Front Desk Mistakes – Are Your Admin Team Doing This?

With the new “Ultimate  Front Desk” training seminar  firmly in my thoughts – I can’t help but raise one  of my old time pet hates at front desk.

This all time classic  “front desk disaster script” is still incredibly common – even  in sharp health businesses who should know better and stamped it out ages  ago.

This script relates  specifically to what the admin team say when the client returns to the front  desk at the end of their treatment session.

I am sure you know the  script I am about to blow up about – so here goes:

These simple few words –  still used in many health businesses across all areas – continue to be the  single most expensive phrase your front desk team  use.

Since when does the  patient decide when they are coming back to see the health  professional?

Is that not why the  patient came to see you and your team in the first place – so you could diagnose  the problem and outline the optimal recovery plan?

So how does it come to be  – that the patient is now deciding the plan?

I was in the waiting room  of a seemingly well run allied health clinic last week – and in the space of 15  minutes – 4 patients came to the front desk after their  appointments and were asked this very question.

“Are you  re-booking?”

Of these 4 clients – 2  did book a follow up appointment – but were unsure of exactly when they were  meant to return – so they just picked a day for later the next week – at the  prompting of the admin person.

And 2 just said  “No” – so nothing else was said.

I am sure the owners of  this business would be absolutely staggered at how much money these few words  are costing them each and every year.

But even worse  than that.

What about the  poor client outcomes brought about by not booking follow up  appointments at the right time to allow full recovery.

This is just plain poor  patient care.

Well for a start – do what  I did at my health businesses:

Ban the admin team from  asking that question  – full stop.

Then make the following  mandate:

“No patient is to  return to the front desk to arrange their follow up sessions without the  therapist coming out with them – so they are able to verbally hand over the  follow up booking plan to the admin team“.

Simple.

This way the handover  discussion regarding follow up bookings takes place between the health  professional and the admin team – not between the admin team and the  patient – who are both unqualified to make this decision.

Make sense?

Now for those  professionals who say they are too busy to come to the front desk with each  patient – the absolute least you can do is give the patient a small  “booking slip” with the details of the actual future sessions  required.

Then the admin teams job  is to simply ask for the “booking slip” and make the required  appointments.

I encourage all health  business owners to quickly review their front desk re-booking procedures to  ensure this area of your business is water tight and effective.

This simple modification  can make and save you hundreds of thousands of dollars each  year – do not let it slide.

If  you are interested in  how to increase the profits and productivity from your front desk team then make  sure you register for my upcoming seminar:

 “The  Ultimate Front Desk – How to Maximize Profits and Productivity from Your  Administration Team “.

This great event will  cover all front desk duties – with special focus on scripting, call conversion,  re-booking, time management and cancellation reduction.

Essentially the key areas  that cost you money each and every day in your health  business.

You can see  full details of the course and register you and your team by  going to the link below:

I encourage  all health business owners to register themselves and their admin  teams immediately.

From the  quality of the content we will be presenting – this event will be – without  doubt –  the most productive and profitable single day in your  business lives.

To assist you  in registering your full admin team to this event – and attending yourself – you  will see on the information page a special coupon code that reduces the  per attendee rate when you book 2 or more seats on the one  order.

You can see  full details of this event and the multi-seat coupon codes  at:

Best Wishes