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Performance Management for Sales and Marketing

Performance Management

4 Ways Your Call Handlers Are Ruining Your Dental Office’s Reputation

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Read on for phone tips for your front office staff to improve call to conversion rates to win new patients.

At your dental office, your front office staff is the first impression of your practice. Before someone even has a chance to meet their dentist, they speak with someone in the front office – most likely over the phone. This impression that new patients receive determines if they will choose your office, and also if they will be leaving a positive or negative review about your practice online. One bad experience can lead to a negative review – which you don’t want for your business’s reputation.

This is why ensuring that your front office staff is equipped with the right type of skills is very important for a successful practice. If potential patients don’t have a good experience with your office from the get-go, they may end up with a poor impression of your business before even having the chance to become a patient.

How are employees failing to ensure that your practice receives a stellar impression and good online reputation right from the beginning? Below are four ways that your front office employees are potentially ruining your dental office’s reputation.

Mistake #1: They aren’t answering the phone

When someone is deciding on a new dentist to go to, they will most likely call your office to learn more and set up an appointment. If there aren’t enough employees to answer phones, phone lines are too busy, or front office staff are busy doing other tasks that they sometimes miss phone calls, this is an issue.

Do you know if you are missing calls, and when the most calls are missed? Take a look at your call tracking data to determine when missed calls are happening, and make sure you are staffed efficiently during those time periods. Make sure that front office staff know that answering the phone is a top priority so that they do not let calls go to voicemail, potentially missing an opportunity to win over a new patient for the office.

Discover how call tracking can help your dental practice – in under 30 minutes a week!

Mistake #2: They aren’t building a relationship with patients

To get a caller to book an appointment with your office, they must feel like they will get good service and like the people who work there. This starts when they first speak to one of your front office staff.

If employees aren’t working to build relationships on the phone and have real conversations with callers that aren’t feeling rushed or with a poor tone, they aren’t making callers want to choose your practice for their dental needs.

Building rapport leads to a good relationship and earns trust from your callers. When people feel comfortable and welcome, they will want to do business with you and keep coming back.

The same also goes for in-person experiences. Warm, inviting, friendly front office staff ensures that your patients feel comfortable and happy with their experience at your office. Make sure employees are taking the time to give a personalized experience to everyone who walks through your door.

Mistake #3: They aren’t presenting enough value about your office

When a potential patient has questions about your dental office or isn’t sure if they want to choose you to make an appointment with, they can be convinced that your practice is the best choice when value is presented effectively.

If employees feel rushed or aren’t including enough details about why patients should choose your practice over another’s and presenting that information to callers, then they could easily choose another local office over yours.

Make sure your phone handlers are using value statements to let callers know what sets your office apart from others in the area, and provide this information to callers so that they choose you.

Download our free 10-Point Call Handler Audit to ensure your front office staff are having successful phone calls.

Mistake #4: They aren’t overcoming objections

Callers could have many objections that prohibit them from stepping foot into your office. Wanting to know exact pricing for a procedure, having a difficult time scheduling, amongst other various reasons are potential objections that callers may be having on the phone.

Even if staff cannot fully handle or accommodate some of these objections, they can skillfully overcome them. For example, by explaining value about your practice first, and if they can successfully explain a procedure or the reasoning that the patient would come into the office and be seen for more specific pricing, they can ensure that they get those potential patients into the office and leave them with a good impression.

Don’t let your front office staff ruin your reputation

To get new patients and earn a positive online reputation, your front office staff must provide a great experience, sometimes even before someone becomes a patient of your dental office. We’ve put together the ultimate guide on reputation management for dentists here if you’d like to learn more.

If you need extra help for your front office staff to improve their phone skills, CallSource can help with our custom call scorecards and call coaching programs.

Improve your call handlers appointment setting techniques.

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call handlers’ phone skills

Win Back Lost Patients With Appointment Saver

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Get a second chance to reclaim missed opportunities with Appointment Saver.

At your office, it is almost impossible to book every caller into an appointment. Do you know exactly how many potential patients you are missing out on due to a lack of phone skills, booked calendars, hang ups, or a myriad of other reasons?

