Ep. 70: How Good is Your Receptionist? 10 Criteria for Grading Their Performance
The receptionist is an incredibly important part of your dental office. Their skill at answering the phone will determine how many patients schedule and come into the office—and therefore have a big affect on practice production and growth. But how do you evaluate their performance and determine where you can make improvements? Special guest Jeff Santone joins us this week to give his 10-point criteria for grading the receptionist’s performance.
Topics:
4:10 – The things the receptionist needs to say every time they answer the phone
8:38 – Are you missing phone calls?
12:07 – Shoppers
17:34 – 3 pieces of info the receptionist needs to collect on every phone call
24:21 – Answering patients’ questions and showing that you care
36:22 – Are they making difficult to become a new patient?
45:19 – Did they pass or fail the phone call?
Links:
10-Point Call Grading Sheet - https://www.mgeonline.com/call-grading-sheet/
New Patient Call Log - https://www.mgeonline.com/np-call-log
New Patient Intake Form - https://www.mgeonline.com/np-intake-form
Mystery Call - https://www.mgeonline.com/your-mystery-call
The MGE New Patient Workshop - https://www.newpatients.net
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Questions From This Episode
What are the 10 criteria used to grade a receptionist's new patient phone call?
Did they clearly state the practice name, did they give their own name, how many rings before pickup (two or fewer is ideal), did they get the caller's name, did they get a phone number, did they ask how the caller heard about the practice, did they find out the actual reason for the call, did they attempt to schedule the appointment, were they pleasant throughout, and finally a pass or fail on whether the appointment actually got booked.
How often should I actually be listening to my own new patient phone calls?
At minimum, listen to about half of them each week, both the ones that scheduled and the ones that didn't, since the ones that fell through often reveal the most. With a newer receptionist, listen more frequently and consider sitting with them directly. Weekly review of a handful of calls is enough to start spotting real patterns.
What's the biggest mistake receptionists make when a caller starts asking about pricing?
Trying to avoid giving a direct answer instead of acknowledging the question and taking control of the conversation. A caller asking what a crown costs almost always gets vague, stalling answers like it depends on the area, which sounds evasive and ends the call. The better move is a simple acknowledgment, then asking for the caller's name and number, then asking what's actually going on, before circling back to price with a straightforward range if it comes up again.
Why does asking how a caller heard about the practice matter so much?
It's the only real way to know which marketing is actually working. Despite that, only about 1 percent of calls include this question, according to the mystery call data covered in this episode. Without it, there's no reliable way to track return on marketing spend, and most practices are unknowingly funding campaigns with no visibility into whether they're working.
Should the front desk have authority to waive an X-ray fee for a free consult?
Generally yes, since most patients already have relevant X-rays or the doctor is going to retake them anyway, so the fee mostly just adds friction that delays or discourages the patient from coming in at all. This has to be an explicit, ownership approved policy the front desk is authorized to use, not something they're guessing is allowed, otherwise they'll default to charging out of fear of getting in trouble.
Episode Transcript
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Jeff Blumberg: How good of a job is your receptionist doing, specifically on new patient phone calls? And how do you know? If they're not doing as good a job as you'd like, what do you actually do about it? We've done two prior episodes on reception, and they happen to be two of our most listened to episodes. If you caught those, you'll remember the national average conversion rate in a dental practice is 23 percent, meaning out of 100 new patient calls, the average office only converts 23 of them into scheduled patients.
Jeff Blumberg: For this week's episode, we thought we'd share exactly how we grade a receptionist. We run mystery calls here at MGE, using a set of 10 criteria to grade what we hear. So we figured, why not share that criteria so you can grade your own receptionist from time to time and stay on top of how they're doing.
Jeff Blumberg: My name is Jeff Blumberg, and I'm your host, joined this week by Jeff Santone. Jeff runs our expansion division here at MGE. He's owned two practices himself, an oral surgery practice and a general dental practice, has trained a large number of receptionists, and has personally done close to 1,000 mystery calls, so he knows exactly what a strong or weak receptionist call sounds like. Jeff, you're all hooked up over there?
