Dialing Up Dental Revenue

welcome to the automatic patient podcast where we help your dental practice create a kickass recurring Revenue model here are your hosts Mr Jordan and Justin comto this podcast is powered by boomcloud create manage and grow your dental membership program schedule a demo on boomcloud tocom [Music] what's up everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of the automatic patient podcast I am your host today Jordan comto with me I have Bentley folman what is up Bentley how you doing man doing great weather's starting to get warm

here in Utah and get to go out fish and do all that fun stuff so uh of course I'm happy to be on the the podcast and get to talk to all you great folks yes absolutely today we have awesome friend and guest guest Rich May what is up rich how you doing I'm good I'm good thanks for chilling you're chilling inviting me on your show yeah chilling you're chilling down in the southern end of Utah which I think all of us up here in the

northern end are jealous because it's what it's probably like 80 degrees down there right now maybe one yeah St St George right now is 78 degrees sunny with a just a little a subtle Breeze right now so it's like we at that weather where you got people that are launching their boats and then golf in the afternoon that's nice we're still jealous I think we're what are we 54 degrees up here damn we should go south this you and everyone else is trying to come South

I know everybody so so rich is from a company called mango it's and yet another Utah Dental company yeah welcome welcome to the club Rich uh Rich for our for our audience that people may not know who mango is or some do um or who you are how did you get into dentistry and what got you involved into mango oh okay so how I got in the Dentistry is is is a pretty interesting story um so I don't I don't I didn't have a background this

I didn't like work at a I didn't start in sales in in dentistry or you know work at a dental practice I have no family members that are in Dental right so wow yeah this is rare this is rare dude I know that's that's like not that's like everyone I everyone I talk to and meet is like my dad's a dentist my cousin's a dentist or like out of high school I started working at a dental practice or I got into sales in Tech sales and

Dentistry like early on but no for me um you know down here in St George mango voice is is owned and operated here in St George and it's you know the unique thing about about mango voice is that it is uh it's it's completely privately funded there's no BC money or private Equity money in it which so you guys are like us yeah a little bootstrapped right and um and and because of just the the roots of it here you know they they try to find

a lot of people local here in southern Utah to to work at mang 90% of our employees are here in St George and and come into the office which is um you know in a in a world postco where remote is like all over the place which is fine which is great because we do have remote employees too that are awesome um it's kind of you fun to have an office F here um but oddly enough my my wife was she was in real estate sales

she was being honored at a banquet um for her achievements she was like um one of the 30 most successful people in their nice and she she'd only been 30 for one year you know and I'd been 30 for several and never gotten any type of achievement like that right so I was like come on not even a tested 30-year-old yet right but she was getting honored of course my wife is amazing and I was her plus one and our dinner table the people we were

seated with um at this banquet I just got chatting with the gentleman who we were s sitting with and he had been hired by mango to find someone to do the run the business development program okay for mango and I didn't I didn't know he was doing that I didn't know he was kind of recruiting at the time we were just chatting it up and at at the end of the conversation he just said hey take my number if you're not looking for a job maybe

you are I I have an opportunity I think you'd be interested in and and it life's all about timing right like I yes oddly enough we were looking like you know I'd been doing the same job previously and working in in residential treatment and troubl team industry and and uh working all all sorts of different various like jobs on the side too construction whatever coaching football everything right and we were kind of looking for a new opportunity for me and so that just came up as

as like I said timings everything I gave him a call set up an interview with Kevin tman our CEO and yeah um you know a few weeks later I was team mango trying to figure out what the heck mango voice is and how we do phones and and how and how and that was the next thing I I so mangoo is we're a phone company we are voice over IP and you know we provide an integrated phone service to Dent practices and and so when I

started here I was like oh I work at a phone company we're going to be doing some phone sales but then shortly into it I realized I work at a phone company but I work in dentistry right and was quickly just thrown into this the dental underworld of trade shows and C courses and and and Tech and dental tech and and that's how I've gotten to know you guys too over the past three years now with mang trying to figure out how we can uh so

