Ken: Alright. We’re back on The Bottom Liine. And today, we have Bailey Daniel. We’re gonna talk about phone call performance, but specifically how to structure and deliver feedback to your staff. So without further ado, let’s do an introduction.

Bailey, do you mind telling our listeners slash viewers just a little bit about yourself?

Bailey: Your millions of followers. yes. Thank you, Ken. And hello.

Ken mentioned, my name is Bailey Daniel. I’m the senior manager of life cycle marketing for Aesthetic Partners. Aesthetic Partners is a clinically focused, medical aesthetic and plastic surgery, MSO company that supports practice owners through expansion and growth. Currently have five different brands under our portfolio and are continuing to expand and grow into their markets and in different markets Across the country. So it’s a very exciting time.

we’re in a huge phase of growth right now. but with, life cycle marketing, I manage, Our Patient Journey Centers, which are our lead nurturing and lead management departments for each of our brands. So We’re super hyper focused on everything conversion from forms to phone calls. We also follow all of our patients and leads throughout their journey at each of our practices, from step one all the way to step four. we also are responsible for different retention efforts Throughout each brand, leveraging, you know, our partnership with Allergan and Ali Insights as well as, different through our practice management systems that we can use, lapsed patients, um, you know, our top patients.

We can really get very granular with the Type of patients that we’re, pulling and retaining. and, yeah, I think that’s about it. Charlie and I work very closely together through Liine, and I’ve enjoyed our partnership very much.

Charlie: That’s awesome, Bailey. As you guys can tell, like, She knows what she’s doing.

There’s a lot of lot of good stuff there. Yeah. Bailey and I met maybe, like, three years ago, I think. Something like that. 

Bailey: You know, the year two thousand twenty and two thousand twenty one, like, I don’t know the difference between those years anymore, so I think it was two thousand twenty one.

Charlie: One of those years I got legally married in and the other one I did, just if you’re trying to distinguish. Great. Oh, cool. So anyway.

Bailey: You actually got married the day before me, actually. Oh my god.

Charlie: You’re right. What the hell? You I forgot about that. You forget that. I did forget.

So Bailey and I are great friends. We met about three years ago. But, we Bailey’s, the so The, I guess, the first practice in Aesthetic Partners is Synergy. Right? and so Synergy is in Raleigh Where we are, and that’s how we got connected.

So just as she was describing the growth mode, it’s been really cool, watching that happen. And, I mean, aesthetics is such a growing space in general right now, so exciting time. the topic today that I was to discuss because we’re gonna talk about feedback as Ken mentioned. One of the things that we notice at Liine after we turn on our platform Is the practices often most practices they have, of course, the insights from our platform of what’s the conversion rate, why aren’t people booking in general on a staff member basis, Um, as well. So they know exactly what the team and individual people should focus on to improve.

They have that information at their fingertips. The next step, of course, is having conversations with the people on the team, to talk about that And then give them some guidance in a positive way so that they make some small adjustments and change the way they’re handling different situations. That Creates the results of scheduling more patients. What we found is a lot of people, I think, in these practices And maybe some of our listeners don’t have, like, formal training that’s related to that aspect of managing and leading people and they just end up not doing it. So, like, the same insights and issues over time for some practices can persist.

And I’m looking at them from an outsider perspective going like, that is low hanging fruit, easy to make adjustments there that could have a huge impact on the practice. And it’s, For some reason, really hard for people to even take the step of talking about it. So I wanted to have you on because I know you’re really good at this. But why before we talk about how to do it, why do you think, in your opinion, a lot of leaders don’t give feedback to their team. Like, why does that happen?

Bailey: I think first, leaders are probably not understanding the importance The phone call and the importance of setting a really stellar first impressions with new and existing patients. So I think that’s where it starts. but I think also it just comes down to bandwidth of the management team and being able to really dedicate the time and focus To really stay on top of your staff and focus on this type of feedback and training. Because although You do have to consistently provide the feedback. If you’re doing it consistently and in a great powerful way, it should be pretty short lived.

So either during your staff’s Onboarding process and training or if, you know, you’re revisiting some of your staff’s phone call and you’re seeing that they’re still just Not really providing the best experience for your patients, you know, having them come back in and retrain. But I really believe that you should be able to effectively train your staff On how to properly handle phone calls in about three to four weeks. and then from there, it’s just a matter of monitoring. But setting that really strong Foundation from the beginning and really being on top of it and hyper focused at first is what’s gonna set you up for success long term.

