Dos and don'ts for team training: Follow the scripts to greater success

Scripted interactions with patients help control the relationship and ensure more consistent positive results. Most dentists, once exposed to the concept of scripting, understand its value. Yet even practices that have used it effectively often slip back into bad habits that undermine performance and lead to declining production, poor customer service and increasing stress.

Develop up-to-date scripts for operating all practice systems. Write scripts that guide team members through the effective use of each management and marketing system, step by step. Rather than allowing each team member to improvise, this approach determines what will be said and done to build value and motivate patients. Guesswork and individual shortcomings are replaced by proven behaviors that lead to predictable results.

Don't stop with writing scripts -- they must be mastered. A script is nothing if it is not followed correctly. To do this, team members must be trained. In regular monthly meetings, special meetings, and informal sessions during regular hours, review scripts carefully, explaining what to say and why. Then direct role-playing in which staff members practice their lines on each other until they have mastered the scripts they will use with actual patients.