August 28, 2025 • 17 mins
Before a patient ever sees the inside of your operatory, they’ve already decided how they feel about your practice. In this episode, Savanah and Jen spill the real tea on first impressions, from lobby smells and website vibes to front desk titles and cringe clinician greetings.
Whether you're a dental leader, practice owner, or the team member who actually makes it all run, this one’s for you.
- Why your reviews, photos, and booking links matter more than you think
- The glow-up your “front desk” title needs
- What NOT to say when calling a new patient back
- Small changes that leave a big impression
Because first impressions don’t just matter - they hit.
Special thanks to Chris "The Wizard" Stone of Rock Solid Media, our recording partner!
More ways to stay in touch!
Watch the episode on youtube: @backin10pod
Follow on Instagram: @backin10pod
Check us out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/backin10pod/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Stone (00:00):
All right, ladies and gentlemen, it is the
gurus of first impressions.
Here we go in three.
Two, one
Jen Steadman (00:08):
Back in 10 is a podcast for dental leaders who do it all
and need 10 minutes to themselves.
Savanah Carlson (00:13):
It's about real conversations, not curated ones, the
kind that happen off the clock, behindclosed doors, and between the chaos of
running a practice and running life.
Jen Steadman (00:23):
Hosted by Savanah Carlson and Jen Steadman, two women who've led,
learned, and laughed through it all.
Savanah Carlson (00:30):
This show brings honest stories, leadership truths.
And the occasional sassy take on what itreally means to lead in dentistry today,
Jen Steadman (00:37):
because sometimes the best leadership happens when
you step away for 10 minutes.
Savanah Carlson (00:43):
This is back in 10.
Jen Steadman (00:50):
Hey everyone, welcome back to back in 10.
I am Jen.
And I'm Savanah.
Savanah Carlson (00:57):
Excuse me, Savanah.
That was not sing song enough.
Try again, please.
Oh, Savanah.
I know it was very IOR and I'm Savanah.
Jen Steadman (01:09):
Nailed it.
That's better.
That is what we are now accustomed to.
Thank you for that.
So
speak.
Speaking on that, today we weretalking about your first impression.
When your patients come into theoffice and when they look at you
online and all those fun things,Savanah, so I don't know about
Savanah Carlson (01:31):
you Jen, but after having worked in a dental
practice now anytime I go into mydoctor's office or a nail salon.
I am so judgmental, especially ifit's my first time in that practice.
Yeah.
And I, I kind of hate that.
I'm so judgmental, but I alsoknow what a good first impression
(01:53):
is and what to strive for.
So I can't wait to dive into this
Jen Steadman (01:58):
one.
I know, me too.
And I think, you know,you just said nail salon.
So we just had a girl's day recently.
I have to say that with Addie, myoldest, the three of us went and man,
that nail salon, it was perfection.
Yeah, the gel polish and the regularpolish were like in a clear cont.
It was just so aesthetically pleasing.
(02:22):
So neat and organized and not like Iwould wanna do this, but I felt like
I could eat like off of their floor.
Mm-hmm.
Like that's how clean it was.
Savanah Carlson (02:32):
And the nail packs were very kind, very, um.
Happy and Smiley offered mea little bottle of water.
And then before we got to thepedicure chair, they stopped at this
little station to let me determinewhich scent foot scrub I wanted.
(02:54):
So I like choices, but where does theexperience really start when it comes to
your first impression for your patients?
Jen Steadman (03:03):
Honestly, it's before they walk in.
It's.
We talked about this in previous, episodeshere too, is not only are your your
future patients, but your future teammembers are looking at your socials and
your website and everything, so you needto make sure that that first impression.
Is a good one, right?
Like there's pictures of your team, it'sshowing them being happy, it's showing
(03:25):
your space, your neat, clean, tidy space.
Right?
We talked about like less clutteron the walls and things too, right?
So I think it starts there.
I know Savanah, you've done aton on social media marketing,
all of that fun stuff too.
So what are your thoughts on that?
Like what's the most important thing.
Savanah Carlson (03:45):
I think you nailed it on the head when you said pictures
of the facility, pictures of yourpractice, pictures of the team.
I wanna know who I'm going tobe seeing even if, I don't know
the team member specifically,but I wanna see the faces of.
Who works at the practice.
Uh, I also, like everyone elsethese days, look at reviews.
