Communication & Planning: A Dental Client Perspective

How important is communication and planning from the client perspective?

I’m currently a client, a client of my dental office. Communication and planning are foremost on my mind right now – and in my teeth. My opinion:

Communication and planning from the client perspective is paramount. A happy client produces a big smile!

Happy Client = Big Smile

It took a year and a half for me to begin the “mouth development” project. Three months ago, my dentist embarked on my case after the lengthy quotation and discovery process. The parallels to Web development are evident.

A dental office is like a web marketing agency:

Unique and individual client needs must first be analyzed prior to determining a cost.
There are no “one solution fits all needs” cookie-cutter packages.
The website/mouth owner needs to fully understand what is involved prior to beginning a design and development project. (Opening up my bite is a redesign of my mouth.)
The client/patient needs to know their estimated level of commitment and how much time they should schedule.
Possible best and worst-case scenarios must be communicated.
Estimates must cover costs, quality levels and expected outcomes.
The agency/dental office must schedule and to have time and resources available to ensure the project is completed on-time and within budget.

Pipeline Scheduling

The dentist didn’t prepare me for the amount of time that could be involved in opening my bite, nor did they plan their schedule for possible repeat appointments. Neither of us scheduled our calendars accordingly. Planning and discussions only revolved around “best-case scenario.”

The result: Hours and hours of dental visits, time away from work and chronic pain.

Much of this could have been avoided with proper pre-planning and pipeline scheduling among their team and with me.

Initial project launch was set for mid October, but it was delayed due to their lab. I rescheduled 4-5 hours for 1 appointment, as advised, two weeks later. I knew the process would take a 2-3 weeks and a few repeat visits. But the delay meant I would be in Las Vegas for a week at PubCon (search marketing conference). “Ah, that won’t matter…”

It did. The drawn-out procedure has cost me more money, chronic (hopefully temporary) pain and hyper sensitivity.

The initial procedure took 2 days with follow-up visits for 16 hours of appointments. (I went to PubCon exhausted.) To date, I’ve spent over 30 hours going back and forth to the dentist.

Resource Planning

Their work and references are superb, but not communicating and planning resources for the amount of time involved has resulted in a lot of frustration (and quite a few tears).

Pipeline Scheduling - Gantt Chart

The dental office is over 25 miles from my work, so scheduling time has been a challenge due to my new “day time” location. But they did their best to fit me in. However, sometimes the dentist worked on me, then another patient, then back. It has always been with a smile and reassuring comments. I, however, often sat idle, thinking about opportunity cost.

I have wondered,

“Why did you schedule something else if you knew my treatment was also on your schedule?”

I really like my dentists and the people in their office. They are compassionate, caring, friendly and extremely competent. But the “comedy of errors” has not been humorous. My life and my productivity apple cart is upset.

Web Marketing Dentists

I have more appreciation for the importance of agency communication and planning and more empathy from the client perspective.

Web marketers are in the same place as dentists.

It’s our role as “website dentists” to fully discuss treatment plans with our clients and help them understand what to expect.
It’s our job to schedule our time and resources, to ensure we do not take on a project until we have made room in our pipelines.
It’s our role to ensure the client doesn’t have to pay extra “rush lab fees” to finalize the project to meet a deadline.

Communicate

A phone call to your client can also make a world of difference.

This Saturday, my dentist called to see how I was doing and to give me an update of progress on their end with the lab. The call didn’t take away the pain, but it sure helped how I felt about the overall design and development project in my mouth!