[music] Welcome to the Double Your Production Podcast with The Team Training Institute. The one place designed for dentists and their staff who want to grow their practices by following in the footsteps of those that have done it, who are in the trenches, who know exactly what you’re going through. And now, your leaders, the stars of the podcast, Dr. John Meis and Wendy Briggs. [music]
Hey listeners. Coming up here today with part two of Wendy's summit lecture Creating Disney Delight in Five Steps. So again, if you like what you hear today, come and find us at www.theteamtraininginstitute.com/podcast. There you can see some of our upcoming events if you'd like to catch us live or a way to get in contact with a coach and talk to us and see if The Team Training Institute is a good fit for you. So again, hope you enjoy Wendy's lecture and get this second half of Five Steps to Disney Delight.
We should have systems in place. One of the other big ideas that we shared was how they use specialized cards to celebrate and commemorate their patients. That's what we're talking about. These are structured opportunities to create an emotional connection. Store this patient intelligence in your software but then use the data. One of our big idea [finalist?] was the patient of the week, right? We see each team members-- what I love is a strategy where every single team member at the morning huddle chooses who will be their patient of the day. Each team member chooses one patient to celebrate. They look at the schedule like, "I'm going to celebrate this patient." And it's not like we have to go above and beyond, a bouquet of flowers is a super nice touch. But if we're going to do this for a-- if each team member has one patient for the day, it may be that they're just going to write what we've called TLC notes, tender loving care notes. They're just going to write a handwritten note to that patient and either give it to the patient when they come in, expressing appreciation and gratitude for the relationship, or mail it to their home, whichever you choose. That's what we're talking about. Above and beyond.
Maybe if it's a child, I'm going to make sure I twist them a balloon animal before they leave. It doesn't have to be ridiculously expensive or too over the top. But it's just a special moment. I'm going to take a moment and celebrate this patient in some way. Okay? Anniversary birthday cakes. We see them, some really great things. Now, those cards, those patients experience cards. What about the Viva cards that have the inspirational quotes on the front? Can do one patient a day that I'm going to make sure they get an inspirational card from us. Love that. Love that strategy. And then the certificates, right? To commemorate any moments in the office. What about celebrating long-term patients? "I looked at your record and I saw that you have been a patient [our?] practice for 10 years now. My goodness. We think that's something to celebrate. We appreciate your loyalty and want to give you this special token, or special gift, as a thank you." I mean, any patient would be delighted to get a special gift. Unexpected gifts go a long way, even if it's a logoed jacket. I was watching you guys. You guys get super excited to get a t-shirt for heaven's sake. Podium [inaudible] t-shirts and you were like, "Yes." Okay? And that's what we're talking about. Just unexpected gifts. It doesn't have to be super extravagant.
Lesson number four, pay attention to the details. Everything speaks, right? Everything speaks. So this is such a [fascinating thing?] I love when I'm studying Disney is the attention to the details are humbling to me because I'm like, I never would have thought of that. Did you know that outside of Main Street, all of the walkways in the park are painted this color? Did you know there's a reason for that? Did you know that Wall Disney got together with Kodak and determined that photos taken on this background would be more vibrant and full of color than simply black asphalt? That's why the walkways are that color. Hah. Did you know that in Main Street, when you look down at the ground, you will notice all sorts of details? Every tree is wrapped with these metal grates. Okay? And it says-- you know, Main Street, everything speaks. You've got to pay attention to the details. As you walk on these pathways and you get closer to Ariel's Lagoon, all of a sudden, you have seashells and sand and glitter in the concrete. When you get closer to the Grotto, you actually see these details magically appear at your feet.
That is a level of attention to details that I think we could learn a lot from. I loved the pictures of [laughter] all the signs on the doors. Right? And too often, that's what people expect. That's what we get in society. We don't necessarily get positive attention to details. This is Main Street, Disneyland. And if you're just looking at it, you may not notice that there's been special attention given to a detail here to improve experience for those attending. And the special attention is the height of the windows. Can you see how close they are to the ground? There's a reason for that. And that was actually to make the experience better for the parents because when you pass by windows that are too high for children to see, and what do they want mom or dad to do? Pick them up so they can see inside. So they intentionally created the windows lower to the ground. And, of course, there's another benefit. What's the other benefit? The kid sees the bedazzled Mickey ears for $45 and they sell more merchandise. That's not the intention behind the strategy, but it's the result.