(04:09):
So if your practice reviews are not upto snuff, you have some soul searching
to do and some talking points tobe had with your team so they can
start asking and generating those.
Those reviews, especially for Google.
I know there are a lot of marketingcompanies out there that offer you
a dedicated landing page and willautomate messaging to collect these
(04:32):
reviews and put on that landing page.
But Google is the king.
The more Google reviews you can get, thebetter you're gonna show up in searches.
Google is king.
Go Google review first.
But something important to rememberis that you don't wanna flood
your Google reviews in one day.
That is a red flag to Google.
(04:53):
So you wanna spread out the love.
So whether it's one team member'sday of, hey, your whole chair,
so your 10 patients, please askfor a Google review and hopefully
all 10 of them write a review.
And if not, they don't.
But it's better than having 40reviews in one day, zero reviews
(05:15):
for the next three months.
So make sure to spread yourreview, love and always reply
to your reviews, good or bad.
Um, but don't go into dissertations.
If it is a negative review,you don't wanna do it.
We can talk about that ina, a follow up episode.
Don't break hipaa.
No, no, no.
Very general.
Very general.
And something to also think aboutwhen it comes to first impressions
(05:39):
socially is if you are implementingnew patient online booking.
What does that messaging look like?
Is it sterile?
Is it unfriendly?
You wanna make sure any automationsthat you have implemented into your
online booking are personable and theyreflect the team that the patient's
(06:01):
gonna meet when they walk in the office.
Something to think about.
Jen Steadman (06:03):
Yeah.
And.
Whose voice is on the answering machine?
Or like when the patient calls,does it ring first or does it say
like, welcome to, you know, like,thank you for calling back in 10.
What is that voice?
Because I know my voicewas on every office.
It still is actually, after not beingthere for what, two and a half years
(06:26):
that it's still, it's still there.
So I call, and it's me.
I'm greeted by myself, butit's really important to.
Know what that lookslike from every angle.
So now, okay, so we've talked aboutbefore the patient comes into the
practice, we talked about, you know,their website a little bit, talked
about the socials, the reviews, sonow they're coming into the office.
(06:46):
One of the things that I love to do, andI built this into the team meetings, and
it was usually like every six months.
We do it twice a yearand we would do like.
A little punch list.
So I would give everyone on theteam like a clipboard or a little
notepad and say, okay, starting fromthe parking lot and coming into the
(07:11):
office, let's look up, down left.
Right.
Look everywhere andsee what we need to do.
Like do the tour.
Right.
One of the things that I foundit one of the offices was.
Parking the meters was very challenging.
That's not really anything that,we can't do anything about that
because it's through the town.
However, we can make a video.
(07:31):
We can do different things to sendto them, or like a walkthrough sheet
just to make it easier for everyone,but looking for cobwebs, looking for
dings in the wall, anything like that.
Like think about if you're buying a newhouse and you're walking into that punch
list that you have for a contractor.
Like what?
What is it?
Go through and do everything even down to.
Your five senses, right?
(07:52):
What do you smell?
One of the big things about adental office is that I don't want
it to smell like a dental office.
I'll say that there's some officesI'll walk into and I'm like, oh man,
there is nothing else going on here.
It just smells like chlorine or it'sstale, like there's no airflow in there.
If you need certain plugins,there was a specific scent that
(08:16):
we liked that we would always use.
Savanah, you and I are big on scenttoo, so even getting a diffuser and what
that means for your practice, it's huge.
What that could do, just to helpto calm patients' nerves too,
and make it feel more homey.
Savanah Carlson (08:31):
Mm-hmm.
And there are patients who aresensitive to smells, so it's important
to, you know, do a survey of a, aselect number of patients to see if
it's something that you can actuallyimplement in your practice, if not.
If COVID taught us anything, it's that airpurifiers help move air and clean it up.
(08:52):
So invest in some high qualityair purifiers to just freshen
things up and move the air around.
It's when it, yeah, it feels heavy.
I hear.
I hear you.
Jen Steadman (09:01):
It's not just
Savanah Carlson (09:02):
the
Jen Steadman (09:02):
viruses, it's just
Savanah Carlson (09:05):
the
Jen Steadman (09:05):
air flow.
Savanah Carlson (09:06):
The air flow.
Yeah.
One thing that.