You’ll never have to guess at call outcomes again. Appointment Saver Alerts allow you the chance to recapture a missed opportunity and turn that lead into a patient for your practice.

How many more appointments could your business recoup if you were to be alerted of every missed opportunity in near-real-time, so that you could follow-up with that caller and try to regain their commitment? With Appointment Saver, you can do just that.

How does Appointment Saver work?

When a phone handler doesn’t set an appointment with a prospective patient for whatever reason, you are sent an Appointment Saver Alert.

Owners can designate which person or people in the office will receive the alerts to recapture missed opportunities.

The Appointment Saver Alert is sent to your email inbox with the caller’s name, contact information, call handler information, and the audio file of the call.

You’ll never have to guess at call outcomes again. Appointment Saver Alerts allow you the chance to recapture a missed opportunity and turn that lead into a patient for your practice.

How do I use Appointment Saver?

Unfortunately, simply having Appointment Saver Alerts alone will not save your missed opportunities – effort and planning are required on your end to be successful.

Appointment Saver gives you a second chance at a first impression – take that opportunity to win back over potentially lost patients. Mishandled calls are sent to the email address(es) of whoever you designate within 2 hours (usually within 30 minutes) of the initial call.

When people are choosing a practice for their healthcare needs, a good first impression is vital. If they didn’t choose to set an appointment with your office, there was probably a reason for not doing so. By acting on these alerts quickly by designating a specific “call-back” employee to follow-up with lost opportunities and recapture their business, you can get that potential patient’s business and convert a possible bad impression into a positive one.

Additional Appointment Saver benefits

When used smartly, there are other benefits besides being able to recoup lost appointments with Appointment Saver.

Appointment Saver is a great tool to use for employee training opportunities. A call handler’s manager can use Appointment Saver Alerts as a teaching opportunity to improve call handler performance. Making outbound calls – especially outbound calls to someone who has already been in contact with your business and maybe had a less-than-favorable experience – requires a specific skill set that needs to be learned and perfected.

Employing a specific “call-back” employee, along with an incentive program, to be responsible for utilizing Appointment Saver Alerts usually proves to be most successful in getting that person to become a top employee, and to recoup the most lost dollars for your business that almost went to your competitor.

Get started with Appointment Saver

To start using Appointment Saver and recapturing lost leads for your company, simply reach out to a CallSource specialist.

Improve your bottom line and increase your ROI from inbound phone leads by recouping possibly lost marketing dollars and lost patient opportunities.

Win back lost patients and improve ROI.

Get Appointment Saver.

I want to talk to learn more about Appointment Saver for my practice.

5 Ways to Build Rapport Over the Phone with Your Caller

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Learn how to build rapport with customers with rapport building questions and great phone skills.

The call handler’s role at your business is one of the most important positions. It is a job that takes both people skills and sales skills. Call handlers are talking to people daily, using aspects of psychology to interact with callers, and ultimately getting the person on the other end of the phone to have a great impression of your business and to choose it for their needs.

This is why it is important to build rapport and connect with the person on the other side of the phone. People need to like and trust the person they are talking to immediately.

It isn’t quite so simple and natural for some people to interact in a meaningful way with callers as it is for others. A call handler doesn’t need to be a social butterfly or very outgoing to be successful in their job, but there are some specific skills that need to be employed.

Building Rapport with Customers

One specific skill that aids in a successful sales call is to build rapport over the phone. Building rapport is an essential part of building relationships, which is one of the Core Four Principles of a phone call, and one of the most important stages proven to boost appointment-setting.

Core Four Principles of a phone call

Merriam-Webster defines rapport as “a friendly, harmonious relationship, especially a relationship characterized by agreement, mutual understanding, or empathy that makes communication possible or easy.”

Why is rapport-building important in sales calls?

Simply put, people buy from people they like. By building rapport with a potential customer or lead, you are ensuring that they have a positive impression of you and your company. Call handlers are the first impression of your business, so by making sure they are building rapport, you can ensure that the first impression is a good one.

How to Build Rapport with Customers

Read on for five ways to build rapport with customers. Using these tips, you can make sure that your phone skills are top-notch for setting the appointment on that next inbound call.

