Tag: costumer service

Learning Patience

Today I had the pleasure to see this 80 years old gentleman for the second time at the office. Yes, the second time. Few weeks ago I saw him for the first time to go over few treatment options. He had few questions then and some things to think about and also some financing to figure out.

I would have to say that I fell in love with him. He is so polite, so cute, he comes in prepare to take notes, asks great questions and he makes sure he leaves with all of his questions answered. He also has a very cute accent. I love listening to him.

Now, we do schedule an hour appointment to go over treatment options with our patients but this man had me in the office for an hour and a half the first time. His appointment ran over my lunch but I didn’t care, I wanted to make sure he was well taken care of.

When he was scheduled for the second meeting I made sure we scheduled an hour just to be safe even though normally 30 minutes is long enough to meet for the second time. Most of the questions are pretty much answered already at the first meeting. I’m glad I was proactive.

This appointment took another almost hour and a half. Again it ran over my lunch time but it didn’t matter because I needed him to be clear of whats going on with his dental care. He would ask the same questions over and over again to make sure he got it. He would make sure he is following every recommendation we are recommending. He wanted to make sure he is able to afford all treatment recommended.

It was such an honor to be the one helping him. You know why? Because this person seating in my chair could’ve been my dad or my grandfather and I would’ve wanted them to be treated the same way. I would have wanted the person take the time to listen, be patient and not felt taken advantage of. This is why I had such a wonderful time talking to him and making sure he is fully aware of everything.

He is so funny, he will pause and tell me little jokes about whatever will come to mind but he would always remember to go back to where we left off.

This is the first 80 year old man I meet that takes no medications. He tell his doctor when he make a recommendation to tell him how to prevent medical problem so he doesn’t have to take medications and he just follows the directions.

He goes to the hospital parking lot and walks every day. Sometimes more than once. You have no idea how much I have learned from him. Just because we are the knowledgeable provider does not mean patients just learn from us. This is not one way street for me. I learn from our patients too and one thing this man had showed me is patience. Not everyone process information the same way and believe it or not that’s has been a struggle for me. My brain process things pretty quickly and not everyone is the same.

I do practice patience every day. To the point that I have a lot of feedback from family, friends and co-workers telling me how well I do with patience. Believe me I don’t have much, ask people who are very close to me but I do work on it every day. I’m very cautious about it. There are so many things I master that you would think I’m very natural about it and thats not the case. Experience and hard work has helped me.

I encourage you to work on your patience today. People need you to be patient especially the elderly. It is not fair to disregard people’s feelings just because they are slower than you or because you are too busy. We live in a very busy world. Learn how to respectfully dismiss them or always schedule for a second meeting.

Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting.

-Joyce Meyer

God bless,

Janitza

Tell Me Why You Are Here Today

Part of my job is to seat down with patients and do an intake interview as to why they are in our office and see what it is they are looking for and how can we better help them get what they want.

I can say that I do love what I do and eventhough this is something I do not do full time is something I truly enjoy when I get to do it.

First I want to tell you that eventhough everyone that step in our office have a common purpose, everyone’s story is very different.

I often ask why do I work in a field that people hate. But at the same time I can relate to them because I have been in their shoes. The more I think about this and the more I tell myself not to take it personal still makes me wonder why? Why do you still come for help when you hate us so much? Yes “hate” such a strong word. They hate us, people tells me all the time “I hate you”, “I hate the dentist”.

The more questions I ask, the more I get to learn and hear that behind that strong word there is a story.

Today I am going to use the name of Pepe just to not mention the real name of the patient for confidentiality purposes.

Pepe came to the office after not being at the dental office for 25 years. Pepe was petrified of the dentist. Last time he remembers when he was at a dentist office was at 16 years old. Why that was the only time he remembers? Well, let me tell you why. It was the day he had a BAD EXPERIENCE. He was getting his wisdom teeth extracted and felt every little movement the dentist made while working on him, but he was numbed, he couldn’t understand why. That experience itself made him “hate us”. This awful experience prevented him from going to the dentist and he went to see a dentist just when he was having a problem and would ask for the teeth be extracted so he didn’t have to deal with anything else.

Remember when I mentioned earlier that everyone always have a story. I wasn’t to convinced that was the full story. Just by the look in his eyes. I am never afraid to ask questions, it always takes me to the bottom of things. My family always make fun of me because I sure ask a lot of questions. I am also not embarrassed to accept the truth but it is necessary to ask.

Well, I decided to ask him about his country. Pepe had an accent so I wanted to know where he was from. Pepe replied that he was from Iraq and that he has been in the states for 2 years now and he loves it.