I implemented in the practicebecause I wanted it, wherever
I went, was a charging station.
So we would have a start charging stationin the reception area for patients.
If in the event that one of the clinicianswas running behind, uh, they could plug
(09:27):
in or if family members were waiting forany patients, they could also plug into.
So that was a, a nice little perk.
And put your wifi password out for people.
They're gonna ask.
Jen Steadman (09:38):
Just share the wifi.
Yes.
Make sure it's guests so they're notaccessing your private network that
all of your other equipment is on.
Right.
But absolutely share that stuff.
I know some offices willhave like water or coffee or
different things like that too.
For me, this is what I'll say,and it's a personal prevalent,
personal prevalent preference.
(09:59):
Oh my goodness.
I have Invisalign now too, so don't,don't mind me my pronunciation little.
Switch trees yesterday and they'rea little, yeah, anyways, tight.
Yeah, they're a little tight, soI would prefer not to have coffee
in the waiting room because thenit looks like that patient's gonna
(10:22):
be there for a while waiting.
It is a reception area whereyou come in, or greeting area,
whatever you wanna call it.
Change the name of it, because whenyou tell a patient, Hey, you can go
take a seat in the waiting room, it'sautomatic that they're gonna wait.
And every office, every doctor, everydentist, they usually always wait.
(10:42):
So for me, I would rather not havea reg or something like that, a
coffee machine, a bottle of water,spine, they can take it with them.
But if there's a coffeemachine, I'm like, oh.
I'm gonna be here a while.
So I don't know.
To me that's just, um, it's a personalpreference and I think it, you could
offer it to someone, but when it's outopen in the waiting area, to me it just
(11:05):
looks like I'm gonna be here a while.
If you had it, like in the team,break room in the back, and then
someone could offer it, I thinkthat's a, it's just different.
And again, that's a personalpreference, but just something to
think about what that looks like.
I think it, it may be different in a
Savanah Carlson (11:19):
pediatric practice where the parents are waiting Oh yeah.
For, yes.
Patient to come back out wherethe coffee teas is appropriate.
I agree with you that it doessend the message of, oh God,
I'm gonna be here a while.
Um, I don't know, maybe you have abackstage that if a patient, if you're
in a general practice or a practice thatsees adults, um, and they bring a, a
(11:45):
buddy with them, maybe you can offer themsomething, you know, a special patient.
Coffee, tea from the back.
Jen Steadman (11:54):
You could do that.
But leaving it out is, yeah.
We used to do that before too,and have like custom coffee mugs.
Don't give it to them in paper,like, have a nice solid mug.
Right.
Um, and they can take itwith them if they want.
You can offer that too, but just it'sthat extra level also of customer service.
If you ask them like, Hey, like if,say you came in with someone, right?
(12:17):
Hey, I know that you're waiting.
Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea?
Like it's just that extra connection.
They might not even be a patientthere, but now they might want to be.
So just asking instead of justhaving it open is also just a
different level of customer service.
I totally
Savanah Carlson (12:35):
agree.
In the last two minutes ofthis episode, Jen, mm-hmm.
Let's talk about first impressionswhen the clinician comes out to the
front desk to get that new patient.
What are your thoughts on that?
I've heard some doozies.
Oh
Jen Steadman (12:54):
yeah.
There, there's been some.
Come on back here.
I got a room up of you.
Like some weird,
and I'm not joking.
Yeah, I know.
I, I believe you.
Oh, some.
Some.
Yeah.
You wanna come back hereand take a ride in my chair?
I'm like, excuse me.
No, I do not.
(13:15):
I do not.
No, but.
Calling that person you're saying,especially if it's a new patient.
Yeah.
Don't you walk out to them?
You should walk out and shaketheir hand and greet them
and have that personal touch.
Don't stand from a doorway and say,Savanah, like this is not a deli counter.
(13:39):
I'm not calling numbers.
Uh, this is the, we're in the businessof treating people and caring for
people, so to care for people.
We need to come out, greetthem where they are and
Savanah Carlson (13:52):
welcome them.
One thing, I'm gonna pat myselfon the back for this one too.
We would have whateverfront admin checked in.
The new patient, they would walkout with the clinician and hand off
the new patient to the clinician.
Hey girl.
I love that.
I want you to meet your hygienist today.
(14:14):
Her name's Nancy.
