off year after year.
Author’s Bio

Fred Joyal is the CEO and Co-Founder of 1-800-DENTIST and one of the industry’s leading experts in dental consumer marketing. His recently published book, Everything is Marketing: The Ultimate Strategy for Dental Practice Growth, is available at www.goaskfred.com.
 
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September 2025
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