Jeff Santone: All hooked up, yeah, can you hear me okay?
Jeff Blumberg: Hear you great. I like this format, rather than just saying your receptionist might be doing a bad job, which, by the way, we do offer a free mystery call service, I'll link that on the episode page, we're going to actually walk through the 10 points Jeff uses to grade a receptionist, with some discussion and nuance along the way.
Jeff Santone: Let's jump right in. Before we get into the list itself, there are hundreds of calls coming into an office in a week, or a day if it's a larger practice, and we're going to focus specifically on the new patient call, since it's the most valuable call to the practice. How you handle that call tells you a lot about how you're probably handling every other call too, ones that may not seem as valuable but should still get the same level of professionalism.
Jeff Blumberg: Good point, so we're using new patient calls as the lens, but the standard should really apply to every call. As you grow and delegate this to an office manager, they should be randomly reviewing all kinds of calls, not just new patient ones. Quick question before we dive in, how often would you actually recommend listening to new patient calls specifically?
Jeff Santone: If I were just getting into call recordings and getting say 10 new patient calls a week, I'd want to listen to at least half of those, five calls minimum.
Jeff Blumberg: And with a newer receptionist, are you listening more often?
Jeff Santone: Much more often, and I'm probably sitting right next to them too, not just reviewing recordings after the fact. And since the average schedule rate is 23 percent, you want to listen to the ones that did schedule, but honestly you want to listen even more closely to the ones that didn't.
Jeff Blumberg: That makes sense. All right, so point one.
Jeff Santone: Point one: when they answer the phone, do they clearly say the name of the practice? You'd be amazed how many offices we call where it's just a mumbled hello, or it genuinely sounds like they've got marbles in their mouth.
Jeff Blumberg: You've played me some of those recordings, I couldn't even make out what they said.
Jeff Santone: Right, and points one and two really flow together. At minimum, I should know I've actually called the right place. If I say hello expecting a laundromat and I'm actually talking to a dental office, that's a real problem. I'd say about 80 percent of offices get this part right.
Jeff Blumberg: So point one is simply, did they state the practice name, and did they say it clearly.
Jeff Santone: Clearly is the key word. It's funny, who would think saying your own practice name would even be a point of failure? Thank you for calling ABC Dental, or it's a great day at ABC Dental, and then the actual name gets mumbled or rushed. It's one of those things you'd never expect to slip, so nobody checks for it, and then it does slip. If you haven't given your front desk a script for answering the phone, and I'm generally not a fan of scripts everywhere, a phone greeting script is genuinely fine. Point one and two both belong in that script.
Jeff Santone: Point two: did they give their own name? Thank you for calling ABC Dental, my name is Jeff, how can I help you, or whatever variation, including the cheesy ones, which I actually love, they're fine. From a customer service standpoint, it's a lot easier for someone to hang up on you if they don't know who you are. You're trying to establish some baseline of relationship immediately. If it's just, hey, ABC Dental, how can I help you, with no name attached, that's a professionalism gap. And sometimes when I ask for their name directly during a mystery call, there's an actual hesitation, like they're not sure they should give it out.
Jeff Blumberg: So just to clarify the numbers, about 80 percent get the practice name right. What about giving their own name?
Jeff Santone: I don't know the exact number, but if I had to estimate, it's in that same 70 to 80 percent range. And some of them sound genuinely rushed when they do give it, you can hear it in their pace.
Jeff Blumberg: And how often is the phone answered in more than two rings?
Jeff Santone: I'd say that's close to 50/50, and this is calling during normal business hours, when the office is supposed to be open according to their own Google listing.
Jeff Blumberg: So half the time it's picked up within two rings, half the time it's not. Good baseline. What's point three?