You are in great hands.
Our patients love her and I'llsee you when you come out.
Just that, that extra handoff,if we're gonna have a walkout,
you have to have a delivery
Jen Steadman (14:25):
of that same caliber too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've actually seen in some officesthat they had a position and the title
was Director of First Impressions.
Oh, love it.
Keep it.
Yes.
And it was an admin team member.
That was their main job.
They greeted everyone.
When they came in, they asked'em if they wanted coffee.
Yes, they did other admin tasks, butthat was their main focus was to make
(14:48):
that patient feel extraordinary andthat they were a member of that team.
I was like, that's fantastic.
Savanah Carlson (14:56):
I love beautiful.
Beautiful.
Jen Steadman (14:58):
Can you imagine that on your website too with This is Savanah with a
beautiful picture of her beautiful faceand it's the our of first impressions
Savanah Carlson (15:06):
or patient navigator.
All we had, I didn'thave a first impression.
I had a patient navigator who wouldlove it, have to handle all of that,
and then would also complete all of thenew patient paperwork follow through.
So it would just gave them avery roundabout experience.
Jen Steadman (15:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'll say, look.
With that to, to wrap that up here, your.
Admin team member, I'm gonna say,please don't have their title be
admin team member or, oh Jesus.
Now front desk, that's apart of the first impression.
Mm-hmm.
So you can have their titlebe anything that you want,
(15:45):
ask them, talk to your team.
That should be one of the thingsthat you talk about when you're doing
like your first impression on it.
Talk about it.
Talk about what that looked like.
Please do not have theirposition be an object.
So I think there's so manydifferent things that you can
do, but I think the biggest thingis make that patient feel warm.
When they're in their o whenthey're in your office, they're
(16:07):
gonna remember not only how yougreeted them, but how they left.
So it's really important that thatexperience is good from start to finish.
So start to finish.
Start to finish.
Yes.
You know
Savanah Carlson (16:18):
what?
We're gonna finish right now.
We'll be back in 10.
Everyone be so.
See you later.
Make a good first impression.
Thanks for spending a fewminutes with us on back in 10.
If something made you laugh, nod or feel alittle more human, share it with a friend
and make sure that you're subscribed.
You can also follow us onInstagram at Back in 10 Pod for
(16:40):
more behind the scenes updates
Jen Steadman (16:43):
and probably a little chaos.
We're not here to have it all figured out.
We are just here to tell you the thingsthat we wish someone had told us and
remind you that leadership doesn't
Savanah Carlson (16:54):
have to be perfect, just real.
We'll be back in 10,
back in 10.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, it is the
gurus of first impressions.
Here we go in three.
Two, one
Jen Steadman (00:08):
Back in 10 is a podcast for dental leaders who do it all
and need 10 minutes to themselves.
Savanah Carlson (00:13):
It's about real conversations, not curated ones, the
kind that happen off the clock, behindclosed doors, and between the chaos of
running a practice and running life.
Jen Steadman (00:23):
Hosted by Savanah Carlson and Jen Steadman, two women who've led,
learned, and laughed through it all.
Savanah Carlson (00:30):
This show brings honest stories, leadership truths.
And the occasional sassy take on what itreally means to lead in dentistry today,
Jen Steadman (00:37):
because sometimes the best leadership happens when
you step away for 10 minutes.
Savanah Carlson (00:43):
This is back in 10.
Jen Steadman (00:50):
Hey everyone, welcome back to back in 10.
I am Jen.
And I'm Savanah.
Savanah Carlson (00:57):
Excuse me, Savanah.
That was not sing song enough.
Try again, please.
Oh, Savanah.
I know it was very IOR and I'm Savanah.
Jen Steadman (01:09):
Nailed it.
That's better.
That is what we are now accustomed to.
Thank you for that.
So
speak.
Speaking on that, today we weretalking about your first impression.
When your patients come into theoffice and when they look at you
online and all those fun things,Savanah, so I don't know about
Savanah Carlson (01:31):
you Jen, but after having worked in a dental
practice now anytime I go into mydoctor's office or a nail salon.
I am so judgmental, especially ifit's my first time in that practice.
Yeah.
And I, I kind of hate that.
I'm so judgmental, but I alsoknow what a good first impression
(01:53):
is and what to strive for.