that's that's been that was the journey you know maybe that was a little long-winded but that's how I got here well now that you're in dentist you probably will never be able to leave right yeah that's usually how it goes I told so Bentley is new in in the dental space too and dude you're stuck sorry yeah and I definitely know how you feel rich um you know we went to an event you know recently and uh I just followed Jordan around like a lost puppy

and I feel I felt like the guys the every conversation I was in it felt like that that pool party in the movie Fun with Dick and Jane where they're talking about all these all these companies did you hear about globine and this and that and I'm just like I have no idea what you're talking about this all sounds like Mars to me but it is a fun industry with lots of energy um you know people expect a medical profession like Dentistry to be full of

a bunch of boring stiff people but I have definitely found that not to be the case not even close and uh cocktail hours at events are very Lively and loud and fun and and people are super fun to engage and talk to so um I hope that's what you've seen but it's definitely a fun industry to get stuck in yes it is it's a great industry so rich what like tell us a little bit more about mango like what makes you guys different there's a there's

a lot of solutions out there um and I I I know we use you guys here at boomcloud just a plug for you um and I know it's been great for our our customer Serv our customer service team um but yeah let's walk us through what makes you guys different and and all that fun stuff yeah and this you know that's that's a question we get all the time because there like to your point there are a lot of solutions for phones and you know it's

almost comes down to you know what do you like better sometimes Ford or Chevy you know and because there's there's so much feature parody out there and I would say the main difference like right out the gate is that you know Jordan you're you're seasoned right you've been in dentistry for a long time like said you can't get out of it you've been to these trade shows you've been to these trade shows and and while there's a lot of different boip and phone providers out there

how many of them do you see at the trade shows supporting dentists or supporting events or sure actually ented embedded in dentistry yeah and and they're just not they're just not they they just don't care like we' care and I I mean I know it maybe sound a little cliche or whatever but my mango voice actually cares about dentists and when when we built this platform you know you hear this phrase a lot you know you know built by dentists for dentists literally like when we

were you know yeah was in that Delta insur Delta Dental Insurance slogan yeah that was our thing right that was that was that was the big pitch right like I'm teasing L literally when we were saying like hey hey what what what do you guys want we would just tell dentists hey what do you guys want we were Nimble enough and dynamic enough to go out and build it say this is how you guys want your calls to flow let's go and do it so you

know you'll see us at the events you'll see us you know sponsoring CE you'll see us sponsoring lectures lunch and learns um and and and innovating inside of Dentistry right we're trying to build out further Integrations into the practice management softwares that everyone's using and even their third party providers there there's probably not a platform that you know is is being used heavily in dentistry right now that Mango's not integrated into and that's the other big piece is you know you may have a phone system

that you're like oh I have Coxs or Spectrum or you know some sort of landline they're missing out on so many features or so many opportunities to capture new Revenue because they're on an outdated or obsolete phone system Ando is always innovating always pushing to try and and better that that that experience not just for customers like our clients but for the patients too because if I call into a dental practice and you know someone says oh let me just look you up real quick Mr

may I I I I'm I'm having trouble finding your chart or your your file by having a screen pop or that that phone integration that we have with everyone it totally changes the experience because now when I call in my name pops up and the office manager or the staff member says hello Richard it's nice to have you call back I see you have an appointment in two days you know you also have a balanced dude you want to take care of that right now it

makes that totally changes the conversation from from the beginning before before you even pick up the phone the you know you're prepared and um not everyone in dentistry is trying to make that experience better but we are and and that's where mango comes in yeah so let's talk about that you you mentioned something that that uh got me interested you said something about you know how to use a phone to basically help generate Revenue uh yeah when I'm I I used to most people know this

by now but I used to manage my dad's dental lab and my dad was a freak about the phone and he would say we don't need to do a a PPC ad ad campaign we need we just the phone is our number one sales tool right which is very true in dental lab business and it's very true in the in just dentistry in general right so what are some ways a practice can use the phone to help them especially with what you you mentioned like a

pop system um what are ways that your clients are seeing Revenue production via the phone system yeah and and this is this is where Mango's really trying to innovate more because for a long time we were simply just trying to be a a reliable phone provider but now the the further we get into it the more it's like how can we really create an experience for people to look at that phone as a tool and like have the same mindset as your dad just say our