How to Build Rapport #1: Use Their Name

Personalization is one of the best practices for inbound phone handling. Personalization goes hand in hand with building rapport with a potential customer.

One of the first questions asked after answering the phone with a warm greeting is to ask for the caller’s name.

In How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie, he says, “Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” How else to start a friendly, harmonious relationship than knowing someone’s name, and using it when speaking to them?

After asking for the caller’s name, it is also vital to use their name when speaking to them throughout the call – in a natural way. Overusing someone’s name could make you sound disingenuous. Every call is different, and every caller has their own personality. Treat them this way.

How to Build Rapport #2: Say it With a Smile

Sad day for Eeyore“Service with a smile” isn’t only a good slogan for the food industry. The whole mopey, drawn-out voice may be cute and work on Eeyore, but it doesn’t work in rapport building! A humdrum voice won’t get the caller to like you—put some pep in your step!

Act as if you are talking to someone in person – would you be monotone and show no expression? Don’t do that on the phone, either! You want to sound like you are actually interested in speaking to this person, and not disingenuous. By smiling on the phone, your tone will change and make you more likable and trustworthy.

How to Build Rapport #3: Be Personable

While a call handler speaking to a potential lead on the phone won’t get as personable as you would with a friend at a party, it is still important to be personable enough to be pleasant to speak to. No one wants to talk to a robot, so simply reading questions off of a call script or checking off boxes won’t cut it to truly build rapport with a caller and get them to want to choose your business.

Ask the caller how they’re doing and how you can help them. Remember, it’s a conversation, and there is a real person on the other end of the phone.

Download our free 10-point call handler checklist to start improving your calls now!

How to Build Rapport #4: Ask Rapport-Building Questions

People like others who ask questions about them and are good listeners.

In a series of experiments by Harvard Business School students, participants had to ask people fewer than four questions, or a minimum of nine questions, while in conversation. Not surprisingly, people ended up liking those who asked at least nine questions better. They also found that not only asking questions when chatting but asking follow-up questions makes a big difference. This shows that you are interested, that you are truly listening, and also want to learn more about the other person.

As the call handler, you should be in control of the conversation; you still want to make sure you find time to pause and listen to the caller’s issue or needs. Repeat back to make sure you correctly understand what it is they are looking for, so they know that you are hearing them.

How to Build Rapport #5: Show Empathy

After actively listening to the caller’s problem or need, you should show empathy. If someone is calling saying that their air conditioning broke and it’s a hot day, you don’t want to just ask for their address or whatever is in your protocol next.

First, take a moment and show empathy—phrases such as “I’m so sorry to hear that” or “we can definitely help you with that” work and make the caller feel like they are not just any other person calling into your business. An empathic person is more likely to earn rapport from the other person, because understanding needs is an important part of the phone conversation, and could help you to overcome any objections the caller may have later in the call.

Improve your phone skills with a call coach

Want more tips on improving your call conversation quality and boosting your appointment-setting skills? Be sure to subscribe to our blog, and feel free to speak to a CallSource representative to hear about our Telephone Performance Analysis and Call Coaching programs!

Learn the phone skills that lead to more appointments
and better ROI.

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10 Must-Know Inbound Call Stats for Home Services Companies

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CallSource has released new inbound call data for home services companies.

Businesses in the home services industry rely on the phone and appointments to be made in order to make sales and complete services for customers. While other mediums such as online booking or texting for appointments can now be used, the phone is still the most vital way that clients will contact home service businesses for help.

CallSource knows how important the phone is to home services companies – we’ve been analyzing their calls for years. In fact, we just released a new report analyzing almost 20 million phone calls to home services companies over the past 4 years with valuable insights that no home service owner or manager should miss.

Check out the report in its entirety here, or read below for 10 of the most eye-raising data points.

Home services companies know the importance of the phone, and these stats show that there are still improvements to be made in your business.

You need to maximize your appointment opportunities.

  1. Just over half (56%) of calls coming into your business are viable leads.
  2. Of these prospect calls, the average call-to-appointment conversion rate for home service businesses is 63%.
  3. 37% of prospect calls are missed opportunities – meaning over a third of your potential revenue is going to your competitor.

