Küster Dental Weblog

Today I’m going to have to vent a little.  As the purpose of this blog is to discuss dental office design and interior branding concepts, I rarely get worked up enough about a topic to rant on it here, but yesterday’s episode really got under my skin. 

I’ve been testing some new software and decided to finally move forward and purchase it, so on Wednesday I got online and found that a local store actually had the best price on the software.  I made a special trip to the Westside of town on Thursday to pick up the software as none of the store’s north side locations had any copies in stock.  Thursday evening I started installing the software.  Right from the start I had difficulties getting the installation process to work correctly and I kept getting error messages.  I finally got too tired, gave up and figured I’d try again on Friday morning.  Which I did.  Still with no success.  I ended up re-scheduling an appointment as a result.  My conclusion was that the disc had to have a flaw in it because I’d tried just about everything I could think of to install the software with no luck.  It even failed when I tried installing it in Safe Mode.

Now, all of that is just background to the heart of my story.  When I go into the store on Friday afternoon to ask about exchanging the disc, I am greeted with a completely condescending attitude.  The customer service person’s posturing and attitude was one that I could not possibly understand the complexities involved in installing software and I should leave my laptop for them to install it for me.  Okay, I’m not an information technology specialist.  I admit that.  But, I’m also not a complete moron.  I know how to install software.  I’ve been doing so when this particular customer service rep was still in diapers!  Plus, he had no interest in listening to any of the things I had attempted to install the software.  He only stood there with glazed over eyes and dismissed my explanations with a wave of his hand. 

The second element of Interior Branding is Human Interaction.  I’ve written several articles on examples of exceptional human interaction in the past.  Those are much more fun.  Every dental office, and business for that matter, needs to be very aware of how the staff interacts with clients and with each other.  This is not something that can be left to chance or taken lightly.  The dentist needs to decide precisely how he or she wants the staff to interact with clients.  As part of the dental office design this needs to be written down, scripted if necessary, and always trained on.  Time and time again I see businesses and dental clinics that merely hire staff and leave them to their own devices to decide what appropriate interaction with clients is. 

Everyone comes with their own set of experiences and training and this background may not fit with the branding you want for your dental office.  Remember, your brand is the emotional response people have when they think of your practice.  You definitely want this to be a positive emotion.  Anger, frustration, and offence certainly are not ones that are going to get clients to keep their appointments or refer their family and friends to your dental office.