Jeff Santone: Point three is really more of an administrative check that happens before the conversation even starts: how many rings did it take to pick up? Ideally two rings or fewer. We used to run a two ring policy, if you're busy checking a patient out, the next available person picks up the next call. If it rings five times and rolls to voicemail, a new patient caller is probably just hanging up.
Jeff Blumberg: So those first three points are really about the basics: practice name, receptionist's name, and speed to answer, before we even get into gathering information.
Jeff Santone: Exactly, and once those are out of the way, we get into the core of the call. Point four: did they get the caller's name?
Jeff Blumberg: This is where you're usually calling as a mystery shopper, right? And I know we've mentioned before that the schedule rate on our own mystery shopper calls is intentionally very low.
Jeff Santone: Under five percent, more like one percent honestly. Out of a thousand calls, maybe ten actually resulted in a scheduled appointment, and even then we don't actually keep the appointment, we usually give one last excuse and bail.
Jeff Blumberg: Interesting, so walk me through how you play a shopper call.
Jeff Santone: I like playing it aloof. I'll ask something like, do you guys do these dental crowns, these two seven fours, using the actual CDT code, which signals I've likely already been somewhere else. If someone calls asking specifically for a D6010 code or whatever, the only place they'd have learned that code is from another provider, which tells me immediately this is probably a second opinion call, shopper or not, doesn't matter to me.
Jeff Santone: But playing aloof, sounding like I don't know much about dentistry, is usually the fastest way to see how the front desk actually handles an unprepared-sounding caller. And what I find almost every time is the office immediately shifts into a kind of generic customer service mode: technically responsive, but not actually answering my question, and not asking for my name and number in case we get disconnected, which should be one of the very first things they do.
Jeff Blumberg: So ideally it would sound like, absolutely, we do crowns, and by the way, what's your name, just in case we get disconnected?
Jeff Santone: Exactly. But instead there's often a noticeable shift once they clock someone as a shopper, this is a shopper, I don't have time for this, they'll get me an answer or not and move on, because there's a real patient standing in front of them. And look, if you're a listener, ask yourself honestly, have you ever bought something because it was on sale? Everyone has. Everyone's been a shopper at some point. This disdain toward shoppers as if something's wrong with them is strange, they're just someone comparing prices, that's it.
Jeff Santone: And here's the thing people miss: if someone calls asking the price of a single crown, there's a good chance they've already been to another office and were told they need several, not just one. Nobody walks away from a relationship with their current dentist to save 200 dollars on a single crown. So that shopper calling about one crown might actually need five, and offices are routinely blowing off a potentially large case.
Jeff Blumberg: When you give them the procedure code and ask for pricing, do they just quote a number and hang up?
Jeff Santone: Rarely, I've almost never had someone just quote a price and click. What I get instead is usually, we don't quote prices over the phone, you'll need to come in for a consult, with extra barriers layered on top. And right alongside that is almost always, do you have insurance? If I say yes, they'll often say something vague like, we don't know, it depends on your specific plan, which lets them avoid committing to anything. But the moment I say I'm fee for service, the tone shifts immediately, oh, okay, great, let's get you in for a consult.
Jeff Santone: Then I'll ask how much the consult itself costs, and I've heard answers like 285 dollars, at which point I'll push back, wow, that's a lot, I just saw someone else, and meanwhile they still don't have my name. We're deep into a conversation and they don't know who I am, what's actually wrong, or whether I'm in pain. It devolves fast. And the people answering these calls are almost always genuinely good people, they've just been trained to treat every caller like a price-sensitive shopper who needs a deal, rather than actually answering the underlying question.
Jeff Blumberg: Bringing us back on track, so point four and five: did they get your name, and did they get your phone number?
Jeff Santone: Both huge. And here's a number that surprises people: about 90 percent of offices never ask for name and phone number at all.
Jeff Blumberg: Ninety percent don't ask for either?