Why else are consumers calling in?

  1. 44% of callers aren’t an appointment-generating opportunity.
  2. 69% of calls are general business calls, and 28% are current customers following-up.

CSRs are great at making first impressions…

  1. 95% of call handlers offer his/her name to the caller upon answering.
  2. 98% of employees correctly introduce the company in their greeting.

But call handlers need to have improved conversations with callers

  1. Call handlers share a personal value proposition about the company only 1% of the time.
  2. In about half of calls, the call handler shows empathy with the caller about their problem, tries to understand their needs, and re-states the caller’s issue to help them feel understood.

Ask for the appointment

  1. CSRs use close-handed questions to ask for the sale, book the call, or gain commitment from the caller only about a third (36%) of the time.

Set more appointments with CallSource

Home services companies know the importance of the phone, and these stats show that there are still improvements to be made in your business.

Discover more facts in the full home services report here, and contact a CallSource specialist to get started improving your phone experience today.

CallSource to Reveal New Own-Set-Closesm Phrases & Skills to Sell More Cars at Digital Dealer 2019

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CallSource, the provider of insightful data and actionable analytics, now provides in-dealership & phone coaching so you can set more appointments and sell more cars.

Westlake Village, CA – August 19, 2019. CallSource, the inventor of call tracking and a leader in providing actionable solutions to the automotive industry, is pleased to announce the launch of Own-Set-Close Automotive Phrases & Skills Coaching. Own-Set-Close offers the best phone skills and word tracks designed for today’s highly-informed and digital-savvy consumer.

When recent automotive data shows that 80% of inbound auto sales calls do not result in an appointment, dealerships know that they can no longer ignore the importance of the phone.

“Own-Set-Close is unlike any other program offered to dealers,” says Pogo Parr, President of Automotive at CallSource. “By providing in-dealership and over the phone call coaching to dealers, CallSource now provides all the tools a dealer needs to operate and perform better on the phone to increase their bottom line. With CallSource’s call coaching and EveryLead platform, you can’t get more accurate data and reporting that boosts your dealership. That’s what it is all about, right? – having really great data that dealers can use so they can easily track what’s working and increase sales.”

Unlike other one-and-done automotive training programs, Own-Set-Close is phrases & skills coaching over time. It begins with word tracks that instantly make your team more effective on the phone. While our coaches are onsite, they will dive into your CRM and update templates and workflows as needed to measure your coaching success using key performance indicators.

One of the fastest ways to sell more cars in the dealership is to help your people improve their phones skills. With Own-Set-Close, you can use your CRM data to ensure that your employees are increasing phone skills by booking more appointments and making more sales. With coaches that have years of dealership and car-selling experience, they not only talk the talk but can walk the walk.

CallSource is excited to officially launch this new program at the 2019 Digital Dealer Conference & Expo.

About CallSource—Own Every Lead

CallSource provides dealers with visibility into what is driving customers to call, text, chat, or click on your website. We provide transparency into which calls are real leads, and which leads booked an appointment. CallSource helps dealerships track call-handler performance and provides individually targeted training and coaching. Dealers are alerted to missed opportunities in time to save deals. Our tracking numbers are text-enabled, and our digital attribution system tracks a customer’s complete online journey. We have a solution for you to track, set, and close every call- click- text and chat.

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If you would like more information, please call Kelli Conley at 888-376-0123 or email kconley@callsource.com.

Successful dealers don’t sell cars. They sell their dealership.

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Boost your dealership’s profitability with superior customer service.

As new car sales lag and variable per-unit profit margins decrease, more focus must be placed on fixed operations to absorb costs and remain competitive in today’s market.1 The battle for sales margins is a losing one; consumers can price shop a vehicle across the world with a single online search. But technological advancement is a double-edged sword, and dealers have an opportunity to capitalize.

More technologically complex vehicles beget an increased value of specialization, technician certification, and service advisors equipped with OEM-specific expertise. Dealerships are uniquely equipped to service today’s vehicles and need to position this as a primary selling point to consumers.