So I can't wait to dive into this
Jen Steadman (01:58):
one.
I know, me too.
And I think, you know,you just said nail salon.
So we just had a girl's day recently.
I have to say that with Addie, myoldest, the three of us went and man,
that nail salon, it was perfection.
Yeah, the gel polish and the regularpolish were like in a clear cont.
It was just so aesthetically pleasing.
(02:22):
So neat and organized and not like Iwould wanna do this, but I felt like
I could eat like off of their floor.
Mm-hmm.
Like that's how clean it was.
Savanah Carlson (02:32):
And the nail packs were very kind, very, um.
Happy and Smiley offered mea little bottle of water.
And then before we got to thepedicure chair, they stopped at this
little station to let me determinewhich scent foot scrub I wanted.
(02:54):
So I like choices, but where does theexperience really start when it comes to
your first impression for your patients?
Jen Steadman (03:03):
Honestly, it's before they walk in.
It's.
We talked about this in previous, episodeshere too, is not only are your your
future patients, but your future teammembers are looking at your socials and
your website and everything, so you needto make sure that that first impression.
Is a good one, right?
Like there's pictures of your team, it'sshowing them being happy, it's showing
(03:25):
your space, your neat, clean, tidy space.
Right?
We talked about like less clutteron the walls and things too, right?
So I think it starts there.
I know Savanah, you've done aton on social media marketing,
all of that fun stuff too.
So what are your thoughts on that?
Like what's the most important thing.
Savanah Carlson (03:45):
I think you nailed it on the head when you said pictures
of the facility, pictures of yourpractice, pictures of the team.
I wanna know who I'm going tobe seeing even if, I don't know
the team member specifically,but I wanna see the faces of.
Who works at the practice.
Uh, I also, like everyone elsethese days, look at reviews.
(04:09):
So if your practice reviews are not upto snuff, you have some soul searching
to do and some talking points tobe had with your team so they can
start asking and generating those.
Those reviews, especially for Google.
I know there are a lot of marketingcompanies out there that offer you
a dedicated landing page and willautomate messaging to collect these
(04:32):
reviews and put on that landing page.
But Google is the king.
The more Google reviews you can get, thebetter you're gonna show up in searches.
Google is king.
Go Google review first.
But something important to rememberis that you don't wanna flood
your Google reviews in one day.
That is a red flag to Google.
(04:53):
So you wanna spread out the love.
So whether it's one team member'sday of, hey, your whole chair,
so your 10 patients, please askfor a Google review and hopefully
all 10 of them write a review.
And if not, they don't.
But it's better than having 40reviews in one day, zero reviews
(05:15):
for the next three months.
So make sure to spread yourreview, love and always reply
to your reviews, good or bad.
Um, but don't go into dissertations.
If it is a negative review,you don't wanna do it.
We can talk about that ina, a follow up episode.
Don't break hipaa.
No, no, no.
Very general.
Very general.
And something to also think aboutwhen it comes to first impressions
(05:39):
socially is if you are implementingnew patient online booking.
What does that messaging look like?
Is it sterile?
Is it unfriendly?
You wanna make sure any automationsthat you have implemented into your
online booking are personable and theyreflect the team that the patient's
(06:01):
gonna meet when they walk in the office.
Something to think about.
Jen Steadman (06:03):
Yeah.
And.
Whose voice is on the answering machine?
Or like when the patient calls,does it ring first or does it say
like, welcome to, you know, like,thank you for calling back in 10.
What is that voice?
Because I know my voicewas on every office.
It still is actually, after not beingthere for what, two and a half years
(06:26):
that it's still, it's still there.
So I call, and it's me.
I'm greeted by myself, butit's really important to.
Know what that lookslike from every angle.
So now, okay, so we've talked aboutbefore the patient comes into the
practice, we talked about, you know,their website a little bit, talked
about the socials, the reviews, sonow they're coming into the office.
(06:46):
One of the things that I love to do, andI built this into the team meetings, and
it was usually like every six months.
We do it twice a yearand we would do like.
A little punch list.
So I would give everyone on theteam like a clipboard or a little
notepad and say, okay, starting fromthe parking lot and coming into the
(07:11):
office, let's look up, down left.
Right.
Look everywhere andsee what we need to do.
Like do the tour.
Right.
One of the things that I foundit one of the offices was.
Parking the meters was very challenging.