Jeff Santone: That's right. Now, some offices might be relying on caller ID, but that's unreliable, I could be calling from a friend's phone, a work line, anywhere. Getting the name and number directly is also just more personal, you've introduced yourself, you've asked for theirs, that's basic manners. And if this caller ends up being a four crown case, potentially thousands of dollars in treatment, you absolutely want their contact information secured.
Jeff Blumberg: Fair enough, so four and five are name and phone number. What's six?
Jeff Santone: Point six: how did you hear about us? What actually prompted this call, a billboard, a postcard, a Google search? This is one of the most important data points for evaluating your marketing spend, and the office manager and owner should genuinely want this data. If you're not spending on marketing, chances are you actually are and just don't realize it, and if you are spending on marketing, I can guarantee some of it isn't performing the way you think.
Jeff Blumberg: What percentage of calls actually ask this?
Jeff Santone: About one percent. It's almost always met with a blank look, like they've genuinely never been asked to ask that question before.
Jeff Blumberg: That's a shame, since as the caller, I'm essentially in full control of the conversation at that point, the front desk has lost control, or maybe never had it, and doesn't know how to steer it back to something as simple as one question. We do have free downloads for this, by the way, a new patient call log and a new patient intake form, both include this question along with the rest of what you'd want to ask, customizable to your practice. Links are on the episode page.
Jeff Santone: Right, and without asking this, you genuinely can't tell what marketing is working. Even with something like a pay-per-click campaign with trackable numbers, without this question built into the actual call, it becomes a manual reconciliation project instead of something verified in real time.
Jeff Blumberg: How did you personally make sure your team didn't forget to ask this when you were running your own practice?
Jeff Santone: Role playing, constantly, and not waiting for the phone to actually ring to drill on it. I'd sit down with my receptionist and run through scenarios directly. Every so often I'd have my brother or a friend call in and pretend to be a new patient to see how they handled a live, unscripted call. Role playing gets you maybe 85 percent of the way there. It also helps enormously to have that new patient call log physically in front of you, filled out left to right in order, so it becomes a built-in memory jog rather than something you have to remember unprompted.
Jeff Blumberg: That makes sense. So we've covered the first six points, and realistically that's maybe the first ten seconds of the actual call.
Jeff Santone: Genuinely, it's that fast once it's second nature. A good receptionist should be able to do this almost on autopilot, they just need to actually know what they're doing and have the structure in front of them.
Jeff Blumberg: What's point seven?
Jeff Santone: Point seven: did they find out the actual reason for the call? What's really going on with this person. Are they in pain, who told them they needed treatment, what's the real story. I have a team member, Andrew, who plays this scenario particularly well on mystery calls, not screaming emergency pain, but a lingering, nagging pain that's been bothering him for a while.
Jeff Blumberg: And what happens?
Jeff Santone: I've genuinely heard, it's bothering me, I've been taking Advil, having trouble sleeping, followed by, okay, we can get you in in two months. At that point, they're absolutely calling the next office on the list. If someone describes real, ongoing discomfort, that's exactly the moment to build urgency and get them in fast, not schedule them out for months.
Jeff Blumberg: So what does a strong version of this interaction actually sound like?
Jeff Santone: Once you've got their name, and they've said they're calling about a crown, the natural next question is, what makes you think you need a crown? Did another dentist tell you that, or did you find it on WebMD? I'd ask where in the mouth it is, since there's a good chance more than one tooth is involved, whether it's sensitive to hot or cold, whether they're in any pain. You're gathering real information, but you're also building rapport at the same time, which is exactly what sets you apart from every other office that treated this person like an inconvenience.
Jeff Santone: And that rapport is what makes someone choose you even if you're more expensive, which, incidentally, whenever I ran a mystery call, I always claimed the other office was cheaper no matter what number they gave me, just to see how they'd respond.
Jeff Blumberg: And the real goal of the whole call is just to get the patient scheduled.
