When running a dental practice, it’s important to establish a good and healthy workplace environment. Not only is it better for you and your employees, but it also has a significant effect on your patients.
While a positive dental office culture tends to bring patients in through your doors, negative dental office culture can really harm your relationship with your clients. It can turn people away and potentially even cause you to go out of business.
If this worries you, you can rest easy. We’re here to help. Here are some ways in which dental office culture can affect your patients, and ways in which you can improve.
The culture of a workplace has the values and goals of the practice at heart. These values will show in the attitudes and behaviors of the employees, especially in their relationships with and treatment of clients.
Trust is one of the most important elements in a dental practice. Your patients need to trust you completely. So, if your patients see positivity and respect in the behaviors of your dental office staff, it will help them do so, and they’ll be way more likely to return.
A positive dental office culture will also increase productivity and encourage job retention and employee satisfaction. If there is positive and healthy workplace etiquette in place, your staff will look forward to coming in to work rather than dreading it.
You want your patients to feel as relaxed and comfortable as possible in the dentist’s chair. Many people are already afraid of going to the dentist, so doing all that you can to put your patients at ease is very important.
This starts with the dental office culture. Employees are more likely to treat patients with kindness if they themselves are already being treated as such. We reflect the behaviors that we are shown, so a positive work culture will result in positive treatment of patients.
Similarly, in positive dental office culture, patients will be more likely to treat your dental office staff with respect and dignity, since they’ll be giving back what they are shown. This makes for stronger and healthier relationships between employees and clients.
As mentioned, trust is incredibly important in dentistry. So, here are some methods to help build trust between you, your employees, and your clients by fostering a better dental office culture.
Since there is such a strong social aspect to dentistry, it’s important to have employees who can connect with patients and make them feel comfortable. So, make sure you hire people for your dental office who are not only proficient at the technical aspects of the job but who are also friendly and positive.
Try to remember and use the names of both employees and patients, and encourage your staff to do the same. It will create a relational and personal atmosphere and help everyone to trust one another.
It’s important to keep in mind that the point of a dental practice is to help and serve patients, not to suck money out of them. If your number one priority is the health and the best interests of your patient, you’re sure to have a constant stream of clients through your doors.
The dental office culture of your practice will affect both your patient’s experience and their relationship with you. So, it’s important that you cultivate a healthy workplace culture to keep your patients coming back.
Get started on building your dental office culture today!
