Paul Gough

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Wowing Patients on the Front Desk: What Ella is Doing to be an INSTANT Success

“Our front desk person is essential to the success of our business. She is the first point of contact from incoming calls. If she does well with the calls to build trust and show value in what we do, we have a very warm lead coming for a DV.” 

For Michael Chin, of P3 Athletic based in Milpitas, CA, the role of his new front desk superstar cannot be underestimated.  

He already admits that, as part of his team of 3, he is wearing too many hats – so having Ella as his front desk alongside his ops manager is absolutely vital. 

With a solid and thorough onboarding process in operation , Ella has fitted into the business seamlessly.  

Michael added: “Since her role is for retention, she is also in contact with our paying clients throughout their care with us to make sure they have everything they need to succeed and make them feel like we’re always thinking of them. 

“As Paul always says, the fortune is in the follow up and she is responsible for that, something I was rarely doing with my busy schedule. It’s shown to be beneficial with some initial evaluations (paid sessions) booked after several weeks following an unconverted DV. 

“Ella works along myself mostly and sometimes with the ops manager as she builds some systems and organization. Her role has everything to do around her big three.  She manages the front desk.

1: Convert 75% phone calls to DVs.

2: Keep schedule > 90% full.

3: Have NPS > 8.  

“She has a positive outlook and positive energy to her which is important to what we want our clients to experience. Since she is early on in the process (2 months), keeping that positivity at times does get challenged as some calls don’t go the way she wants.  

“But she is very determined to get better and I make sure we have time for coaching/training to improve her skills and build her confidence. However, she is already doing a great job at keeping the schedule full.” 

Utilizing the training offered by Coach Barry is also proving a useful commodity. There’s a support system in place for anyone in Ella’s position who may be new to the role and the business.  

It’s a proven and trusted formula, one taken on by many of you and your staff over time.  

Michael said: “Part of her training has been going over the Front Desk Superstar modules. She just had her first call with Barry and from what I can tell it was extremely helpful. He helped her talk through some challenges she has faced on calls, and as always with the PG team, got down to the root cause of the problems. 

“I can tell it also motivated her, as she soon came back to me with a presentation/plan on what we can add and change to our nurturing process following scheduled DVs since we have a long waiting list. 

“When it comes to scorecards, she’s well aware of the big three that she’ll be measured on, and we talk about those consistently in our 1 to 1 meetings. She’s been very proactive and created her own scoreboard to keep track of leads/conversions.” 

And Michael made the most of information and knowledge shared in his Progress Group to help with her arrival and introduction.  

He said: “When it came to her onboarding, I tried at first to focus most on the WHY of everything. From why we exist, why she’s here, why we’re cash pay/OON, why we communicate a certain way, why insurance companies suck, etc. 

“I found this really helpful and could see her buy into the business and her role as we went through these.  

“Jamie Bovay, in our awesome Progress Group, posted a 12-week outline that I modelled our process on and it helped a lot.  

“Also, the front desk role can involve a lot of tasks and responsibilities, but I remember Paul saying that most people will take the first things you train them on as the most important.  

“With that in mind, we trained a lot on the patient experience and phone conversations. Ella’s previous roles have been in consumer facing jobs such as retail, food/bar server and hostess.  She enjoys interacting and connecting with people and had a high emotional IQ which I thought was important for this role. She was also able to move to lead host within one month of her previous job which I thought showed her willingness to learn and ability to work with staff and customers well.” 

Ella graduated college in 2020 with a degree in English. She worked for around 2 years in retail, 2 years cashier/server, and 6 months as a lead hostess before she joined Michael in early April. She found the job ad on Indeed and was attracted to the role because it is customer centric.   

Michael added: “My first sequences in the automated hiring funnels asked her to share something fun that she did in the past couple months. She told me she really thought that was I awesome that I wanted to know more about her besides the standard resume info. 

“She handles all inbound calls and outbound calls that come in from fax or our website opt-in, she puts all client data in Keap and our EMR, She greets / talks / checks in with our clients, manages the schedule, receives payments and records it, sends out receipts / superbills, responds to email questions and requests, remains in contact with and nurtures our leads with email / text / phone calls.” 

Ella has already made a big impact with clients and is using her own initiative to keep clients happy and onside.  

Michael said: “Since we have a longer waiting list than we would actually like, Ella has been in contact with new clients about openings that occur and trying to get them in sooner than scheduled.  

“At a recent DV that converted, the client thanked her several times for doing everything she could to get him in sooner. He definitely noticed the effort and showed she cared about him, which I believe made a difference.  

“Also, she made it her own idea to write a handmade white board welcome sign when new clients come into the office.   

“Even through the face masks you can see it made them smile and several people have made comments about how welcoming it made them feel.” 

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