Jeff Santone: Exactly, and that rapport should lead naturally into, you should really come in and let our doctor take a look. This is usually where offices get hung up, we've posted about this on social media before, and you'll see comments like, I would never give out a price over the phone. But here's the thing, you genuinely can't diagnose over the phone whether someone needs a crown, and that's actually a great hook. If someone says another dentist told them they need four crowns, the front desk can honestly say, look, I'm not a doctor, we really need to see you to know what's actually going on, do you have X-rays you can bring, or we can take one for around 30 dollars, why not come in for a free consultation?
Jeff Santone: In a lot of the mystery calls I've listened back on, once that rapport is built, the caller stops even asking about price. They're just sold on coming in.
Jeff Blumberg: Because you've built real rapport and shown them your office is different from the other three they called, willing to offer a free consult and sometimes a free X-ray. Let's talk about where this typically breaks down, since we've just walked through how it should go.
Jeff Santone: It breaks down in a few places, but it usually starts right at the beginning, since most front desks have been trained specifically not to give out pricing to shoppers. What actually happens, and to their credit, when I listen back, about 80 percent of these calls are genuinely pleasant, is they're being pleasant while failing to schedule anyone. It's not really customer service they need to be delivering, the reason I'm calling is because I have an actual problem, and that problem is buried behind whatever surface question I'm asking, does insurance apply, how much does this cost, and so on.
Jeff Santone: The front desk has been conditioned to avoid giving any answer that sounds negative or wrong, since that risks the caller hanging up, but in avoiding that, they back themselves into a corner they can't get out of. Here's a favorite example: I'll play dumb and ask, do you guys do crowns? And they'll often clarify, you mean dental crowns? Obviously yes. Then I ask how much, and now they're stuck, since they don't want to answer. The most common dodge I get is, it depends on the type of crown.
Jeff Blumberg: And when you play that recording back for the actual doctor, do they offer multiple crown types?
Jeff Santone: Almost never, they're not doing stainless steel crowns or anything like that. So I'll ask the doctor, then why is your front desk saying that? And they genuinely don't know, it's just a stalling tactic. So as the shopper, I'll press further, what types of crowns are there? Now they have to either make something up or admit they don't actually know, and either way, the call typically falls apart right there, since the average caller has no idea crown types even vary and can't tell the difference anyway.
Jeff Blumberg: What kind of answer do you actually get at that point?
Jeff Santone: Rambling, mostly, we do this type and that type and it depends, you can genuinely hear the stress creep into their voice once they realize nobody's ever pushed back on that line before.
Jeff Blumberg: So how should that actually be handled?
Jeff Santone: If someone asks how much a crown costs, the response should be something like, happy to answer that for you, can I get your name and number first? Then, what makes you think you need a crown? We actually drill this specific scenario at our New Patient Workshop, which I co-teach with Dan Brown, I'll link that on the episode page too. What I taught my own staff was a single, flexible acknowledgment phrase for any unexpected question: that's a great question. Say it slowly, genuinely, while you're mentally working out how to steer the conversation without saying no outright.
Jeff Santone: Something like, that's a great question, we actually get that a lot, I'm happy to answer that, mind if I ask you a couple things first? Almost everyone says yes to that. The other common dodge I hear is, it depends on the area, meaning where in the mouth, and when I push, wait, you charge differently depending on location in the mouth? There's usually a long, awkward pause, since they weren't expecting to be questioned on it, and it almost always spins into, that's why we recommend coming in for a consult, without ever actually explaining what they meant.
Jeff Santone: When I play that back for the doctor and ask, do you actually charge differently by location in the mouth? The answer is almost always no. So then why is the front desk saying that? They're stalling for time, and their better move is simply acknowledging the question honestly, then pivoting to asking their own questions and building rapport, understanding what's actually going on with this specific person.
Jeff Santone: What I tried to instill in my own front desk was this: your title might be receptionist or new patient coordinator, but you're not just customer service. Someone is calling because they need our help, your job is to find out why, and to do that, you have to actually take control of the conversation. The moment they call in and immediately fire off a question, they're the one in control. You need a strong enough acknowledgment to earn their patience so you can ask your own questions first.