phone is because I I as much as you get into all the different tools that are out there um people still want to have a conversation with their dentist at least once and just just to get a feeling for what that practice is going to be like right so yeah I mean the one way is is simply that having that integration because it does say it on that screen pop it immediately will tell you who their insurance provider is and and if they have a balance

du so so much collection is missed on on that phone call when someone calls in because they're it's not happening and and it's just avoided because people will avoid paying as long as they can if they can yeah right so training training training the staff to have that conversation when that pop happens is helping is helping practices collect revenue on those phone calls I would imagine oh a thought on that yeah you talk about if they what what insurance provider is shown when the patient calls

in um does it say if they don't have insurance yeah it'll just say it'll say not a record on sure so on that piece there so our clients that may be listening that use boom Cloud that's a great opportunity to generate Revenue by signing them up to your patient membership program is kind of how I look at it that can be an interesting thing I know a lot of practices that have some type of system like this definitely use it for that to say oh so

and so's calling in let's talk about the patient membership program or whatever it may be right um I'm sure there's a lot of uh scenarios that you can talk about you are going to go on point your point two so I'll let you continue no that's I mean and that's the other side of it this is where like we're not you know we're not experts on what you guys do so that's where you know conversations like these matter that we can and and um we can

get that out to practice owners but you know the the other thing we're seeing is just is is reliability and uptime and I mean I it was just a few months ago that AT&T was down nationwide right and you you see that you see this kind of stuff happen I mean I I don't care how good you think you have it like your phones will have technical problems and this is where you know mango has a lot of redundancy in place and we have our up

time is much higher than even even some of the the biggest names in in in in the space so um we're seeing on our metrics less dropped calls we're seeing less missed calls okay and and less less Dro calls and less Miss calls equals more patients in the chair it's just just a fact like if I'm if I'm if I'm calling into a practice and a they don't pick up I'm just going to Google search the next practice that's you know online and and that's Mis

opportunity because you're missing sure I mean I've done that not not with practice you know not with dental practice but other medical professions where I'm calling to try to make appointment and talk and they either don't answer or they put me on a long hold and I'm like I'm out like I'm have a relationship with you I don't have to stay on hold for as long as I'm staying on hold I'm so that's a huge piece of the patient experience absolutely and and and and what

we're seeing there is that a lot of these a lot of practices they don't have a way to go into their their dashboard and view what their call Flow actually look like and mango has a very intuitive userfriendly switchboard that allows you to map out your call Flow and and when we we we have some best practices that you know can quickly move you from you know a 50% answer rate to a 90% answer rate if you if you follow what we have put in place

and that's and that's massive because you want to really dive into the numbers around that if you can increase your answer rate by 40% that's going to be close to $500,000 of new Revenue that opportunity that yeah I'd love to dig into that actually uh what what are some of those I mean obviously with mango because my thing with phones is there's this technology side of phones that is um from a business side man there's so many bells and whistles and I love things that blink

and Flash and features and and so sometimes when I Implement something um I love to turn on all the features and I just think it's cool but with a phone system where the experience of the user is so important and you can build a lot of automations and you can do a lot of things with a phone system but Jordan pointed to it like nobody wants to sit on hold forever nobody wants to get stuck in an endless call tree um what are some of those

best practices you've seen that helped drive that number up that um you know when they're looking at other competitors or they're implementing their phone system they can make sure to avoid yeah so you know very simp to your point I I we were at an event you know we were there with you guys too in San Antonio just recently right and one of our um one of our prospective clients came up and was talking to us about you know what they have in place right now

and we're saying maybe we have a solution for them so we we called their practice and we we went through their you know their their phone map that they have and and it and it actually just put us on a loop like you could either have an option to go to voicemail or just keep ringing and she was like that's not to do that she didn't even know this is a doctor this is a practice owner it's like when was the last time you called your

