Fake it Till You Make It? Mastering the Mindset of the Front Desk
The front desk does more than answer the phone. It's the first impression, the emotional thermostat of the clinic, and a powerful (and often overlooked) engine behind smooth, profitable operations.
Andrea Watkins and Alli Petriella get inside the mindset of this key role in an aesthetic practice and what it takes to be truly great in this role.
Even if you’re not on the front line, you need to know how it fits and functions within a successful, high-performing team to better support the people who are.
GUEST
Allison Petriella
Lead Conversion Analyst & Consultant, Studio 3 Marketing
After nine years honing her skills in the intricacies of private practice management and the nuances of plastic surgery sales, Alli dedicates her expertise to helping practices adopt the most effective strategies and conquer their operational hurdles by leveraging the power of cutting-edge software solutions.
Connect with Alli on LinkedIn
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HOSTS
Blake Lucas, Senior Director of Customer Experience at PatientFi
Blake oversees a dedicated team responsible for managing patient and provider inquiries, troubleshooting technical issues, and handling any unexpected challenges that come their way. With a strong focus on delivering exceptional service, he ensures that both patients and providers receive the support they need for a seamless experience.
Learn more about PatientFi
Andrea Watkins, VP Conversion Consulting, Studio 3 Marketing
Andrea’s journey in the aesthetics industry began as the COO of a thriving plastic surgery practice, where she gained firsthand experience in optimizing operations and driving growth. Now, as the Vice President of Conversion Coaching at Studio III, she works closely with multiple practices, providing expert guidance to accelerate their success. Passionate about equipping teams with the right tools and strategies, Andrea helps individuals excel in their roles while simultaneously enhancing overall practice performance.
Learn more about Studio III Marketing and LeadLoop CRM for plastic surgery practices and medical spas.
Co-hosts: Andrea Watkins & Blake Lucas
Producer: Eva Sheie @ The Axis
Assistant Producers: Mary Ellen Clarkson & Hannah Burkhart
Engineering: Ian Powell
Theme music: Full Time Job, Mindme
Cover Art: Dan Childs
Practiceland is a production of The Axis: theaxis.io
Andrea (00:04):
Well, hi there. I am Andrea Watkins. And if you're listening to this while juggling three patient calls, checking in a couple patients, taking a payment, selling skincare, and trying to catch your doctor in between procedures, you might be working in an aesthetic practice.
Blake (00:18):
And I'm Blake Lucas, and this is Practiceland. This is not your doctor's podcast.
Andrea (00:25):
Well, welcome back to Practiceland. Greetings to everyone. This is Andrea Watkins, and today we are going to help those of you that sell, and I know sell is a nasty, nasty word for a lot of people and we really just want to talk about how to sell without being salesy. Before we go there, I want to thank you guys for listening, remind you to subscribe and to share Practiceland with your friends and coworkers because our goal here is really just to provide a ton of value based on experience from professionals throughout the nation and really help everybody thrive in their roles. One of the goals of this podcast is to help you earn more by being really great at your work. And I am so excited to have our guest here today, Alli, Petrielli. Petriella, excuse me. After all these years, I should know how to pronounce your last name. So Alli and I actually have quite a history. We worked together in the practice for several years and helped grow a plastic surgery practice exponentially, and I'm just going to let you take it away. Alli, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Alli (01:30):
Yeah, thanks Andrea. I'm super excited to be here. I come from just like Andrea said, a long line of aesthetic history. So I worked in private practice for several years and really got to know the different procedures and avenues you could go with aesthetics. And then after departing from the practice, I went and worked for the number one EMR in aesthetics and got to know different softwares in our space and different tech stacks. And then after leaving there, I came over to Studio 3 marketing where I'm now working on the Lead Loop team and helping practices all across the US with their conversions and just their lead intake process and understanding how to turn more of their leads into paying patients.
Andrea (02:13):
And I have loved getting to watch you flourish as an aesthetics professional in the admin and sales and technical space. So today we're going to talk about that front desk role and really dig into what are the roles, what are they known as, what qualities are really important in those roles. And then also just bring a lot of value as far as what we can be doing to elevate ourselves, empower ourselves, and what the trajectory could look like from those different roles.