Jeff Santone: The most common questions right out of the gate are usually insurance related, do you take my plan, are you in network, and the front desk is almost always trying to avoid saying any version of no, since any no tends to end the call immediately. I've also seen it go sideways when someone without insurance gets steered into a whole conversation about the office's in-house membership plan instead of just being invited in. Just get me in the door, that's really all the caller wants at that point.
Jeff Blumberg: You mentioned earlier that most offices don't make it easy to actually become a new patient, what did you mean by that?
Jeff Santone: To their credit, I'd say a solid 20 to 25 percent of offices do offer a free consult. But most of those same offices still charge for the X-ray, which ends up feeling like a bit of a bait and switch, since the consult isn't actually free if X-rays are required and billed separately. In a lot of cases the patient already has X-rays, especially now that everything's digital and easy to send over. My own approach was, if you're going to offer a free consult, make the X-ray free too, since the doctor is very likely going to retake it anyway regardless of what the patient brings in. One or two digital images costs the practice next to nothing.
Jeff Santone: The real reason most offices don't do this isn't cost, it's that the front desk was never explicitly authorized to make that call. It doesn't need to be advertised publicly, but the front desk needs to genuinely know, in their back pocket, that this is an approved option. This applies even to second opinion callers, and we talk about this in our sales seminars too, a second opinion patient is actually easier to close than a completely new one. Taking one or two X-rays is a small ask in exchange for that opportunity.
Jeff Santone: When I've asked doctors directly, if you knew this caller needed four crowns and an ortho case, would you have just let them come in for free? The answer is always yes. So why isn't the front desk empowered to make that same call themselves? Usually because they're worried about getting in trouble for authorizing something without explicit permission, and that fear is often justified, since if a front desk staffer waives a fee once and the resulting patient turns into a problem case, they hear about it, and they never make that call again. That's why this has to be a clear, explicit practice policy from ownership, not something the front desk is left guessing about.
Jeff Blumberg: That makes sense, obviously a standard new patient exam still gets billed normally, or covered by a new patient special if you're running one, but for something like this, a caller not necessarily in pain but genuinely interested in a second opinion, there's real value in just getting them in the door.
Jeff Santone: Exactly, that's really where I see this go wrong most often, the front desk simply isn't empowered or trained to take control of the conversation, so they respond in ways that back them into situations they can't get out of, and their only remaining move is trying to schedule the person without ever actually answering their real questions, which, unsurprisingly, usually doesn't result in a scheduled appointment either.
Jeff Blumberg: So point seven was finding out the patient's actual problem. Point eight?
Jeff Santone: Point eight: did they actually attempt to schedule the appointment?
Jeff Blumberg: And point nine?
Jeff Santone: Point nine is a bit more subjective: were they genuinely pleasant throughout the call? Helpful, accommodating, warm, versus rushed, curt, or short. Every doctor listening to their own calls needs to mentally separate themselves from the fact that it's their own practice and grade it as if it belonged to someone else. Would you actually hire this person based on this call alone?
Jeff Santone: We actually run this exercise at the New Patient Workshop, I'll play what's hands down the worst mystery call we've recorded, and have the room grade it live. When we get to the pleasantness question, I'll ask for a simple thumbs up, thumbs down, or thumbs in the middle. Out of ten people in the room, maybe five give a thumbs down, three give a middle rating, and two actually give a thumbs up, even on a call where the receptionist is genuinely rude and cuts the caller off repeatedly.
Jeff Santone: So I always call that out directly, to the people giving a thumbs up or middle rating, would you actually hire this person based on what you just heard? Almost always, no. So why the thumbs up? That's the mental shift every doctor needs to make when grading their own calls.
Jeff Santone: And there are legitimate reasons someone can sound unpleasant on a given call, a bad day, three people standing in front of them at once, a genuine staffing shortage where they're answering phones while also running the sterilizer. But you're listening for patterns over time, if someone who's normally great starts consistently sounding different under pressure, that tells you something about what's actually happening at that front desk in those moments.