Charlie: Yeah.

That’s interesting. The first thing you said about not realizing how important it is. I think most people who said, hey. Is is the first impression on the phone important? Everybody’s gonna say yes.

But if you actually think it’s important, then you have spent time thinking about what your team should do on the phone. And then when you bring someone on the team, you’re This is what you do. Like, literally, these are the steps you go through.

Bailey: But you also don’t realize how you sound to other people calling. Like Yeah.

Me, yes. I’m very particular, Hypercritical. You know? So I’m looking I’m looking for these type of things, and I’m seeking these type of things. But, I have quite a bit of experience with doing, like, some secret shop Calls just to kinda test the waters and see what else is out there.

And there are some, like, glaring things that I can’t help but to notice When I’ll call other practices and then I take that feedback, I present it to the team, and I use it as examples. And I say, like, this is why it’s so important to ask For that patient name at the beginning of the call. You know, this is why it’s so important to make sure that you’re inviting a patient to schedule a consultation with you, not just like leaving it hanging and leaving it up to the patient to then ask and engage and, you know, initiate that next step. so once you’re able to also provide, like, that type of example for your team. I think it’s really powerful.

It really gets their wheels turning and helps them connect the dots to understand, like, why, the why behind. 

Charlie: I can’t remember. You’re involved with, like, hiring as well, right, when you guys are hiring new team member? You at some point.

Bailey: Not anymore. Yeah. Not anymore. I was at one point.

Charlie: And so you mentioned, like, how you sound the phone and stuff and mister shot.

Like, what are what were the thing this is this I wasn’t planning on asking Yes, bud. What in the hiring process, like, for someone who’s going to handle interactions with especially new patients, but even existing, What did where are some key characteristics you may have paid attention to in interviewing and all that?

Bailey: Yeah. I would say just their overall, confidence. You know, the phones are a black hole, and they are very daunting.

You never know what you’re gonna get on the other side of that phone. So I think, kind of like understanding and feeling out the confidence of the candidate is helpful, but also we need to make sure that during the onboarding and training process that you’re really setting them up for success right now. Like, I would encourage To wait on answering the phones until at least week three of their onboarding process because they need to know, the ins and outs of every single service that you offer, they need to know how to schedule through your practice management system, any type of scheduling preferences that you have per practice or per provider. But then they’re also, you know, going to know need to know how to credential the practice in your provider. So that takes a lot, and you don’t want to set them you want to set them up for success when they pick up that phone for the first time.

And so having that confidence under their belt is really helpful. but, I mean, I’ve had employees before where they just still, like, couldn’t really get over that hump with their of, like, having a great phone call, and I had to just sit them down and be like, look. It’s time. It’s time for you to step it up. Yes.

Step it up, and let’s do this. Okay? And it works.

Charlie:  You know what I always do? If I feel like I’m not gonna just if I’m losing confidence, I just go with a British accent.

Because if you speak in a British accent, no one even cares. They just what you’re saying, they just like it. You agree? I’m just kidding. That’s a joke.

Sure. Actually, I I had I when I when I sold bookstore to door back in the day, I did an Australian accent a couple which was great. So that’s cool. Yeah. 

Ken: I really liked that thought of secret shopping and showing your staff other people’s because you’re not like there’s no ego attached or personal, like you know, you take things personal if it’s how I’m doing, but that’s really interesting.

Bailey: I know. And I hate to lead with this on this podcast because, like, We’re trying to keep it positive and cool, but it it is good to hear what bad sounds like so that Someone else can hear it for themselves because then they’ll realize what they need to do differently to make their call good.

Charlie: Yeah. I think the between making it really tangible and clear.

Right? So between This is what you’re supposed to do, like a one pager or something outlining steps, of what they actually focus on and say. And then And role play slash actual recordings slash mystery shopping. If people can’t hear, like, good, bad, good, Good. Yeah.

Like, that is just that is really powerful, and people will pick up on the differences. And I think most Practices aren’t providing their staff with those examples. And so then when they’re that’s probably part of why they don’t want to have the feedback conversation because they’re like, well, what do Talk about. And when they’ve tried to do it, it’s very, um, theoretical. And when the staff member leaves that conversation, they They’re not prepared to say, what am I supposed to focus on the next time the phone rings?

Right? It’s just con conceptual thing. But if you give them those examples, they They literally hear it, and that’s a lot easier for people to, I think, internalize.