Alli (02:44):
Before we jump in, let's talk about the differences between the provider versus the staff and the sales process. Why do you think that sales is not just the responsibility of the provider? I think a lot of people in our industry think that everything's getting across the line once the patient gets in the room with the doc and we're doing the consultation, but I think there's a lot more involved in that process. What are your thoughts on how everybody else is part of that team in getting a patient set up for success?
Andrea (03:12):
Yeah, that's a great question. So I always, I guess compare it to not being a dental office or not being a regular medical office where people walk in with their insurance card and they're like, I'm here for my six month cleaning. Here's my card, here's my $30 copay. I'm here because you're close to my job and you guys are relatively nice and you always get me in when I need to. That's insurance, insurance-based medicine. Whereas in aesthetics, it's fee for service. And so if we're exchanging goods and services for money, that's sales. And so it's not just the provider that is able to quote, unquote close a deal or book a procedure or anything like that. It's really the entire experience because when someone's handing over their cold hard cash, it's important that everyone that's a part of that process and a part of that journey with the patient understands each and every interaction needs to be well thought out and it needs to be authentic and really focused on how can we help patients and really provide them the best experience. And that happens from the time they walk in the door or when someone answers the phone and not just when the patient is sitting in the chair with their provider. So it's really up to all of us to create this great environment where people want to come and bring their money and they know that they're safe and they know they're going to get great outcomes and have a really good experience.
Alli (04:34):
Totally. I totally agree. So what does that leave for the provider in that process then, if the team is doing so much of that?
Andrea (04:41):
First of all, to not mess up the experience. So as a provider, don't mess up the experience that your team has laid out and have this way and put the red carpet out for the patients. And then they're the ones that are providing, they are the ones that are doing the actual treatment. They're performing a nonsurgical or a surgical procedure. So it's really their job to get fed the information from their team about what are the goals, how can we really help the patients achieve this and then actually execute. So yes, clinical staff, the doctors, the injectors, the estheticians, they all do have a role. It's being friendly, being warm, being able to complete a really great service. It's a team effort. No one person in that whole process from the time they call or walk in the door to them leaving, having their treatment being happy, no one person is going to be able to make a booking occur or a treatment happen, but any one person could actually put it in the trash. So it really does take a village without a doubt. Today we're going to focus on the front desk and really what that mindset is so that we're thinking from a patient perspective, what are they expecting when they walk in the door or call. And then from inside of the practice, what's really important that I'm doing throughout my role. So let's start with the front desk. What other titles could be used for this role Alli?
Alli (06:09):
Gosh, there's so many and I love that about aesthetics is every little office has its own little art of labeling the role. So I feel like we could go with receptionist, we could go with patient liaison. Sometimes people will call it a patient care coordinator, even if it's the person sitting at the front. Formally we know patient care coordinator as the person that's really doing the consultative process but sometimes that title can flip between the two roles. Any other ones that
Andrea (06:37):
Patient concierge, I feel like is a front desk title at times as well. And then with no matter the title, the role is really you are the hub of communication and everything going on in the practice. So what are some of the key responsibilities of that role, Alli?
Alli (06:55):
I think being the epicenter of the practice. People dismiss the receptionist role sometimes and think it's just somebody that sits at the front desk and answers the phone. It's absolutely so much more than that. It's actually a step under operations and the person that knows everything that's going on in the different areas of the practice. So yes, it's answering the phone. Yes, it's greeting new patients as they're walking through the door and creating that environment that's going to be welcoming for them, making them feel like they're in the right place. But it's also going to be communication between departments, helping the nurses know what's going on with the patient care coordinators right now, helping doc know when they're going to be ready for him in the OR. Just helping everybody to stay on the same page, cuz that's really the only person that knows everything at the same time.
Andrea (07:42):
Yes, for sure. And I liken the role too, I was just trying to visualize things and you always laugh at me because you're like, you come up with the most random shit.