Pepe is married. Has three children and is a journalist. He deals a lot with the public. Pepe was bullied when he was a child at school because of how his teeth looked. He feels absolutely embarrassed and he would like to be able to eat healthy because he would like to live a lot of years. I went back to his childhood and I wanted to know what it was like to be made fun of. He replied it was not fun, but that made him tough. He was able to hide all of those emotions and later in adulthood didn’t care. Ok, but why didn’t he care? I find that hard to believe. There is a reason he is in my chair today. Right?

I’m very excited for Pepe. I am not sure if he would pursue anything with us. He came for a free consultation to see what his options are and get some prices. He wanted to discuss with his wife if treatment in our office is something he can afford before getting any commitment. I don’t care if he goes to another office to seek dental care. I want him to purse his happiness and that consist of a new smile. I hope he comes back to us, but I also keep in mind not everyone can afford us.

Now let me tell you one thing I am supper proud of, and that is Pepe. Pepe showed me his vulnerable side and as a man I respect that. I let him know how proud I am of him for making the decision to come to our office. I know that was a big step for him.

If you think that bullying does not affect people you are wrong. People have feelings and if you are reading me today please don’t make fun of other people. I encourage you to not put people down. Be more compassionate. This is Pepe’s story. He wants to eat well and smile big and be proud of his smile. He wants to replace his missing teeth with implants and have a fixed prosthesis. I hope I get to see Pepe again. I also hope you do not get to be that one person that made fun of Pepe in school.

If you want to have a nice smile, eat better, get a new job, gain more confidence, date, be in pictures, and have a better health style please seek help there are a lot of people like me, actually there are a lot of people like us while we get to be accused of being bad, rough and careless, the reality is that we are very nice people with a wonderful heart trying to help you get the smile you deserve.

God Bless You

Janitza

Dental Implants Lunch and Learn Smiles For Life

We had a great lunch and learn with Max Williams our Implant Representative from Neodent.

Our office does so many implant surgeries that it is very imperative we keep up and learn new things from single implant placement to full arch implant surgeries, implant sizes and everything else that is beneficial for all of us to be familiar with.

Max was also doing the same thing at our Staunton location on Monday and we are very thankful for his time and commitment to us.

No matter where you are today or where you want to be in the future, Neodent have a course to support you. Their belief is educating you with real life experiences, which is why their courses are developed to be in a live surgery or hands on patient enviroment. We have learned and grown a lot with this company.

You can visit our website

http://www.smilesforlifeonline.com

God Bless,

Jani

Crown Council Annual Event

Crown Council is a place where fellow dentists and team members genuinely celebrate and encourage their fellow practitioners success. Their principles and fundamentals are essential to making any practice successful.

This is my second year and I enjoyed their speakers as much as I did last year. One tradition that I started is to purchase their books at their registration day.

If you are one of the countless people who don’t make a habit of reading regularly you may be missing out.

Everything you read fills your head with new bits of information, and you never know when it might come in handy. Food for thought. Knowledge can never be taken away from you.

The outward Mindset by The Arbinger Institute will be teaching me how to change lives and transform organizations.

The ROI of Kindness by Biro and Mac Anderson will be teaching me how to help me teach others how to put a little kindness in our culture. My goal is to help others make the world a better place.

The apprentice model by Dr. David Phelps DDS will be teaching me how to help young leaders to have an exceptional life if they are willing to stand out from the crowd and aim for higher than average.

Lastly I have the Finish book by Jon Acuff, excellent and funny speaker. This book will help me to give myself the gift of done. When you are a leader one of your biggest hopes is that your team will finish its goals, but with thousands of distractions it gets harder and harder every year. I’m hoping this book helps me help others fix that problem.

Lastly I have my notebook where all of my notes were taken. Lots of wisdom is written down there and I just need to continue to get better so I can help my team and our patients.

God Bless,

Jani

What Being A Good Human Being Is:

I shared this with my secret pal at work. I had given her a cup that says be a good human. Do not get me wrong, she is a wonderful human being but we need those reminders all the time, especially when we work with the public. Let me be more specific, especially when we work in the dentistry field. I challenged her to share. We do need to be better human being. Then I decided to share the same with my front team and now I am sharing this with you.

Being a good person means more than just doing things for others… In order to truly be good, you will have to consider what ‘goodness’ means to you. Perhaps this means doing good for others, or simply being an honest and kind person.

Being a good person means more than just doing things for others. You have to accept and love yourself before you can put positive energy into the universe. Philosophers have been debating what is good and what is not for centuries, and many people find that’s more complicated than just being kind. While every person’s journey is different, being good has a lot to do with discovering yourself and your role in the world. In order to truly be good, you would have to consider what goodness means to you.

Use some of the following tips to help yourself be a better person.

Improve Yourself: Determine what being a good person means to you personally.

