Learning to Love Complaints - Dental Practice Management

Most of us make little or no effort to know how our patients really feel about the dental care the entire dental team is delivering. We assume that no news is good news and this can give us a false sense of security. We go through our daily routine assuming all our patients are happy with our services when the reality is that things are probably not so. Most of your patients, whether they are happy or displeased with your services, will not say anything to you. If they are happy, they will return for future treatment. If they are not happy, however, they will probably leave your practice without a single word to you. By the time you realize that you haven’t seen these patients in a long time, they are already established with their new dentist and have forgotten all about you.

It can be very upsetting to everyone in the clinic when a patient actually makes the effort to complain to you about the “care” they received by you or one of your team. How do you feel when this happens? Believe it or not, you should be very happy when someone complains. A complaint is actually an act of genuine respect and that is how it should be treated. It tells you that the patient values you and your services enough that they are willing to create an uncomfortable situation in order to repair this professional relationship. They really don't want to just walk away because they are willing to confront you in order to help you fix a problem.

Instead of becoming defensive, invite the patient to sit down and discuss the matter. You might even offer them coffee. This might sound a little extreme but the point is to transform patient complaints into positive experiences. If this one patient is telling you about a situation they don’t like in your clinic, you can be sure there are many others that have thought the same thing, and didn’t tell you. In addition, it is said that people will tell one of their friends about a positive customer relationship experience they had but will tell 10 friends about a bad experience. How many of your silent but disappointed patients are telling their friends they are unhappy with you? Listed below are Dental Solution Europe’s 9 steps for handling patient complaints:

Make it easy for patients to state a complaint. Let them do the talking. Interrupting them and asking questions while they are telling you of their problem will just upset them more.

Don’t return the patient’s anger. Show genuine concern for them in both your tone of voice and body language.

Acknowledge that the person is upset, it shows respect. “I see that you area quite upset by this Sr. Santos. Please tell me more.” Look them in the eye and nod your head as they make their points.

Make a “Sad/Glad” statement. “I’m sorry you had a problem and I’m glad you are bringing it to my attention.”

Make a positive statement… “I will get something done about this problem.” Then make sure you do.

Settle the problem in a “hassle-free” manner. Don’t offer a solution that creates more of an inconvenience for them.

Do something extra when you have caused an inconvenience to a patient.

Share complaints and how they were handled with the team.

Never make or agree with a negative comment about a fellow team member or the doctor.

Patient complaints will become positive experiences if you view them not as indicators of poor service but opportunities to provide better patient care.



Dr. George McKee is co-founder of Dental Solutions Europe, a dental management and consulting firm based in Portugal. Dental Solutions Europe serves the global dental community as a business resource using proven information, tools and skills to assist dentists in making their practices grow and profit. For more information, visit http://www.dental-solutions-europe.com/uk/index.htm, or call +351 961 966 709