Why Going to Legoland Made Me Proud of Our Team

In the last week of the school holidays Keith and I took the kids to London for a few days to see the sights.  We started off with a couple of days in Legoland, which the kids loved!  I have to say though as much as I had a great time with the kids and the rides were fun, the whole thing was slightly tainted for me by the staff.

In the 2 days we came across 1 team member who actually spoke to us in one of the lines, the rest were like robots, opening the gate, measuring the kids, checking your safety belts, all done with out so much as a smile or even any eye contact - they all looked miserable.  The restaurant for dinner was even worse!  There was just no engagement!

It got me thinking about how vital your staff are to your whole customer service and experience.  I was so excited about going to Legoland, so up for it and yet every encounter I had with a team member was a disappointment - think how many interactions and disappointments I had over the space of the 48 hours we were there!  It felt like they were so confident they had a captive market they didn't have to try anymore.

It just reinforced for me how vital the little things are when a patient comes to see us at Coatbridge Family Dental Care and how good our team are at it.  The fact that over half of our new patients come from existing patient referrals and a further third come off the back of online patient reviews tells me we are doing something right.  But what's really important is not to get complacent.  It's important every patient is treated the same way.

A smiling, welcoming face and eye contact from the reception team goes such a long way, along with a friendly chat particularly if a patient is feeling nervous.

We always ask our dentists and nurses to chat to our patients as they walk from the waiting room to the surgery and ask them how they are.

New nurses are asked to introduce themselves to patients and everyone wears their name badge.

Our dentists take the time to engage our patients in conversation, not just about dentistry but about their lives and take the time to find out about what's important to them because that's vital when we're dealing with your health and your smile.

And on the way out a little bit of banter with the reception team is always fun!

Thinking about it made me proud that our the customer service of our team is way better than a big company like Legoland,  They could learn a thing or two from us!

Experience great customer service by calling our team at Coatbridge Family Dental Care on 01236 421103.

Just Get Up and Get it Done!

Morning Everyone!!

Today I made myself a promise.  Today is the first day of my new habit where I will get up early in the morning and do something productive with my day before my kids get up.  And the first thing I will do is the last thing I want to do. 

This week Keith and I had a great opportunity to spend a day with Chris Barrow, a top business coach and someone who we’ve procrastinated about working with for a long time.  We got loads from the session to help us move the practice forward and help our patients more but as I listened to him speak I was aware that this guy is very focussed on his time and how he uses it.  He talked of getting up at 7am on a Sunday morning to reconcile his personal accounts for the previous week and all I could think was “Would I give up my cosy bed for that?”

And yet when I think about it I’m surrounded by successful people who do their best work in the morning – my friend who runs her own very successful PR company who I know gets up around 5 every day ( I know this because I often turn on my phone and she’s text me at that ungodly hour).  But think – by the time her kids crawl out of their beds at 8am she’s already done over a third of an 8 hour working day!

I was reading yesterday about a book called ‘Eat that Frog’ – I’ve added it to my to do list – and the author Brian Tracy talks about  “If You Have To Eat A Live Frog At All, It Doesn’t Pay To Sit And Look At It For Very Long” this means develop the habit of doing the most important thing on your to do list first thing in the morning and don’t take too long about it.

On Wednesday, Chris set me the task of writing a blog.  I spent the whole of yesterday procrastinating over it – which stopped me getting anything else done and in the end I decided it was rubbish and deleted it.  But now here I am (granted I’m still in my warm cosy bed) at 7.15am (I know it’s not that early but the kids are still on holiday and you’ve got to start somewhere) writing a blog post.  And I feel proud!

I wonder how many of you procrastinate over making that dental appointment, or who make it in the afternoon, only to waste the whole day leading up to it worrying about it.  Or even those who make it at the end of the day then realise you’ve got too much to do and cancel it before you get there.  Perhaps it’s an idea to schedule your appointment first thing in the morning?  That way it’s done, you can get on with your day without worrying and think how smug you can feel that you’ve been and done it.

We open at 8.40am every morning  - perhaps going to the dentist is your frog – maybe its time to eat it.  I’ve just eaten mine – a blog post written in the first 20 minutes of my day!  I’m off to smugly wake up the children!

Call our team on 01236 421103 and eat your frog!

Gillian xx