Bailey: Yeah. So, at Synergy, we’ve had Our PJC in place since two thousand nineteen.

So it’s like our most established PJC across all the brands for What does that stand for again for listeners Patient oh, excuse me. Patient journey center, PJC for short. Love it. Love it. so, as a part of our front desk onboarding process, one of the PJC coordinators trains them.

And so the first training is they’re just shadowing and observing her. It’s like an hour long training. the second, she gives them a little bit of homework to do where they have to create their own script. the second training, she has them hop been on some calls, and then she is literally sitting right beside them. So as soon as that call is over, she can provide, feedback, or she can kind of guide them through the call if they’re, like, struggling and drowning and need a little support.

So that’s really helpful as well in boosting their confidence. But, you know, to your point, Charlie, of, like, managers not being able to hold their team accountable because they don’t really know what good is or they don’t know, You know how to do it. I I really enjoy, explaining and coaching on the why we say things And why it’s so important to have the phone call structured the way that we do just to, you know, go into patient psychology a little bit more and To also flip the script so that our team members can understand, like, yes, this is what you’re saying, but this is how it’s being received by our patients. Like, You know, some helpful reminders. Someone who’s a very new patient who has never received Botox before doesn’t necessarily need to know all of the details about Dosage and, you know, cost.

They do need to know about cost to an extent, but, you know, their main questions are always gonna be, like, do you offer it? Maybe how much does it cost and what, you know, what are the next steps? What do I need to do? So we have to remember that and also remind ourselves. I have I have a lot of isms that I’ll use in my trainings.

And one of my, isms is that, like, this is our world. This is where we live. This is our normal and our comfort zone, but for someone who’s new to our practice or our industry, it’s the opposite experience for them. So we have to lead with that type of empathy, understanding that they might not know all of the questions to ask, but it’s our responsibility to guide them through it and, you know, direct them to the best provider that’s gonna be, you know, a good fit for them.

Charlie: There’s a really good concept called the curse of knowledge.

there’s a good book called Made to Stick that I recommend that talks about it. But after you have when you when you have learned something and you’ve Talked about it for a long period of time. Even simple things, if someone’s never been exposed to it, like, they’re gonna know nothing. and so you have to, I think what you’re talking about there, Bailey, is the empathy. Put the perspective of, like, what is this person, what is their experience gonna be like if they’ve never looked Botox before, and they call me.

And I literally have been talking about Botox for five years. Like, there’s gonna be a huge gap, and even the very simple things. and so I think that’s important to, you know, to remember.

Bailey: And something something that you actually taught me, Charlie, was that, You know, a patient is also gets overwhelmed by too many details. So what we on the phones, Our job is to convert that patient from a caller to a booked consultation.

It’s then either your consultant or your provider’s responsibility to convert that patient into, you know, from lead to receiving treatment. So it’s our job to book the consultation and to guide them and lead them on how to best Do that not to get into every single detail on the treatment or the technology because that becomes very overwhelming to our patients.

Charlie: This may or may not be a good example, but I’m laughing because, like, you know, when you go to a nice restaurant, they have a special. And I find a lot of times the server will tell you All the details. And then they’ll pause, and then I’ll go, is it good?

Yeah.

Bailey: Or how much is it?

Charlie: You know what I mean? It’s just like they’re just telling me all the stuff it does, and I’m like, is it good? Because, like, I don’t care.

Right? I wanna know if it’s good. Like, maybe I wanna know, like, What it is, but they just talk about how it’s prepared and stuff. And I’m not a chef. Right?

I don’t freaking know. so that’s sort of I don’t know if that connects or not, but I just thought I’d say

Bailey: it. I I think it does. I think it tracks for sure.

Charlie: It tracks.

Awesome. Well, I think one of the Sort of quick summary takeaway. There’s, like, think about how much Bailey’s talking about, Ken, with just the training, the expectations, the Foundation that’s there. to get people, like she said, set up for success. What I’m curious about now, Bailey, is The ongoing.

So, like, let’s say someone’s been there for a year. Right? And so they know what the expectations are. Every you know, I assume you guys have human beings that you’re employing. And so there’s gonna be, like, changes and fluctuations, and people are dealing with if it’s just human nature that performance is not always exactly consistent and just they’re gonna waver with things that they did really are doing really well or things that they’re are Challenging for them.