Building lasting relationships and retaining lifelong customers depends on a well-oiled service machine, and the most important salespeople in today’s dealership are the service advisors. If they sell service effectively, the dealership will prosper as one-time customers become lifelong patrons and advocates, returning to buy vehicles and telling their friends and family to do the same.

Despite the increasing importance of the back-end, customers are all too often met with frustration, subpar transparency, multiple transfers, and a half-hearted voicemail message when scheduling a service appointment. Why?

This is especially disheartening when recent CallSource automotive data shows that 75% of inbound phone leads are calling into fixed ops at dealerships. The qualities of communication we love in salespeople have been historically frontloaded to the sales floor under the notion that a dealer’s success (or failure) is the consequence of sales activity. This mindset is so entrenched in the industry that we’ve come to accept service revenue as “fixed” and “consistent,” but these category distinctions are restrictive.

It’s time to break down the silos and start selling service.

The first step to improving a service department is to recognize and optimize the channels through which the dealership communicates with the customer. There are two primary channels in the service appointment-setting process.

  1. Website
  2. Phone

Every dealership should have a user-friendly online scheduler. But, don’t be overly reliant on this channel. Phone calls to the service department are on the rise.1 The phone is the lifeblood of the dealership and the first/primary point of contact for most customers.

Below are five steps you can take today to improve your service department’s performance.

1: Assess Call Data

How many calls are going to voicemail?

What percentage of inbound calls are service appointments vs. service status?

How many rings are customers hearing before speaking to a live person?

To answer these questions, call tracking and processing are essential. These technologies enable dealers to define KPIs, determine where there is room for improvement, and track these metrics over time.

2: Increase Connectivity

CallSource data shows that over half of customers do not leave a message when forwarded to a voicemail. But, service connectivity remains stagnant around 80%.2 What are we to make of the 1 out of 5 calls that do not connect to someone in the service department?

I think it is safe to say that these are lost opportunities. If the caller was interested in an appointment, they would move on to the next option. If they were inquiring about the status of their vehicle, they’re now the victims of poor customer service and are less likely to do business with the dealership moving forward.

There are two ways to offset this and increase connectivity immediately.

  1. Route calls back to reception/BDC after a set number of rings (4-5) so that customers are not sent to advisors’ voicemails
  2. Send status updates proactively to reduce inbound call traffic and improve the customer experience (See Step 4)

KPI – Answer Rate

3: Improve Phone Performance

Of the 80 dealers in a recent study published by FixedOps Magazine, it was found that “Only 10 percent stated that their teams were trained on a specific set of word tracks [and] only 10 percent stated they have scorecards for grading the performance of their Appointment Coordinators’ inbound calls.”3

This is an alarmingly low number – especially given the fact that “customer skills trump technical skills for service advisors.”4

Phone handling standards must be set, tracked, and scored for accountability and growth. CallSource scores phone handlers in key categories that directly tie into word tracks developed & trained by industry veterans.

Every call handler should know his/her appointment conversion rate and the goal conversion rate set by the dealership, as “effective call handling can increase conversion rates from an average of 30 percent up to 90 percent.”5

KPI – Appointment Set Percentage & Performance Scorecard

4: Offline Status Updates (Texting)

Establish an opt-in process to text service status updates. It’s convenient for the customer, keeps them informed, decreases inbound call volume, and improves CSI scores as “…scores tend to increase when car dealership service departments use customers’ preferred methods of communication.”6

5: Proactive Outbound (Service BDC)

Make proactive outbound efforts to increase service revenue. With a BDC or without, periodical outreach for birthdays, vehicle purchase anniversary, potential recall notices, oil changes, etc. should be the established process.

For most dealers, the end goal should be a service BDC. It can generate up to 1 million dollars in additional revenue through a carefully managed daily outbound calling campaign.3

Increase Your Service Skills, Increase Your Profits

For more information on how to increase your team’s phone skills and make your service department a higher priority, reach out to a CallSource Automotive Specialist to learn more about Own-Set-Close: Phrases and Skills to Sell More Cars.

Feel free to leave comments below with how you’ve made the service department a profit-machine at your dealership.