own practice to see what the experience is like to begin with and what we've found what works best is to have a a ring group system or a hunt group where all phones ring at the same time right and then maybe have some sort of failover system to the doctor in the back so he knows that after two or three rings if it's ringing in his room that everyone's busy or or everyone's lazy right one of one of the two things but um you know everyone

gets hung up on this idea of we need to have an auto attendant and you know we're there's there's a lot of metrics out there that show that a lot of people don't like Auto attendance they'll hang up you know especially for you know especially if it's a long one and and that's the other thing too yeah like that's if you're gonna have an auto attendant or some ivr with a sound clip playing you got to make sure it's it's shorten to the point you can't

have more than two or three options some of these get into five six seven eight options and I mean I'm not byebye right that's that's and then you have a hangup and you just spent x amount of dollars to to get that number right you literally like paid marketing campaigns you hired someone you spent thousands to try and get that person to call in and now you have a phone tree that's blocking you right like from getting that person in that so it's you're you're fighting

against yourself and and by simply just you know eliminating yeah too many steps to to get the patient you know into the into your office um you're you're finding that people are like booking more they're they're they're getting in more and because it's a good experience for them they're staying with them I mean they're not just saying like Okay like I I get we get a cleaning one time they're actually are recurring make patient right they don't have to they're not stepping away and having churn

or people cancelling and asking to go to a different dentist right so I mean that that's that's priority number one is is has to be you want it to ring and you want everyone to you want every phone in the office to ring even as I've had some doctors say but that's annoying and I'm like what's is that annoying or is missing out on 300K a year annoying I mean I you tell me you know like choose your pain buddy you know I I don't know

what to say to you I think 300,000 a year is pretty annoying yeah exactly yeah what is that a small a small yacht yeah I mean that's that's you know and you know one of one of our one of the doctors that we work with very closely who loves mango I mean we we got into this debate about you know his we we looked at his dashboard and that's that's the other beauty of mangoes you can analyze what's happening you can see your Miss call rate

most most of these Solutions have it's either super hard to find it or they don't even know where they don't even allow it right so on our dashboard you can go and look at your your Miss call rate so you can quickly just say oh we're answering 88% of our calls that's pretty good because the average dental practice right now is only answering about 60% of their calls goodness they're missing my dad would freak out my dad would freak out if that happened to the dent

lab I don't think exactly yeah I don't he would be if should freak out every business should freak out you're absolutely right uh they should they should and um you know so we we we got a discussion with one of our doctors he has an 88% answer rate and he he just he just got he he bought another phone he got another extension for his practice okay and I was like what made you decide to do that and he's because now now you spent another $20

a month for another extension which doesn't seem like I mean I mean I don't think that's a ton of money but to some doctors they're like oh I don't really need another phone it adds up over time sure but he said the amount of calls that we get in it's it's worth it for me to have another phone and actually hire another employee to answer calls versus the revenue I'm going to lose if I don't do that and so this is where we're seeing people get

smart with their phones and utilize them as like a business tool and and you know say all right let's get another team member because the cost of that whatever it's going to cost me to pay that employee is gonna is going to basically three to 5x once they start answering new patient calls and and booking new patients into the office I love that mindset that invest in the the problem so that you can create a a positive solution I think a lot of us get into

save yourself out of business mode where it's like $20 a month I don't need that extra expense but when or that extra employee but when you're really looking at you know just something as simple as you know call rates and and and and loss call rates and what that does to your bottom line it becomes a no-brainer you just have to look take a step back and look at that and I love how you you mango you guys take that look with them and that approach

with them so they can see that value that's lost yep yeah I mean and that's it's not the like it's not the only thing that we're like looking at I mean what I would say that the backbone of mango really is leans on customer support I mean I we I ask people this question all the time like I do you guys have Verizon AT&T I got Verizon Veron I've got Xfinity pros and cons when when when you have to do one of these two things either

call your phone support or go to the to your Verizon store how excited I don't yeah I avoid that at all costs that's like no like hey like my wife and I just went through this we're like we needed to get her a new phone and we put it off for weeks just because we did not want to go into AT&T and get like a new phone for her just because we knew that we'd be in there for hours on a Saturday because that's the only

time we have to do it so that just we we already know the customer experience is not going to be great there and this I would say this is harped on more than anything at mango is is making sure that when someone calls our support line someone answers and and you're able to speak to a live person so industry average for dentists you there's there's an average of 18 to 20 minute hold time if you're calling in for your support on your phones and I I