1. Choose a role model

2. Stop comparing yourself to others

3. Love yourself

4. Be yourself

5 Pray and/or meditate

6. Make small changes

7. Review your goals every day

Have a Positive Attitude: Try to look at the bright side of things.

1. Do an act of charity for someone else

2. Make a point to make the world a better place every time you leave the place of your dwelling

3. Slow down

4. Practice Forgiveness

5. Be honest

Make these small gestures a daily habit. Doing simple things, such as smiling at someone or holding the door open for a stranger, will help you become a better person. Soon enough, these small acts of kindness will become a habit that you don’t even have to think about it.

1. Be empathetic

2. Accept everyone around you

3. Control your anger

4. Compliment people

5. Be a better listener

6. Celebrate other people’s victories and good qualities

7. Be a role model

8. Share

Respect everyone

God Bless,

Jani

I was looking for the Perfect Dress and I Found the Perfect People

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In 2016 I decided to compete for a beauty pageant in California thanks to a friend of mine who nominated it me. I have never done one of those before, growing up my mom put me in modeling school which I loved very much. I always liked to be in the runway, learn about fashion, learn how to carry myself in public and learn about business etiquette. Since I enjoyed all of that I took dancing classes and participated in different talent shows and plays. I missed doing all of that, it was my passion growing up. When the opportunity about being in a beauty pageant araised I was thrilled, it was a good new adventure for me. The pageant I was going to compete for was Women of Achievement and I was representing my second home, the state of Virginia. This particular pageant is not all about beauty, is about a venue for single and married women of all ages to attend networking events, an Annual Leadership Luncheon and National Pageant awards.

There were many things to get ready for but the first thing I wanted to have out of the way was the prefect dress. I didn’t know of many places to go to buy a new night gown for the pageant, so the first thing I did was to google for places were I could go to in my town. The first place I went to had very nice dresses. As soon as I walked in I felt like I was in heaven, dresses everywhere. Since I didn’t know where to start I asked one of the ladies that worked there to help me with different type of dresses and she told me to go to the back of the store and find what I was looking for. First at all I didn’t know what size I would wear on a night gown, it would’ve been nice if someone could’ve guided me but that didn’t happen. I was with my brother and my fiancee, I wanted them to help me pick a good dress for me. I picked few dresses hoping I had the right sizes and proceeded to go to the fitting room. Once I had the first dress on I came out of the fitting room and called my fiance and my brother and the lady almost lost her mind because men were not supposed to be that close to the fitting room. I didn’t know the rules and also I didn’t like the way she said it to them. Hey, I didn’t see no signs or anything so how are we supposed to follow the rules? I think she could have used a different tone of voice to convey the message. My fiancee and brother left the store and decided to wait outside. I changed into my outfit and decided to leave. Their customer service to me really sucked.

Next day I decided to go to another boutique, this time I just took my brother. My fiancee didn’t want to go to another bad experience so he decided to stay. I wished he would had gone because this customer service was much better. The owner as well as her employees gave the best customer service anyone could ask for, from there on I became very good friend with her and her employees. I found the dresses I was looking for, I even found accessories as well as shoes. I was very happy with this boutique. Since I became a very good friend with them the owner even asked me to work with them when there was someone who wanted to be off or whenever they needed me as a bridal consultant. It was a great experience, I learned a lot about wedding dresses and pageant dresses. I was also invited to participate in bridal shows and the owner even helped me with some coaching for my pageant.

I would have never imagined that from one bad experience I was going to be taken to an extraordinary experience where I would make friends for life and learn something different from the field that I am in. The following year I participated again at the same pageant and everything I needed for it I bought there. The owner of the boutique gained a customer for life. This is exactly what happens when you give extraordinary customer service.

If you work with the public always give extraordinary costumer service. Remember that you either represent your own company or someone else’s and customers deserve to be treated good. Put yourself in a customers shoes. Would you like to be treated bad, unkindly, without respect? I really don’t think so… When you go somewhere you do not get good costumer service, your client or potential client will go somewhere else and you don’t know what kind of sale or friend for life you are losing. I’m glad I went through that bad experience because thanks to that experience I learned a lesson and I met wonderful people with a wonderful heart. I do not settle for less and you should not either. I always expect the best of the best and you should to.

Here I leave you with few tips about costumer service:

  • “Don’t try to tell the customer what he wants. …
  • “Assumptions are the termites of relationships.” …
  • “Always hear your customers…
  • “Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. …
  • “Always ask open ended questions.” …
  • “Ease your customers‘ pain.”

“I think it’s important to always keep professional and surround yourself with good people, work hard, and be nice to everyone”.

-Caroline Winberg

God Bless,

Janitza