That's not really anything that,we can't do anything about that
because it's through the town.
However, we can make a video.
(07:31):
We can do different things to sendto them, or like a walkthrough sheet
just to make it easier for everyone,but looking for cobwebs, looking for
dings in the wall, anything like that.
Like think about if you're buying a newhouse and you're walking into that punch
list that you have for a contractor.
Like what?
What is it?
Go through and do everything even down to.
Your five senses, right?
(07:52):
What do you smell?
One of the big things about adental office is that I don't want
it to smell like a dental office.
I'll say that there's some officesI'll walk into and I'm like, oh man,
there is nothing else going on here.
It just smells like chlorine or it'sstale, like there's no airflow in there.
If you need certain plugins,there was a specific scent that
(08:16):
we liked that we would always use.
Savanah, you and I are big on scenttoo, so even getting a diffuser and what
that means for your practice, it's huge.
What that could do, just to helpto calm patients' nerves too,
and make it feel more homey.
Savanah Carlson (08:31):
Mm-hmm.
And there are patients who aresensitive to smells, so it's important
to, you know, do a survey of a, aselect number of patients to see if
it's something that you can actuallyimplement in your practice, if not.
If COVID taught us anything, it's that airpurifiers help move air and clean it up.
(08:52):
So invest in some high qualityair purifiers to just freshen
things up and move the air around.
It's when it, yeah, it feels heavy.
I hear.
I hear you.
Jen Steadman (09:01):
It's not just
Savanah Carlson (09:02):
the
Jen Steadman (09:02):
viruses, it's just
Savanah Carlson (09:05):
the
Jen Steadman (09:05):
air flow.
Savanah Carlson (09:06):
The air flow.
Yeah.
One thing that.
I implemented in the practicebecause I wanted it, wherever
I went, was a charging station.
So we would have a start charging stationin the reception area for patients.
If in the event that one of the clinicianswas running behind, uh, they could plug
(09:27):
in or if family members were waiting forany patients, they could also plug into.
So that was a, a nice little perk.
And put your wifi password out for people.
They're gonna ask.
Jen Steadman (09:38):
Just share the wifi.
Yes.
Make sure it's guests so they're notaccessing your private network that
all of your other equipment is on.
Right.
But absolutely share that stuff.
I know some offices willhave like water or coffee or
different things like that too.
For me, this is what I'll say,and it's a personal prevalent,
personal prevalent preference.
(09:59):
Oh my goodness.
I have Invisalign now too, so don't,don't mind me my pronunciation little.
Switch trees yesterday and they'rea little, yeah, anyways, tight.
Yeah, they're a little tight, soI would prefer not to have coffee
in the waiting room because thenit looks like that patient's gonna
(10:22):
be there for a while waiting.
It is a reception area whereyou come in, or greeting area,
whatever you wanna call it.
Change the name of it, because whenyou tell a patient, Hey, you can go
take a seat in the waiting room, it'sautomatic that they're gonna wait.
And every office, every doctor, everydentist, they usually always wait.
(10:42):
So for me, I would rather not havea reg or something like that, a
coffee machine, a bottle of water,spine, they can take it with them.
But if there's a coffeemachine, I'm like, oh.
I'm gonna be here a while.
So I don't know.
To me that's just, um, it's a personalpreference and I think it, you could
offer it to someone, but when it's outopen in the waiting area, to me it just
(11:05):
looks like I'm gonna be here a while.
If you had it, like in the team,break room in the back, and then
someone could offer it, I thinkthat's a, it's just different.
And again, that's a personalpreference, but just something to
think about what that looks like.
I think it, it may be different in a
Savanah Carlson (11:19):
pediatric practice where the parents are waiting Oh yeah.
For, yes.
Patient to come back out wherethe coffee teas is appropriate.
I agree with you that it doessend the message of, oh God,
I'm gonna be here a while.
Um, I don't know, maybe you have abackstage that if a patient, if you're
in a general practice or a practice thatsees adults, um, and they bring a, a
(11:45):
buddy with them, maybe you can offer themsomething, you know, a special patient.
Coffee, tea from the back.
Jen Steadman (11:54):
You could do that.
But leaving it out is, yeah.
We used to do that before too,and have like custom coffee mugs.
Don't give it to them in paper,like, have a nice solid mug.
Right.