(07:51):
Yep, yep. Always.
Alli (07:51):
Always, but I always think of a wheel and how there's a hub and then there's spokes that go out from the wheel and literally the most important part of that is the hub, and that is at the front desk who you are, you receive all of the information in, whether it's from internally, from your team or from the patients, and then it's your job to put it to the right spoke to figure out where it needs to go as effectively and efficiently as possible. The front desk patient, concierge, patient liaison, whatever that role is called, it is an absolute critical, critical part to the success of an entire practice and an entire team. So I agree with you 100%, I don't think that role gets nearly enough credit.
(08:37):
Absolutely. It's such diversified experience and you're just learning so many things about the industry and the different ways that the phone rings and how to handle those things. So you're just getting a little dabble into every area of the practice, which makes it such a hard role to fill because it's oftentimes what we like to say is it's the hardest role to fill in the practice because it really is a jack of all traits when you're coming in, you have to also be willing to learn all the things. So yeah, it's a tough one.
Andrea (09:06):
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. What do you think as a person that did the role and then helped to recruit and hire people for the role and then manage other folks in that role as well, what are the personality traits that you think are really the most useful here?
Alli (09:23):
Yeah, I would say first and foremost just organization. You have to know where everything is at the right time and you have to have full awareness of where everything is supposed to go because everybody's coming to you asking you for answers. So when people are clueless, whether it is the patient calling in or it's a staff member. All the time, I'd have a nurse come up to me and be like, I don't know what to do. And I don't know anything about nursing or what she needs to be doing, but I do know how to tell her where to go because I know the different areas of the practice. So being organized, understanding where everyone is and who's about to come out of which treatment room and who you're going to be collecting payment from and expecting the next appointment to walk in. And then in addition to that patience. And I think that every day
Andrea (10:09):
Patience the virtue, not the person.
Alli (10:11):
Yes, every day brings a new surprise and there's been times I think we can all agree that we've picked up the phone in practice and kind of wished we weren't the person that picked up that phone call. So maybe people are calling in and complaining about a poor experience that they had somewhere else and they're maybe really angry and they're going to take that out on you. Anything if they're having a bad day, you're the first person picking up the phone and it's often going to be received that they're may be upset with you. And you have to be so patient and levelheaded with that to understand this person's just upset and it's actually my job to help them deescalate right now and not take this and get upset about it and let it ruin your day.
Andrea (10:52):
I think that leads right into the next thing that I think is really important. And you and I personally have worked through a lot of this in our 10 years of working together, so is not taking things personally.
Alli (11:03):
Yes, absolutely. And that's a hard lesson to learn, especially for me personally, but I think that role,
Andrea (11:09):
What did you call yourself? A reformed people pleaser?
Alli (11:12):
I'm a recovering people pleaser, exactly. It's tough, but I think working in the aesthetic practice helped me to evolve that skillset. But I also think with, when you're looking for somebody for this role, think about the moment that you meet them. How did they make you feel? Because this really is the first face of your practice. So when someone walks in, they're judging your whole team based on how this person is greeting them. Are they making them feel welcome? Are they engaging? Are they making the right eye contact? Are they professional? So all those things are things that you need to be looking for in this person. And I always challenge people to kind of think about your own experience as a patient. I think we've all gone into a practice where the reception area is a little uncomfortable for whatever reason. Maybe the front office gals didn't greet you with a smile, or maybe they're chitchatting very quiet and you're like, oh my gosh, are they talking about me?
(12:07):
I hate that.
Andrea (12:07):
And then we've also, I know and I'm always like, it's definitely about me. They hate me. Or it's the opposite, you walk in and they're super excited to see you and you engage right into a great conversation and then you go sit down and you feel good about yourself and you haven't even started your appointment. So that role is what's determining how they're walking in to meet your patient care coordinator and how they're arriving in the room with doc. So all that starts at the front and that's something that we need to think about. How did you feel the moment you met that person in their interview?