Maybe it was slightly the intended result [laughter]. We don't know. But I think the magic of vision is that all of these small details-- one detail by itself doesn't create the magical experience. But when you put them all together, that's when the magic happens. Okay. And we're not used to seeing this. This is what we usually see. You guys are going to love this. This is a sign on the door of a bar in Chicago. They thought it'd be a great idea to establish a dress code. And this is what patrons, potential patrons are greeted by when they walk up to the bar. No baggy, sagging, ripped, dirty, frayed, overly flashy or bright clothing. No Hawaiian T-shirts, no tie-dye, no floral, no skull prints or anything else obnoxious. No embellishment, statement [jackets?], shirts, beanies or hats. No plain white Ts. No long Ts. No denim, flannel or zippered shirts. No cut-off shirts, [DB necks?], undershirts, mesh shirts, no tank tops after 6:00 PM. No coveralls, no cargo, bleach, acid wash, odd-colored or leather pants. No joggers, [inaudible], drop crotch pants. I don't even know what some of this stuff is. No Jordans. Well, my family's out. That's all my boys wear, right? No jewelry, no visible tattoos on neck, face or hands. Do they know they are a bar in Chicago [laughter]? Okay. So what is it saying? Don't come in. You are not welcome here. It's not a come as you are. It's you are not welcome here. Is this an example of a sales prevention strategy? Yeah. We have those sometimes and we're not even aware that they're there. So I think that's part of the wonder of what Disney built is that everything was designed to delight and be inviting. And instead of what we're used to, what we typically and what we typically see. Okay? So everything speaks. How can we mimic this? How can we mirror this? We've got to anticipate needs and fill them without being asked. There are ample opportunities for us to do this. Yes? Ample opportunities. Especially for utilizing secret service to the fullest extent. We should be committed to a culture of excellence down to the smallest details.
When you walk into Main Street, Disney, intentionally, they assault all five of your senses. It's sight. It's sound. It's smells. It's all five of your senses. And we should do that too. Right? We really should. Outside, there's a table and she's got defusers. When patients walk in, we don't want them smelling burning tooth or [inaudible] some of the other nastiness that we have to use in the back. We want them smelling something nice. And there's science behind this. If they smell wild orange and lavender, it actually reduces dental anxiety. Why are we not leveraging that? Right? There's so many opportunities for us to take our culture of excellence to every detail to enhance patient experience. Everyone is a VIP. Can we treat every single patient as a VIP?
Now, there's some people that have taken that a step further and they're created a VIP program for their practices that include things like special parking places for VIP patients. They have VIP events. VIP patients have premium welcome gifts. They may get a complimentary paraffin wax when they're in the chair. There's a whole variety of things that we have seen. And for some of our members, to become a VIP patient, all it takes is a referral. Or a review. A review? I mean, whatever you want. We want to help our practice grow. VIP patients, you can make it whatever you want. Another thing is, the show doesn't begin when the curtain rises. And the show doesn't end when the curtain closes. Another thing that's really remarkable that is the magic of Disney that we don't even think about is they don't have cardboard boxes or restocking happening when guests are there. It all happens behind the scenes. Things magically appear.
And sometimes, we'll actually see video from [Donald?] practices where [laughter] the team's not back from lunch and they're not even there in the day. And they're walking through the patient area with the jackets on, their purses on, walking through the patient area and heading to the back without even interacting with the patients. They're sitting in the reception area. We've got it on video, right? So everything speaks. So you've got to pay attention to that. This is why one of the main things that we have you do when it comes to working on new patient experience and case acceptance is to do a patient experience walk. You're going to see your practice for the first time. So it's said that Walt Disney used to like to walk in the parks at all hours. He wanted to walk through when guests were not there. He wanted to walk through when guests were there. He walked through at the busiest times of the day and the ends of the day because he wanted to experience things for himself. So we would suggest you do that consistently, not just once. You want to do it often. Okay? Small details matter.
On our member website, we have a worksheet that you can use to rate your new patient experience. You want to rate it. Len talked about touchpoints. We have touchpoints too. I think it's up to over 80 now on that sheet. I don't even know how many there are, but there's a lot of touchpoints. 65 right now? I think Dr. John and I recently added a few more. And you know what? After hearing Len today, I'd probably even add a few more, so watch for that. We'll probably do a huddle on that. First impressions last. Samantha talked about this yesterday. The first impression we have with patients, it matters because it does last. Front desk, really, the front desk team, not the front desk, right? Heather taught me yesterday that shouldn't be calling 'yall furniture. Right? Front desk team equals the front lines in our practice. You are the ones who can have an impact when it comes to patient experience. Walmart hires a greeter. Statistic show it impacts their sales in a positive direction when the first thing you see when you walk in their stores is a smiling face that says welcome. Do we have a greeter? Or do we have someone on the phone saying? Do we have signs on the glass? Do we still have glass [laughter]? Right? These are all things that matter. Okay? We should have a warm and welcoming reception area. We want a beverage station. We want to speak to their comfort. Good smells. A lot of you are having patients pre-rinse before you even begin with hygiene or having-- the unexpected things, some of you running Listerine or some kind of pleasant tasting mouthwash as you use your ultrasonics. Look at every single detail because everything speaks. Okay? This is one reason why many of our members-- back in the day, we used to say, "We should have a new patient welcome gift." And many times, you'd wait until the end of an appointment. When Dr. John's team did a Kaizen of their entire new patient process, we use that term a lot. Kaizen is to take something completely apart and put it back together in a better state. When they did that with their new patient process, that was one of the first things they decided as a team. They felt it'd be a more powerful, more impactful to give the new patient their welcome gift right at the beginning of the appointment rather than waiting until the end. I like that. First impressions matter, right? And then you can, in some ways, harness the law of reciprocity. You give them a gift, you give somebody something, and often, they are kind or do something in return. There's method to that. Okay? So those are some lessons.
