Some of our patients are given the cell phone #’s for myself and my associates but we also have an office cell phone that is answered by a team member that is on a rotating scheduled who then get paid for “phone duty”. The team member on phone duty answers the phone for certain “after hour” hours and outside of those hours they then listen to the VM and decide from there how to handle the contact, i.e.- contact one of the dentist/treating dentists, schedule an appt, etc….. The team member on phone duty also has the ability to go online using TeamViewer and look at the schedule to both schedule and handle other scheduling issues. It is important to answer the phone as much as possible in this day and age from a marketing standpoint for new patients. We track the calls and what we have found is certain times and days have a much higher call volume than others and now some of those higher volume times we have a team member in the office just to answer the phones if the office is not open for treatment.
“Answering services” have to many issues. i.e. staffing, staff training, to many clients, etc…. and we found no matter what you do with them and which one you use, the $ you spend is not worth spending on them…
John Dano
McHenry, IL
From: acesthetics@googlegroups.com [mailto:acesthetics@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of safariandmd@aim.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2013 7:21 AM
To: riccoker@gmail.com; drrodgers@drrodgers.com
Cc: toothmedic@aol.com; ACEsthetics@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ACEsthetics] Answering phones after hours
That works for existing patients but if you market and are looking for new patients you need to pick the phone up when it rings.
I am currently set up for call forwarding to my cell but I am in search of a way to get my cell to ring and their are a couple of products that can help with that. Still doing some research on this.
Shahin Safarian DMD, MBA, LVIF | Irresistible Smiles
Carmel Valley/Del Mar 858.755.8993 | Chula Vista/Eastlake 619.656.6785
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | LINKEDIN | YOUTUBE | THEBATTLEGUARD
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Coker <riccoker@gmail.com>
To: DMD Jeff L. Rodgers <drrodgers@drrodgers.com>
Cc: ToothMedic@aol.com <toothmedic@aol.com>; Ace <ACEsthetics@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jul 30, 2013 05:03 AM
Subject: Re: [ACEsthetics] Answering phones after hours
A little different riff on Jeff's thing is to take a card and write your cell phone number on it, look the patient in the eye and give it to them, saying :"I want you to have this in case you need me for something urgent!" WOW! What doctor has ever done that for them? Nobody seems to ever abuse this, either, and patients will call on Monday and say they didn't sleep all weekend, but they didn't want to bother you!
It also is a good way to make sure they keep your card!
Rick
On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 6:12 AM, Jeff Rodgers <drrodgers@drrodgers.com> wrote:
I just have my cell phone on the voice mail at the office. If I don't recognize the number on the phone I don't answer and then listen to the voice mail. We had terrible service issues with answering services and stopped paying for it.
But I am a small volume shop and get maybe 5-10 after hours call per year.
Jeff
On Jul 29, 2013, at 10:18 PM, toothmedic@aol.com wrote:
Looking for some help with our answering service problem
Currently spending ~$400-450/month for an answering service for after hours. Got to listen to some of the calls they have answered lately and it is just terrible.
What is everyone else doing after hour?
Someone suggested an answering machine and letting a team member have the phone (with extra pay) to handle emergencies only. Are there answering machines that will not take messages but will forward emergency calls?
Would appreciate any input
Thanks in advance
Paul
Dr. Paul S. Levine
toothmedic@aol.com
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Dr. Rick Coker, DDS, FACE
Director, Academy of Comprehensive Esthetics
www.tyler-smiles.com, www.tylersleep.com
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