(12:39):
Something I would just like to add as far as a characteristic that's really important, is the ability to not get flustered under pressure. So you got to be cool, calm and collected. I have a Peloton instructor, Jess Sims that I love and she always says, be like a duck, on the top of the water, you're just like this and underneath your feet are like this, when we're just running wildly when we're on the tread. So I think that is really, really important.
Alli (13:09):
Yeah, absolutely. And care so much about everyone around you but also not care too much that it derails your day. Like you just said, maybe you have all these calls and you have a patient in front of you and then a nurse comes up and asks you a question and that's your colleague, that's your person, and so you want to provide an answer for them, but sometimes you have to be able to say, Hey Sally, just one second. Give me just a moment. Let me finish this and get back to you, instead of like, oh, let me give this answer to them. And then risk looking unprofessional in front of the patient that's standing in front of you. So it really is such a balancing act of knowing what needs your attention right then and being okay with not always giving it to everything at the same time.
Andrea (13:48):
And to that point, what specific things were you looking for or experiencing that made you say, Hey, it's time to hire another person? These are the things that are occurring. I think we need some more help.
Alli (14:02):
Yeah, I think if you notice that the phone is ringing and you're not getting to it often if you're having to let a call go to voicemail and return to it later, often that should not be happening. It should be extremely rare that a phone has to ring through to your voicemail. No one wants to call a business and get the voicemail right away, right out of the gate. That seems unprofessional. And our analytics show that they're more likely to call their neighbor your neighbor than try again to engage with you. So we want to make sure that we are going to get spread thin at the front office no matter what. We hope that our practice is always busy enough, but we don't want it to be too busy that we're not able to connect with new patients the moment that they're calling in or if just running around if there's so many things going on.
(14:54):
Say we do have that AFC there and we have the clinic there and we're physically getting up from our chair and leaving and we're not planted there. The moment that someone walks in the door, it's a bad look. So we always want to make sure that we have the bandwidth to cover everything. I know some front offices are able to operate on one full-time person up there and that's fantastic, but if they get to a point where they are regularly missing calls, I would say even two times a week you're missing a call and letting it go to voicemail, we need to bring in another person. On that note, why don't we touch on compensation structures for the front desk role. What are some recommendations you have on how to build a good compensation structure? Is this a role that we should be incentivizing?
Andrea (15:37):
Great question. So it's going to be a little different based on every practice and what they really offer and what that role is responsible for at the front desk. Since it is usually more of an entry level role, it's typically an hourly wage depending on your market, that could be maybe on the low end of $20 an hour and maybe on the high end I think after people have been there for a while and stuff even upwards 28, $30 an hour. Incentives for front desk, typically what I see in practices, our practice that we worked in and then in practices that I'm working with across the nation, if there's incentive for the front desk, it's usually based on something like skincare sales, maybe a small percentage of skincare sales if as people are checking out, we're trying to help people and get them on some sort of skincare regimen after education coming from the vendors, coming from your providers, things like that.
(16:34):
Also group incentives based on the revenue of the practice, there are some practices that will include the whole group into that, including the front desk as well. Another great way that I love to incentivize the front is when you have a goal, you have a goal in mind, either you're trying to get more reviews or you need more people to get back for their before and after photos, incentivize your front desk to help you as a practice achieve those goals. So say for example, you got a one star review, somebody just capped off, keyboard warrior and you're trying to bury that review, so you want to in the next month get maybe 35 reviews. You can incentivize those because as people check out the perfect person to talk to them and say, Hey, do you mind if I send you a link or give them a little card with a QR code or remember we had done stuff like that. Get those people at the front involved and hey, once you hit this point, you get $250 or something like that.
(17:36):
So there's always fun little games that you can come up with with your person who is mostly patient facing with all of your new and your existing patients. For the before and afters, I would say one fun little game there is because your front desk is often the person that's calling to ensure people are coming in and do appointment reminder calls is for your six month post-op for your 12 month post-op where it's really, really important that they come back in so that we can get those after photos, develop some sort of incentive structure for your front desk so that they're really making sure that the people with those scheduled six and 12 months are getting back in the door so that we can get those after photos. Because in our industry, your before and afters are your best marketing tool, so you need them. So utilize your staff, incentivize them monetarily, and then they have a buy-in to get us what we really need. We've kind of already touched on this, but I just want to be really clear who supports, so it sounds to me, and from our experience, I think we know, that the front desk really supports everyone in the practice. So who supports the front desk?