Another powerful lesson is to have fun with the job. So I mentioned before that Disney worked on creating magical moments. Right? And that was a strategy in the '90s that they worked hard on. And that was just one piece of it. They also created a structure or system, a method called take five. And this strategy is designed to create unforgettable interactions and create loyalty much like this magical moments. So take fives of things like going out of their way to create happiness. So this gives license-- this strategy gives license to cast members to stop working. They can stop working and create positive interactions. Okay? The genuineness of doing so is what makes take five succeed. They also have a motto with take five. Take fives of things like always replace spilled ice cream. No matter what role you have in the park, if you see a child spill the ice cream, you stop what you're doing and you go help replace that spilled ice cream.
I share an experience of my kids were little of the time. We spent three days. This was the first family vacation that we had ever taken with our kids. After we finished school and had had a job for a little while, and we were kind of established, right? So we splurged. We did this 3-day-2-night package thing to Disney. And we had spent three days at the park. We had Katie, Kigen, and Tate. Tate was the toddler in diapers at the time. And he's now 21 and in college. So he was super little. We had spent three days gathering autographs, waiting in that four-hour line to get the autographs. And we noticed near the end of day three that the autograph book was gone. Oh my gosh. The drama. Oh, the horror. Right? Weeping and, oh my gosh. They spent all this time and effort, and so all I can think to do-- they must have left it on the carousel or who knows? Who knows where it was? So I went up and I asked a cast member, "Is there a lost and found?" And she said, "What have you lost?" And I looked at her, and I'm sure I rolled my eyes and said, "The autograph book." And she knew exactly what that meant. That meant all the effort of the kids that had gone to get the autographs all of their favorite characters, and she said, "Wait a moment." And she went back, somewhere backstage, and magically produced an autograph book that already had everybody's signature in it [laughter].
So at the moment, I was like, "This has happened before [laughter]." And this was somebody who had thought ahead enough to create a magical moment. That team member stopped what they were doing in that moment. They took five to improve my happiness. Because I was able to go to my kids and say, "Guess what [laughter]?" This might not be your autograph book, but it is so much better than yours because look who you got? You got everybody [laughter]." Now, here's the thing. I would have paid 100 bucks day one to buy that one [laughter]. I mean, really, because that would have been all the hours saved. You know what I mean. But that's not what it's about. It's not about the autograph, is it? It's about the interaction. It's about meeting their heroes in person. That's an example of a take five. Okay? So I have another example of a take five. Again, with Tom, before he was quite two, he was having a grand old time banging his toy sword on the railing while we were waiting for the train. Okay? So this is what this maintenance worker custodian actually did with Tom. He stopped him. He tried to sword fight him with his broom hammer. And of course, Tom was like, "Stranger danger." He's like, "Hey, come on, engage with me. Play with me." He was too shy. Okay, you can see he's starting to raise his sword a little bit. He's like I can of want to play, but I'm too shy. Oh, there he goes. He's finally starting to play a little bit. He was like, "Who are you, you strange man [laughter]." Who are you, you strange man. Right? I mean, and walks away. But that was a take five. Stopped the job and had a personal interaction. And what is Grandma [do?] obviously. "Oh, I'm going to film this," right? And I hadn't prepared this at all.
But when I was reading the material, I thought, "That's an example of a take five." I didn't know what he was doing at the time other than playing, but that was a take five, okay? Another example, when my kids were little, and I wish I had some video, but we didn't have video cameras in our pockets back in those days. We were dressed up for Halloween at a Disney park, actually, here in Florida, and we were the Peter Pan crew, right? So I have one son that's studying music and theater in university, and he was Peter Pan, my daughter was Tinkerbell, I was Wendy. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. And [laughter] then we had another-- my youngest was Smee or Michael or somebody else. And so it was good fun. So we were walking through the park, and here comes Captain Hook, the character. And what is he doing, he sees my son dressed as Peter Pan? [inaudible] with the position, right? And they had this full-on, knock-down, drag-out battle in the streets. Peter Pan and Captain Hook fighting one another. And my boys still talk about that. That's take five. They're just stopping what they're doing. He was on way-- I'm sure he was on a schedule to get to where to needed to be, and he stopped and chose to play. That's the beauty. That's what you remember. Here we are how many years later, more than 20 years later, and we still look back at that with fondness. That's the magic. You don't remember the-- I know your feet are hurting, but imagine that they're not because it's Disney. You don't remember those moments. You remember the magic because they interact. You have a powerful way of connecting on an emotional level. So take fives in the moment opportunities that cast members have to offer guests special moments.