Do you guys have, like, a specific cadence of checking in and feedback? Is it dependent on performance? Like, how do you Deal with feedback in maintaining performance after someone’s been there for a while.

Bailey: Yeah. So, fortunately for us, we have our patient journey centers. The patient journey centers have managers or leads in place that are responsible for, You know, all of our team’s, conversion metrics. So they would be the person you know, we’re in Liine all day long anyways. But they’re the person who’s looking through their, individual performance metrics in Liine And saying, like, hey. Our goal is seventy percent. We want seventy percent conversion rate for our inbound phone call interactions for Nonsurgical treatments.

I do think depending on your practice, if you have, surgical procedures and if you accept insurance or not, that’s A little bit different, and we should set some different expectations as far as convergent metrics go. But for any type of, like, nonsurgical inbound phone call, I think seventy percent is High, but, you know, a good goal to have. So they would be the ones who are, on a weekly basis staying on top of those conversion numbers, and then at the end of each month, if we see that, you know, conversion didn’t hit the mark, Then we would initiate a follow-up and an additional training. but we would also, you know, come to that training and provide exact details on, you know, areas for improvement.

So we’re able to go through each and every call and follow along the Script line by line and say, here’s where, you know, we could’ve said this right here or, oh, you mentioned marketing channel at the very end of the call. But remember, that’s most impactful when you ask at the beginning of the call because, because it leads, you know, really nicely and flows into the into the conversation really well. And, you know, not to just talk about Liine a lot, but the reason I really like Liine is because it makes everything, like, just very straightforward. The data doesn’t lie. You’re able to deliver your feedback, to your team members in a very direct way Without, you know, anything being personal, you can make it fun.

It doesn’t have to be super rigid and serious. I like to kinda play around with it and give some examples of, again, my little isms that I like to say and how I would have handled that a little bit differently. And, You know, I keep it upbeat and fun, and I think people like it. they see they seem to like it. But, yeah, I think, you know, being able to give really direct feedback is gonna be your best bet.

Being clear is kind. it’s not what you say. It’s how you say it. a lot of a lot of little isms that we can give. but, yeah, typically, that’s on, like, a monthly basis.

if we find that an employee is still not consistently hitting the mark for, you know, more than a quarter, then that’s when we would need to reevaluate Probably the position itself, especially if it’s still within that employee’s ninety day period, because this is, you know, a part of the job And an expectation and a responsibility as well. So, you know, just like your face to face patient interaction, what those standards are, the same applies for the phones. And, you know, no matter what, we wanna make sure that our patients are receiving a consistent experience no matter who they talk to. So if they’re talking to their most senior employee versus someone who’s, you know, within their ninety days, we wanna make sure that, You know, all calls are, you know, up to the same standard.

Charlie: Sounds like the feedback conversation I mean, It’s just so much easier to have with everything else you’re describing in place because what that means is, like, it’s not gonna be Surprise to the team if they’re having a feedback conversation.

You have clear goals. They’re all being measured. They know there’s gonna be a month at least monthly review. You. and so they’re probably coming into that conversation, like, in some ways, ready like, it maybe even excited about, like, okay.

I want to hit the goal. I didn’t And I want to know what I need to work on because I want to hit the goal. So part of the answer to my question of how do you what are you thinking about in that conversation? How do you make it not negative is that that you have all that foundation? But In addition to that, when you’re sitting down with someone, what is on your mind of, like, how you start the conversation and understood on being direct?

But do you find it’s better to just, like, say, hey. Listen. Here’s, of course, where we wanna be. Here’s where you’re at. Let’s talk about it.

Or how do you do that in a way that that disarms Defensiveness from the team member.

Bailey: Yeah. I think, walking them through the data a couple different ways is helpful. So since we’re just talking about inbound phone calls, there’s I mean, that’s pretty direct and straightforward. I think if we were discussing, like, You know, form follow-up and form lead conversion, that would be a different story.

But since we’re just talking about inbound phone calls, I would start by just, going to the previous month, pulling the list of all of the calls associated with that, employee’s name andthen going through them, assessing why they didn’t book, where the areas of opportunity were in the script, and, yeah, kinda just getting right into it and getting to the point. I do think that, like, you know, as long as you do keep it upbeat and positive, um, and see, you know, this type of feedback as an opportunity, not like scolding or a a punishment by any means, then you’re gonna motivate your team, to to want to be better. I think also, you know, we have, like, a Super solid script in place that we use for all of our brands. And while the bones, as I call it, of the script are Pretty much the same. there are some differences in the script depending on the brand because we wanna make sure that we’re representing the brand well, for their patient base.