Jeff Blumberg: Since you've done so many of these, how often does the person answering actually have to put you on hold to handle something else?
Jeff Santone: About 20 percent of the time, especially if I push for a specific price, they'll often need to step away to grab that information.
Jeff Blumberg: Do you find a lot of them are clearly multitasking, checking someone out at the front desk while talking to you?
Jeff Santone: Constantly, you can hear it, other phones ringing in the background that nobody else is picking up, which tells you this person is the only one covering the phones at that moment, and they're probably feeling that pressure.
Jeff Blumberg: That's worth flagging on its own, separate from grading the actual call content, since it points to a staffing or workflow issue rather than a training issue.
Jeff Santone: Right, and that's genuinely valuable context when you're reviewing these calls.
Jeff Blumberg: So that's nine of the ten points. What's the tenth?
Jeff Santone: Point ten is simple: pass or fail, did the caller actually get scheduled?
Jeff Blumberg: And you're not just adding these up into one score, you've got a broader scoring system behind it.
Jeff Santone: Right, we run it through a fuller scoring model that lands somewhere on a one to a hundred scale. Which means you can have someone who does almost everything well and still somehow fails to get the appointment booked, and you can just as easily have someone who misses several of the earlier points but still manages to schedule the caller anyway.
Jeff Blumberg: And you're not grading off one single call, you're looking for a pattern.
Jeff Santone: Always a pattern. When I reviewed my own team's calls, there was consistently something specific someone struggled with or didn't know how to handle, and once I identified that pattern, I could drill specifically on that one gap instead of retraining everything from scratch.
Jeff Blumberg: That makes a lot of sense. And I know we survey this at the seminar every year, how many doctors or office managers are actually listening to their own calls regularly.
Jeff Santone: Roughly half the room has listened at all, and maybe one in a hundred and fifty is doing it weekly. It genuinely doesn't take long. If you listen to five calls that scheduled and five that didn't each week, patterns start showing up almost immediately, and you can even break it down by staff member depending on who's answering.
Jeff Blumberg: All marketing really does is generate a phone call or an inquiry, that's it. What happens next determines whether that turns into an actual new patient. You could have the best marketing campaign in the world and still lose most of its value right at the front desk, which quietly wrecks your return on investment and your true acquisition cost per patient. And the good part is, this is genuinely fixable, most receptionists want to improve, nobody's aiming for a 23 percent conversion rate on purpose, they want to be at 50, 60, 70, 80 percent.
Jeff Santone: Right, there's real willingness there, which makes it especially frustrating how much money just quietly disappears through this gap. And if you're mishandling your most valuable call, the new patient call, chances are you're handling plenty of other calls poorly too, existing patients, referrals, even vendors, which shapes your broader reputation. If word gets around that calling your office feels unpleasant, that follows you well beyond just lost new patients.
Jeff Santone: My honest recommendation: review calls weekly, randomly sample your new patient calls to start, then expand from there once you've built the habit.
Jeff Blumberg: And if any of you listening would like Jeff or someone on his team to run a mystery call on your own practice and give you a real grade, there's a link for that free service on the episode page. Just fill it out, and you'll get a call from someone posing as a prospective patient, though if you've heard this episode, you may need to get a little creative to keep your team from catching on.
Jeff Santone: Right, can't just ask how much a crown costs anymore if the team's been listening.
Jeff Blumberg: This was awesome, Jeff, thank you so much for walking through this.
Jeff Santone: Thanks for having me, always good to do another one of these with you.
Jeff Blumberg: We'll also include this full 10-point criteria as a downloadable checklist alongside the new patient call log, the intake form, and links to the mystery call service and the New Patient Workshop, all on the episode webpage. Jeff, thanks again for being here. And folks, if you have any questions about MGE, find us online at mgeonline.com, or call 800-640-1140. That's all for this week, we'll see you at the next episode, take care.