The staff has license to take just five minutes out of their day to individualize the service that they provide. So they have 55,000 cast members, and if 55,000 cast members take five minutes a day to pay attention to one customer. That's 55,000 customers that have had a moment. So we don't have 55,000 people, but let's say you have 10 people a day in your practice. And if your team of 10 takes five minutes and has a personalized interaction with your patients.
Imagine the ripple effect that that can have on your community, and how you're known, and how you're perceived. So just take five, five minutes to go above and beyond, okay? These take five preplanned to solve common problems. That was the autograph book. Preplanned, solve those problems. They had that figured out. Okay. So again, when these moments happen, whether it's a magical moment or a take five guest experience, something in their hearts, he said, "It's not logic, it's emotion that fuels loyalty."
So this is what makes him want to come back for more. That's why we have Disney people for life. That's why we see adults-- we were laughing because I'm like on the plane ride here, you should've seen all the adults wearing Disney paraphernalia: Disney backpacks, Disney everything. Ladies, has anybody heard of-- oh my gosh! What's the name of the company? Loungefly. These are like Disney couture bags. They're pretty cool. They've got Disney bridal gowns now. It's insane! Because they connect to people on an emotional level. Now, this is so amazing. They're just super good at that. They appeal emotionally. I saw a commercial for Disney that was so powerful-- I don't know how long it is. 30 seconds? 60 seconds? But the emotion it draws out of you is stunning. And how do I know it makes people become emotional? Because one of the sisters in law that worked at Disney World filmed herself watching it and she was sobbing. Like, you want to see it? Okay. See how good they do this, see how well Disney pulls out the emotion from people.
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Are you serious right now [applause]? Some of you all are crying. It's not even a real duck [laughter]. It's not a real duck. But my goodness, can you-- did they appeal to your heartstrings in that commercial? How do I do that? That is amazing. I heard it said that in the movie of Up, Disney created a more powerful love story in six minutes than many movies, full-length movies. Than all the Twilight movies combined, something silly like that. And it's so true, if you watch those scenes, you can't help but cry. Anybody seen Coco? Oh my gosh, that scene at the end, I'm a mess. It's so amazing how they do that, they create these moments that tug at your heart. It's amazing how they do that. Okay. So again, we don't want our patients to cry, usually, but we can still connect with them and realize it's not logic that creates that bond, it's emotion. And how can we have our patients experience these moments, right? How can we go above and beyond? How can we use the little things? Well, some of the things that we've taught over the years that have had positive feedback is having different colored new patient napkins. When you have a new patient in the chair, they have a different colored patient napkin on.
When you as a team member, even if you're walking by the room, you see that color and you know that's a signal, it's a hidden system. You stop, you welcome them to the practice and thank them for being here. That they know we're so delighted to have you as a part of our patient family and then you move on, that's a take five. Okay. The welcome gifts, we already talked about that. What if you had warm towels, warm scented towels. When you guys do that, hand them a mirror. You're after every single point appointment. These are just the little extra efforts that we can do to provide that world-class experience. We mentioned balloon animals. It's amazing how much patience and mothers love the fact that you'll take the time and twist a balloon sword or balloon dog. It's not that hard to do. Painting little fingernails. I love this one. Hi, Janice, assistance. While you're waiting for the doctor to come in, ask the little girls if they want their fingernails painted. Have three or four different colors, painted fingernails. This is part of what Dr. John was mentioning earlier. Some of our practices have created a comfort menu and they let patients choose how can we make your visit more comfortable today? These are the amenities we offer. Okay. Knowing patient preferences so they don't have to ask. That's important as well. Okay. So again, do these strategies work? If you have any doubt, just look at the results. If you have any doubt, just look at the results. So just in this short time together, I've gone through 25 ideas you can implement to create your year of a million dreams. So you can take back even five of those and implement them over the next few months and you're going to have a much bigger future this next year. Okay. So those are 25 ideas you can use to implement a year of a million dreams. And with that said, Dr. John, we're just about done here.
Yes, we are.
I'll leave you with this thought. First, think. Second, dream. Third, believe. And finally, dare to implement some of these strategies. Take action. The frogs that jump off the lily pad, right? The frogs that decide to jump, they didn't jump yet, but you got to jump. You got to take action.
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