Alli (18:43):
I think everybody does. I think that constantly at the end of every appointment, whether you're a patient care coordinator and you just finished a consultation with a new patient or you're in a clinical appointment and it's a returning patient, always at the end of that appointment you're saying, Hey, if anything comes up, go ahead and call them by their name. Go ahead and give Jennifer a call and she'll get you connected with the right resources. The team should always, in every appointment be empowering that front desk person, even when as a patient care coordinator, you're bringing your patient up at the end. If we need to do something with scheduling at the front office or collect a payment, you're handing them warmly back to that front office person that was the first person that they met when they walked in and now they feel like they have a whole gal crew here.
(19:30):
For them it's like, Hey, you remember Jennifer when you checked in? Alright, she's going to take your 20% deposit today, you're in great hands and then you leave them. I also think that everybody's always just supporting that person and I would always have people from different departments coming up throughout the day and just be like, Hey, do you need anything? Hey, I see the schedule's bananas today. What can we do to help? And they're always seeing if they have a moment in their day, they know that you don't have a moment in your day, so what can they do with themselves aside from come help you right now? So I think just encouraging that whole team environment and making sure that everybody sees the value in this epicenter that is sitting at the front desk and making sure that everyone's tagging in to help them.
Andrea (20:13):
It's really a cultural thing that I think we all need to build by supporting one another. Is that from the clinic, if it's a nurse, Hey, do you need to step away and use the bathroom? Let me answer the phone. Just something really supporting one another just creates a culture where we want to be there and where we're really serving each other and having the ability to best serve patients in that way as well, which just obviously helps our business, which is so critical. So now that we're talking about front desk, who supports who, everybody and everybody, tell me in your experience, which I know is vast, just what kind of career path do you think is really available to someone that starts at the front desk?
Alli (20:57):
So many things. I think it's really like the entry level position if you're trying to get an aesthetics, and that's where I started. My whole goal was just to break into the aesthetic industry and I had so many things that I wanted to do in this industry and I was like, let's start somewhere where I'm going to get experience on the entire patient process and I'm going to learn a little bit of everything and I'm going to learn who our vendors are because I'm going to be the one sitting up there when they come in and I get to meet them. So you can go so many ways. You can fall in love with the clinical side. You can be having so much fun with those post-op appointments when they come in and they're recovering and maybe you're connecting with them really well and you find yourself popping over to the OR all the time to see what's going on and peek through the window.
(21:43):
And maybe that's something that really excites you or maybe you're always talking with the patient care coordinators and you love seeing them go through that consultative process. You can go that way. So you could go the MA route and then become an RN and maybe you want to become an injector one day or maybe you want to go the PCC way or maybe you just want to stay in a leadership type role and you want to start leading that front office and then you're moving into the practice management world and moving into more of an operational role. And maybe you just want to skip PCC-ing and skip the clinical side. There's so many things or you can decide, you know what aesthetics is just not for me. This was great and I learned a ton. Okay, great. You just built a beautiful skillset that is going to benefit you in so many industries. I mean, you can go work for a law office, you can go work at the library because you know where everything is now. So there's so many places to go with it and you can't go wrong with the skills that you'll gain. I mean, it's just like everyone says you should work in a restaurant at least once in your life. The skills that you gain through doing that are invaluable. And it's the same thing in working in a front desk role.
Andrea (22:51):
Simply put, I think the sky is really the limit. You can just jack of all trades and then figure out which one you want to become the master of. If you even do and if you want to stay in the front desk, that's absolutely awesome as well. So what resources do you think were most helpful in helping you learn? Because as you said, front desk, front office is typically an entry level position, so let's tap into how do we learn, how do we grow, where do we get those things? What are your thoughts there?