Um, and they can take itwith them if they want.
You can offer that too, but just it'sthat extra level also of customer service.
If you ask them like, Hey, like if,say you came in with someone, right?
(12:17):
Hey, I know that you're waiting.
Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea?
Like it's just that extra connection.
They might not even be a patientthere, but now they might want to be.
So just asking instead of justhaving it open is also just a
different level of customer service.
I totally
Savanah Carlson (12:35):
agree.
In the last two minutes ofthis episode, Jen, mm-hmm.
Let's talk about first impressionswhen the clinician comes out to the
front desk to get that new patient.
What are your thoughts on that?
I've heard some doozies.
Oh
Jen Steadman (12:54):
yeah.
There, there's been some.
Come on back here.
I got a room up of you.
Like some weird,
and I'm not joking.
Yeah, I know.
I, I believe you.
Oh, some.
Some.
Yeah.
You wanna come back hereand take a ride in my chair?
I'm like, excuse me.
No, I do not.
(13:15):
I do not.
No, but.
Calling that person you're saying,especially if it's a new patient.
Yeah.
Don't you walk out to them?
You should walk out and shaketheir hand and greet them
and have that personal touch.
Don't stand from a doorway and say,Savanah, like this is not a deli counter.
(13:39):
I'm not calling numbers.
Uh, this is the, we're in the businessof treating people and caring for
people, so to care for people.
We need to come out, greetthem where they are and
Savanah Carlson (13:52):
welcome them.
One thing, I'm gonna pat myselfon the back for this one too.
We would have whateverfront admin checked in.
The new patient, they would walkout with the clinician and hand off
the new patient to the clinician.
Hey girl.
I love that.
I want you to meet your hygienist today.
(14:14):
Her name's Nancy.
You are in great hands.
Our patients love her and I'llsee you when you come out.
Just that, that extra handoff,if we're gonna have a walkout,
you have to have a delivery
Jen Steadman (14:25):
of that same caliber too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've actually seen in some officesthat they had a position and the title
was Director of First Impressions.
Oh, love it.
Keep it.
Yes.
And it was an admin team member.
That was their main job.
They greeted everyone.
When they came in, they asked'em if they wanted coffee.
Yes, they did other admin tasks, butthat was their main focus was to make
(14:48):
that patient feel extraordinary andthat they were a member of that team.
I was like, that's fantastic.
Savanah Carlson (14:56):
I love beautiful.
Beautiful.
Jen Steadman (14:58):
Can you imagine that on your website too with This is Savanah with a
beautiful picture of her beautiful faceand it's the our of first impressions
Savanah Carlson (15:06):
or patient navigator.
All we had, I didn'thave a first impression.
I had a patient navigator who wouldlove it, have to handle all of that,
and then would also complete all of thenew patient paperwork follow through.
So it would just gave them avery roundabout experience.
Jen Steadman (15:25):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'll say, look.
With that to, to wrap that up here, your.
Admin team member, I'm gonna say,please don't have their title be
admin team member or, oh Jesus.
Now front desk, that's apart of the first impression.
Mm-hmm.
So you can have their titlebe anything that you want,
(15:45):
ask them, talk to your team.
That should be one of the thingsthat you talk about when you're doing
like your first impression on it.
Talk about it.
Talk about what that looked like.
Please do not have theirposition be an object.
So I think there's so manydifferent things that you can
do, but I think the biggest thingis make that patient feel warm.
When they're in their o whenthey're in your office, they're
(16:07):
gonna remember not only how yougreeted them, but how they left.
So it's really important that thatexperience is good from start to finish.
So start to finish.
Start to finish.
Yes.
You know
Savanah Carlson (16:18):
what?
We're gonna finish right now.
We'll be back in 10.
Everyone be so.
See you later.
Make a good first impression.
Thanks for spending a fewminutes with us on back in 10.
If something made you laugh, nod or feel alittle more human, share it with a friend
and make sure that you're subscribed.
You can also follow us onInstagram at Back in 10 Pod for
(16:40):
more behind the scenes updates
Jen Steadman (16:43):
and probably a little chaos.
We're not here to have it all figured out.
We are just here to tell you the thingsthat we wish someone had told us and
remind you that leadership doesn't
Savanah Carlson (16:54):
have to be perfect, just real.
We'll be back in 10,
back in 10.
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