I don't know about you or me but like just not I just GNA after five minutes I'm going to find I'm probably not going to find something else to do I'm just going to be distracted and forget that I'm on hold with someone knowing my brain yeah right but uh mango voice over the past two years we've averaged less than a one minute answer rate for support calls so even even even in growth even in you know the the the new users that we've added over

the past several years we've still managed to maintain that Personal Touch of hey you call someone you're going to speak to a live agent unless than a minute and and that's that's made all the difference in the world just making people feel like they can talk to someone when they have an issue no matter how big or small it is it could be something as simple as a setting change or they forgot their password to you know their phones might not actually be ringing which does

happen because it's technology but we can get them fixed quickly because we answer the calls quickly and and people they recognize that they're like oh mango takes care of you like as opposed to like other phone companies so support is is like is is number one here at mango voice I love that I yeah nobody likes waiting on hold especially and again as a as a business owner you're looking that as time lost because even if I am quote staying busy you know a lot of

the people that are calling in for that support in the dental industry have other things they need to be doing with that phone time you know they they're calling for you know uh Insurance verification the the enemy of all dentists you know they're they're they're trying to get a hold of patience and validating appointments and and all of those things the a lot of their job is on the phone and if they're calling support to get help and they're waiting on hold for 20 minutes that's

20 minutes of their day that they're not getting they're not doing anything effective to their their job yeah that's huge well and and what happens a lot of time is when they don't get a hold of somebody the problem doesn't get fixed they just say I'll call them back later and then it gets it gets put you know on the back burner and it never gets addressed and then the problem comes up again a week later and they're like why haven't we fixed yet so um

yeah this is awesome rich I think a lot of practices need help with their with their phones and especially since their open or their not open rate their call their answer rate is like 60 60% that's a huge problem a lot of missed opportunities in revenue and all that all that fun and patient experience right like I think that's super key if you're running a practice you want to look at every aspect of where the patient is experiencing your company your brand and optimizing that and

it starts with the phone right starts with the website then the phone right typically oh absolutely right I mean that you know it all goes hand inand right you you got to have good marketing good good good website design and I mean and the dentist is I mean they're they have to have like a really good bedside manner too right and have good and and and and and they have to have good services so I mean I I think it's important to choose your product carefully

and I think I think that the phone is something that gets overlooked as like a careful decision they just say okay whatever whatever local phone provider I have here or whatever I I find online and they just just go with that because it's almost like there's so many things and nuances to Dentistry that I don't even understand that you probably have better feeling for than I do and so they just end up saying well we need a phone so just we find something and uh that's

actually being a bad experience for them so if they took a little more time to you say who who actually should we partner with as a phone company you know to to drive a better experience in our practice I mean there's some good players out there I won't just sit here and try to I'm not gonna sit there and try to bash anybody but sure yeah M mango mango is a is is a great solution for any dental practice and I mean I stand behind that

I I wouldn't have stuck around after three years in this space if I didn't feel that way at least I wouldn't be at mango I'd probably be at boomcloud or something like that at there we go party over here too yeah we'd always like to hang out with you here too well thank you so much for the the value you've given on this episode well if a if one of our audience or listeners wants to learn more about mango where do they go yeah I mean

the easiest thing honestly mango.com you're going to find several several um buttons to push on there that just say get started schedule demo schedule a call that's you know we we we it's it's plastered with that um honestly if they just want to reach out to me directly um it's really simple Rich mango.com R mango.com you can email me and uh reach out to me very easily that way as well and I'm happy to set up a demo or um set up a call with any

anyone who may be listening or may be interested sweet so go to mango.com we'll put the links in the show notes and your email as well if you're cool with that and if you guys are interested in optimizing your phone funnel as we'll call it um go to Mega voice yes thanks again uh rich and we hope all of our listeners have a rocking day