Alli (23:22):
Yeah, I would say number one is relationships, whether it's with the other staff members or it's getting to know your vendors so you can learn about the products and services that they provide to you guys. I think for me, being such a baby in the industry, I connected with my team members and I spent a lot of time with them. I spent a lot of time with our lead clinic nurse learning all the steps that she's going through with our patients and what's important to her and what I'm doing that's important to her and how I can make her life easier. And then I did the same thing with our patient care coordinators and I built a really great direct line with you, our COO, so that I can be constantly coming to you and asking you, okay, is there anything I could be doing differently?
(24:05):
What did I do crappy today? Please tell me. So it's
Andrea (24:09):
All the things.
Alli (24:10):
Yes. And same thing going over to the OR, we had our ASD attached, so just going over there and getting to know that team and understanding what role each of those players played in making a surgery happen. But then furthermore than that is again, the vendor. So when someone's coming in and maybe it's someone that you guys are already working with and they're dropping off cookies, which is the best part about working at the front desk is you get first dibs on which cookie you're picking, but building that relationship, okay, who are you and what exactly do you do? When your PatientFi rep comes in just building that relationship with them or your Allergan rep comes in, that is a relationship that's going to behoove you no matter where you go because that rep is probably working with the office down the street that you're maybe thinking about switching over to. Or maybe you're going to a large conference and you're going to see those same familiar faces and you're going to continue building that network and it's going to bring you those other career opportunities that we were talking about.
Andrea (25:08):
Yeah, I think a really great point that you brought up too was with the vendors or with the partners, because nobody does it by themselves. We do have PatientFi and we do have Allergan, and we have these different people that we work with. In my role as a leader, I always wanted to capitalize on their knowledge to train my team as well. So if you're in a front desk role and you're new, or even if you're not new and you just don't quite understand how things work, maybe you have PCA skincare and you want to learn more about it so you can sell more skincare, say, Hey, can we get a training? You maybe always hear patients have this objection of, oh my gosh, that price is really expensive, but you know that we use PatientFi or whatever financing company, reach out to the rep and say, Hey, can you tell me more about this so that I can offer it to the patient so that I can actually help them reach their goals so that I can tell them, Hey, it's not really $900 if you pay 90 bucks over the course of the next year. There you go. 90 bucks a month is much more palatable than $900.
Alli (26:08):
Absolutely.
Andrea (26:08):
So I think in that front desk role, knowing what resources you have available, because again, as managers and as doctors and people that are running the entire business, they may lose sight of that. But as a listener, if you're in the front desk or in a PCC role and you know that these things exist and we have these products, but you don't know how they can actually benefit you and how they can benefit your patients, just say, who do I need to call or reach out directly to the vendor and say, I don't know who my rep is, but I want to set up a training for me and a couple of my teammates. Do that, and it will benefit you so wildly because you'll actually have the tools to be able to help the patients and then grow your own skillset, be more successful in the practice, and make yourself look a lot better in the eyes of your leaders as well.
Alli (26:59):
And I also think that gaining all that knowledge is going to instill confidence in you. And the more confident we are sitting in that chair up there, the better we're performing and the better we're handling everything that's coming our way. So give yourself the opportunity to learn and have all the knowledge and resource at your fingertips. So no matter what comes up, you're like, oh, heck, I know where to go with this. And you know how to connect to the person with the next step.
Andrea (27:25):
Exactly. And listen to our podcast
Alli (27:27):
Yeah.
Andrea (27:27):
Because it's literally why we're here is just to give you guys these tools and tips so that you can empower yourself, educate yourself, and have a better day really, because it can get chaotic. And if we are confident and we have the knowledge, the knowledge is the power that we need to make our day great and to really do a great job. To wrap this all up for the front desk role, patient liaison, patient concierge, whatever we're going to call ourselves in this role right now, single catchphrase or a mantra for the mindset of the front desk, what would you call it, Alli?
