Dos and don'ts for staff training

Use scripts to achieve maximum operating efficiency

Nearly all daily activities in a dental practice involve person-to-person communications. This means that the implementation of management and marketing systems depends on dialogues between team members and patients, and the efficiency of the systems depends on what is said (or not said). Scripting is therefore extremely important to a practice's success.

Script every routine interaction with patients. Excellent scripts are based on the underlying systems and draw on day-to-day experiences with patients. By allowing for all likely scenarios staff members will encounter, scripting defines the verbal path to the right conclusions. As team members master and personalize the scripts they use -- through role-playing and actual interactions with patients -- improvements in practice efficiency and increases in production will follow naturally.

Don't expect staff members to memorize scripts verbatim. Scripts look like a screenplay or dialogue in a novel. However, they are not lines to be memorized, they are guidelines. By role-playing the parts in scripts, team members learn what the objectives are and what points to cover. Then they can make those points in their own words.