And we know that each brand is different. So, um, you know, we just we fall back on the bones, but then Encourage and empower our employees to not be robots and not feel like they’re having to really adhere to the super rigid script, and that’s making them nervous. And so, therefore, you know, they’re butchering the whole thing. you know, they can be themselves, but they just have to understand the importance of The order of what you say it, why it’s so important, and how to maintain control over that call. So when I’m doing my trainings with the team, That’s what I’m really reinforcing is kind of, like, educating them on why it’s so important.

what I find Is it’s mainly, like, the order in which the call is being handled that the staff member isn’t adhering to. I also will, like, explain things in a way that’s like, okay. This is this is the thing that we can control over here. And here are the scenarios that we can cannot control in our phone Also, things that we cannot control include, like, someone calling, asking if we accept insurance when we’re a cosmetic only practice. Okay.

That’s, You know, we can still talk about our services and try to convert them and get them to book a consultation, but ultimately, if someone only wants to pursue an insurance based practice, like, that’s out of our control. someone calling, wanting to get information for someone else, which I always find wild. Like, who are all these people calling on behalf of other people. Like, you need to make your own dentist appointment. Like, you are a grown man.

I’m talking to you, Ken. You’re a grown man. You need to make your own dentist Appointment.

Charlie:  Damn it, Ken. Get go get your own Botox. What are you doing, man? 

Ken: is my breath that that bad over the Internet?

Bailey: But, anyway, so that’s like, you know, people do that. People will call on behalf of someone else.

so there are some things that we cannot control, you know, with Phones and being really hyper focused on the patient experience over the phones. I found that our team members can sometimes tend to fixate around the things that we cannot Control. So instead, you really gotta reel them in. You have to explain the differences between the two and say, like, let’s just shift Our focus on the areas that we can control, and let’s really build our momentum there because you get told a lot you get told no a lot over the phone.

And so it does take, a pretty specific skill set, and someone who is, inherently sales oriented to be able to navigate that, and not getting not get, like, you know, burdened by being told no all the time. So we shift our focus. We keep it moving. We focus on the things that we can control. and so, yeah, that’s I like a gist of Kind of what my feedback sessions would look like with the team.

Charlie:There’s two things in life you can control. You know this, Ken. Effort, attitude. That’s it. Anything else?

Block it out. love all that. And then my last question, I don’t know if you have anything else, Ken. Can this be done effectively without an incentive program?

Bailey: You know I think so.

Yes. I I do think it’s helpful to at least start By putting an incentive in place, I have, you know, different experience with giving incentives versus is not and receiving some feedback from the team that was not incentivized. I think it can be a little bit hard to not incentivize your team since they have such visibility into their conversion and their performance and in others as well. that’s where things can get a little bit tricky. I would encourage That you do incentivize your team over this, especially if it’s a new initiative that you’re really wanting to get launched and pushed and you’re really wanting to go well.

And that incentive can be based on, you know, overall conversion for the inbound calls that you answered that month. You can incentivize your team based on overall, phone answer rate, not including, you know, calls that go to voice mail or any abandoned calls, but what is, like, our actual answer rate? you could also incentivize your team based on, like, Different objections that you’re really hyper focused on overcoming. There’s a lot that you can do to incentivize your team and then incentivize them based on either, like, Number of leads that you converted or number of calls that you handled, I think that depends on the nature of the call whether it’s, like, a surgical versus a nonsurgical Inquiry. Totally.

I would incentivize.

Charlie: Makes sense? Need to do another one with Bailey, Ken, on PJC stuff. We’ll table that for now, but that’s another it’s a whole topic on creating that. Yeah.

That’s interesting. Yeah. That was That was so there’s so much good stuff in there. really, really, really good. Ken, you taking this home, or where are we at?

Ken:  I love it.

Super important. Go ahead, Bailey. 

Bailey: Did we answer all the questions?

Charlie: We don’t have to do that, Bailey.

You know, we don’t we’re just trying to We want people to enjoy listening. 

Bailey: I like to know the rules. I like to follow the rules. We

Charlie: I think we can control the effort and attitude Dude here, hopefully. So I think we I think so.

I feel great. 

Ken: I feel great as well. Bailey, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you for coming on.

Bailey: Yeah.

Thank you guys for inviting me. It’s been fun.