Alli (28:03):
I think for the front desk, don't come for me, I think I'd say fake it till you make it because
Andrea (28:11):
I love it.
Alli (28:11):
Every day does bring some new wild surprise and every day I would go home to my family and say, I can't even make this crap up. The things that would happen, you answer the phone and you're like, this is bananas. How did this even happen? And so you're not going to know how to handle those things because it's uncharted waters every time you answer the phone. And so just know I'm going to get to the other side of this. So pick up the phone and say what you need to say and get yourself through the call and get yourself through that patient interaction until you get to the other side of it. And then debrief and say, what did we learn here? And what tools do I now have in my toolbox? But don't be afraid to just take the bull by the horns and handle things as they're coming up. I would say just try, yeah, fake it through you make it would probably be the go-to.
Andrea (29:09):
Yep. And getting through those interactions, especially as we're newer and we're learning, and this isn't trauma ER, it's not oncology. We're dealing with people who are calling because they want something fun, they want in most cases, and to look and feel better about themselves. And so I love what you said as far as just debriefing for just a quick hot second when we get off the phone and say, what did I learn on that one? As you're gaining your confidence and as you're gaining your skillset.
Alli (29:38):
Just having that mindset of it is going to be okay, I learned that the hard way from you because when I was new in the role, I had a crap storm happening at the front desk and I didn't know how to act. And so I just ran straight back to your office and I'm like, this is what's going on. Please come up here and help. And so you came up and you just debriefed the conversation and debunked the escalation so fast. You just stood there and you're like, okay, no one has cancer, nobody's dying, so. And then looking at all the pieces that we have and actually problem solving. And I sat there and I was like, why didn't I think of that? The world's not ending, and I needed to be told that. And I think a lot of us go into that role and we all care about what we're doing or else we wouldn't even be here listening to this podcast. So we all just want to help. But it's like, okay, slow down, ask the questions, get the information you need. Know that no one's dying. This is an elective environment. Everything's going to be okay. And fake it until you get there.
Andrea (30:38):
I love it. Absolutely. Oh, wonderful. Alright Alli, so we love doing rapid fire mind games here on Practiceland. So we are going to do a back and forth. Let's put ourselves in the mindset of front desk. We are a patient liaison, we're a patient concierge, we're working at the front desk. What is the mindset of this person? What do they need to be? Who do they need to be? You say one. I'll say one and we'll keep going back and forth until we've exhausted all of our adjectives.
Alli (31:12):
Okay, 1, 2, 3?
Andrea (31:14):
1, 2, 3, go.
Alli (31:15):
Okay. Patient
Andrea (31:16):
Patient or patient welcoming.
Alli (31:18):
They need to be patient. I'm kidding.
Andrea (31:21):
Welcoming.
Alli (31:21):
Genuine, friendly, kind, responsive, organized,
Andrea (31:29):
Knowledgeable,
Alli (31:31):
Forward thinking,
Andrea (31:34):
Inquisitive.
Alli (31:36):
My next one was curious. That counts. That counts.
Andrea (31:42):
Thank you so much for joining me today. Alli is definitely going to be back for future episodes. We're going to talk about sales, we're going to talk about lead management, consultation phone calls, in-person consults. How do all of those processes actually get us the very best result? We're really, really excited to share that with you coming from people who have done it and also those we work with practices across the nation and look at data and our technology and all of that. So if you have any resources that you want to share or helpful people to follow on Instagram, please make sure that you share that with us. So the links in the details are in the show notes and we are excited to have you guys join us later.
Blake (32:24):
Got a wild customer service story or a sticky patient situation? Send us a message or voicemail. If your tale makes it into our "She did what?" segment we'll send a thank you gift you'll actually love. Promise, no cheap swag here.
Andrea (32:36):
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Allison Petriella
Lead Conversion Analyst & Consultant, Studio 3 Marketing
After nine years honing her skills in the intricacies of private practice management and the nuances of plastic surgery sales, Alli dedicates her expertise to helping practices adopt the most effective strategies and conquer their operational hurdles by leveraging the power of cutting-edge software solutions.