Maybe you can relate…

You just finished treating a patient and have a few minutes to grab a bite to eat before your next patient. So you walk over to grab a quick snack and get a drink. As you’re eating you overhear a call with a potential new patient. The patient was pretty much ready to book but just had some general questions like whether their first visit was covered by insurance.

The caller says “I’ll call you back” and hangs up without your front desk even asking for an appointment!

Your blood is boiling and you want to shout at your front desk. Especially since competition is fierce with all the new clinic startups and you can’t afford to lose any more patients. Plus you spent all your hard earned money on advertising to get them to call… only to lose them because your front desk forgot to ask for the appointment.

I see this problem all the time when we are training the front desk and it’s one of the top phone objections they face. However, there’s a proven and highly effective script I give to all my clients and what clients pay me thousands to train their front desk to increase their booking rate. Allowing you to book more patients, increase your revenue, and stop those patients from going to your competitors instead.

I talk about it inside my brand new training tool kit “How to Book a Patient When They Say I Will Call You Back.”. You can get it by clicking here.

Many front desk staff just don’t realize they’re causing your clinic to lose patients by making these small but costly mistakes. Whether you do Chiropractor marketing, Physical Therapy marketing, or Healthcare marketing it’s expensive. You can’t afford to waste money because of mistakes that can be easily corrected in a minute.

When I speak at high ticket seminars and consult with clinic owners. They ask me this question all the time. “My front desk are good workers and I don’t want to lose them because it’s difficult to find good people.

But I see mistakes they make all the time on the phone that drives me crazy. I want to tell them but I’m afraid they’ll hate me for it or quit.

Then I have to spend all my valuable time finding another good person. Going through endless interviews. Then when I think I found a good one. I have to test and train them that many times causes me to lose a lot of money to see if they’re a good or bad fit. I really want to implement your techniques but how can I give them constructive criticism without them hating me or quitting?”

In this article, I’m going to reveal a simple Oreo Cookie Approach to providing constructive feedback that will make your front desk respect and love working for you.

When you provide constructive feedback in this way. You’ll have happier staff, book more appointments, and increase your bottom line.

I discovered this Oreo Cookie Approach through hiring 100s of staff for my 100+ clinics. I use this when I work with clinic owners. Plus our CallHero coaches use this to train front desk all the time to book more appointments

So let’s get started…

Our brains view criticism as a threat to our survival. When we receive criticism our brain will go out of its way to protect us even when it's true.

According to psychologist Daniel Goleman  “Threats to our standing in the eyes of others are remarkably potent biologically, almost as those to our very survival.”

That's why it's so important to give constructive criticism the right way that doesn't cause the brain to see it as a threat to their survival and cause them to hate you. Especially if you have millennials on staff who almost always have one foot out the door. And many will quit or slack off in an instant if you angry them.

That’s why the Oreo Cookie Approach is so effective. Here’s how it works:

First, you want to sandwich your corrections or critical feedback between two honest and positive statements.

For example, say you see your staff on the phone while a patient is trying to check out. They’re getting impatient.

Cookie layer 1:

"Alice, I really appreciate all the work you do. I know it's not easy working at the front desk. You've been doing a fantastic job."

Filling Layer:

"While you were on the phone, here are a couple things I caught when I was getting a snack. I noticed you hanged up without asking for appointment. Before you hang up, it’s best to ask for the appointment.

Moving forward I want you to say this, “I really recommend you see {Clinician's name]. He’s really good with [Patient Injury], [First Name]. We have tomorrow at 9 AM or Thursday at 2 PM available. Which of these appointments would work for you and we can get you booked in today”

What do you think?

Let's followup in a week and see how you are doing with the new scripts"

Cookie Layer 2:

"You are great with patients and I want everybody to experience how amazing our clinic is. I know you like helping our patients so imagine if you start asking for the appointment? We can help even more people in our community.

Can I count on you to do this?

I believe in you and I know you can do it!"

You see, the two cookie layers make the feedback not seem like criticism but as simple corrections that are easy to swallow.

Using this approach your staff won't hate you and just see it as a correction instead of criticism. They’ll be more likely to correct their mistake and not make that costly mistake again. Plus it will say a lot about you and they’ll appreciate the way you handled it.

Important Tip

"When I was an elite athlete, I had 100% trust in my coach. I bought into his program from day 1 and we achieved great things together because I knew he cared about my development and results as much as I did. Similarly, having that trusting relationship with your employees is KEY. Without it, even the nicest compliments will be brushed off or worse, come across as fake. A strained team dynamic will get you nowhere and that's why establishing a clinic culture that supports transparency and feedback is SO important"

Marie-Josee Le Jour, CallHero Coach

There you have it… the simple Oreo Cookie Approach to providing constructive feedback that will make your front desk respect and love working for you.

You may be wondering from the story above about how to book a patient when they say I’ll call you back. It’s quite simple really. It’s actually one of the top objections your front desk faces constantly… that can cost you thousands if not handled the right way.

In my front desk training tool kit “How to Book a Patient When They Say I Will Call You Back.” I reveal this proven and very effective patient save script that you can swipe and deploy in your clinic today.

This easy script will allow you to capture those patients who would have never called back and fled to your competitors instead.

You can get your copy here

Inside you’ll learn:

• The real reasons potential new patients don’t book appointments
• Two words you MUST say when a patient wavers about coming in
• What it really means when a caller says “I’ll call you back”
• How to keep the conversation going
• The complete script for overcoming the ‘Call you back’ objection – fits on one page so your staff will have it on hand when they need it.
• Rick’s story – how he went from frustrated and desperate about his clinic’s marketing to owning 3 multi-million dollar healthcare businesses
• Simple bonus training guide on how to implement the script with your staff

PS. Get your hands on the FREE "7 Secrets of a High-Revenue Front Desk" checklist to uncover strategies such as a 3-sentence follow-up script for missed bookings, turning around low-performing receptionists, and a simple motivation trick for boosting revenue and patient count. Click here to get the checklist.