Are you paying enough attention to your client lounge?

This week on Marketing Monday, Angus Pryor, the founder of Dental Profit System, will be talking about how to make full use of your client lounge.

You can watch the video or read the transcript below.

Transcript: Are you paying enough attention to your client lounge?

Well hello entredentists. Angus Pryor, creator of the Dental Profit System, co-author of the Amazon question book, The Better Business Book, bringing you this week’s Marketing Monday, the weekly show designed to boost the marketing at your dental practice.

Now today we’re in part of our series looking at internal marketing. The topic for today is client lounge. If you’re in any kind of retail space than some kind of waiting area for your clients is probably necessary, isn’t it?

A friend of mine, she made the comments that rather than call it a waiting room it’s better if it’s like a client lounge and I thought, “She’s absolutely right,” because I don’t know if this is actually true, but I believe it is.

Now, in terms of your client management, of course, this is a marketing show rather than a show about customer service. I’ve got DavidMofit on the call now and he’s an expert in the space of customer service, you wouldn’t go wrong if you’re dealing with David. But from a marketing point of view, there are quite a lot of things you can do in your client lounge.

The one thing that I would ask you to do no matter what you do is if you have a retail space, this is your homework. I want you to go to … Just leave, get out of the space, and I want you to imagine that when you come back you are looking at your own business up fresh like you’re a first time client.

Little insight, we’ve just sold our house. The house is sold but it’s not … Haven’t moved out yet. We’re busy looking at new houses. It’s like each time you walk into the place talk about the full spectrum. We have walked in some places which have been amazing like you walk in there and you’re immediately in love with them.

Then we’ve walked in some places which have been regular rat holes. You just walk in there and you go, “Oh, I hate the vibe, I hate the smell.” Don’t let your retail space stink, get one of those …I’ve got one sitting here in my office, have nice smells and stuff. That definitely, all of that stuff affects the vibe. You want people to come in and feel as relaxed as possible because let’s face it, if they’re going to the dentist a lot of people are not super relaxed.That’s the first thing, client lounge. I prefer to call it client lounge rather than a waiting room.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is your TV. Now not everybody’s got a TV and there are opposing schools of thought on this, but initially, my reaction was, “I don’t think you should do too much for the client lounge because hopefully you’re running on time and people are not waiting.” But there are of course eventualities, people turn up and they say, “Can you please, please fit me in,” and then they might have to take a seat.

The other scenario is, I was talking to a dentist last week and they talked about the fact that a couple might come in together and one might go first and one might go second. So having something in the client lounge is good. Now TVs are all well and good, but frankly, if I had to sit through another episode of daytime TV I’d be ready … My stress levels would be raising. You can get some recorded material for your TV.

Is Channel D, channeld.com. D for dentistry. I’m not associated with the company, I’m not affiliated in any way, but I’ve seen this stuff and this for me … First of all, it’s … What is Channel D? It’s kind of a range of animations and so, it’s quite entertaining, you watch it, but underneath the animations, there are some dental messages, which is really good.

Of all of the stuff that I’ve seen people playing on TVs and waiting rooms, this is the one thing where people will actually come onto the surgery and say, “Hey, I saw the video, I need to get one of those blah, blah, blah.” For me that is worth its weight in gold. In fact, I could almost have this entire show just talking about Channel D, because having something there, but particularly this stuff.

The surgeries that I go into or the practices I go into, the TV’s, if it is dental related it tends to be images of implants being screwed in and this sort of stuff. That’s freaking awesome for dentists, but not for patients, not for clients. Whereas this is one where I found it really fun, easy to watch and there’s an underlining message there, so that would be the first thing I’d say.

The second thing, I would say, is around posters, banners, framed stuff. I used to be a rep once upon a time and some places I’ve gone to, and basically, they had … They’d let reps put up posters and stuff. I think working with industry’s great and if they’ve got posters that help you do what you need to do then absolutely partner with them.

But just be really careful, I’ve seen some of the most tacky, horrible things where the reps have sort of been left to their own devices and things have got messy. For me that just doesn’t work. Even if you’ve got a real upmarket practice there’s no reason why you can’t have this stuff done tastefully. Get it done in a frame, get a graphic designer, a marketing agency involved. Look, frankly I’m not here to push posters and banners for us for a few hindered dollars or whatever cost to get produced, but we have produced some very nice stuff and nice stuff is possible.

You can imagine having a poster where it’s mainly about the smiling face and so on. Whatever condition is but sort of fairly subtly message and there’s your branding there. So when you first look at it, you go, “Oh, that’s a nice picture,” and then maybe there’s a bit of messaging. It can be done tastefully and there’s no reason why you can’t do it yourself in the sense of getting it actually where the branding is yours rather than the branding thing, the branding of one of the companies.

So that’s something to bear in mind there. Client lounge rather than waiting room, I think that will change your mindset. Go for a walk, come back and look it with a fresh set of eyes. Get the friends to come in and look at it with a fresh set of eyes. What do you need to change to improve that experience?

Get your TV happening. Have at look at Channel D. I believe they’ve got some kind of free trial. As I say, I almost don’t care how they do it, but anecdotally over the number of dentists say to me it’s the one where people come in and actually say, “Hey, I saw that thing on the TV in the waiting room, I need to get that done.” And then thirdly posters and banners and such, you can actually get them branded for your own practice or partner with your suppliers, but you can do it tastefully.

Well I think that’s it for today. We’re gonna continue our series on internal marketing next week and after that, we’ve got a rapid fire bunch of the top 10 mistakes that dentist make. Otherwise, from me, Angus Pryor, signing off. See you next time on Marketing Monday.