The Pit - IMI Trust

A trip to the dentist was in order. It has been some time and a cracked tooth made up my mind to visit. I was not that concerned as I already had root canal work done on this culprit.

This was the first time I had been to this dentist. It met the mandatory criteria - looked clean, close to where I live, attractive looking people inside and I had heard some good things from friends of mine.

The girl at reception were very welcoming and asked me to fill out a questionnaire. One of the questions was interesting. “Do you feel nervous when you go to the dentist?” Not being afraid to admit it… I ticked ‘YES’. Not long after my name is called. As we go up the stairs, the dentist gave my form a quick read.

Within seconds of sitting down, he starts stabbing inside my mouth *OWWWWW!!* was my first thought. ‘Thanks for helping me to settle my nerves!’ was my second thought.

After my yelp he decides that it is not able to be fixed and he needs to take out half the tooth to have a look. But just to make sure, he does an x-ray. Red flags and alarm bells. A course of action decided before full information is gathered. Is that usual?

So he then explains that what he can do is…

1) Take out half the tooth and see if it can be fixed. He thinks it is ‘unlikely’ and a ’small possibility’ that it can be fixed. If it can, he will fix it and set a crown on it.

2) “If it cant be fixed, we take the tooth out, shave down the teeth next to them, place caps on them and then put a bridge in.

and the last option, which he didn’t favour at all…

3) Extract the tooth and leave a gap.

I have only been sat in the room 5 minutes. By this stage, I am thinking “what the %$&*?”

I am feeling pain, visualising gaps in my mouth and thinking about eating without a tooth, or the damage it will do to the teeth on either side. Also I am thinking, neither of the ‘preferred’ options sound cheap.

Nerves have turned into flat out fear.

Then he says, ok… now I am going to take out this side of the tooth and see if it can be fixed. I am thinking by this stage I am being rail roaded down a path in which I have minimal information of cost, procedure or other options.

I stop the dentist and ask him can he outline my options and the cost of them. I explain I have meetings today and I need my mouth for those meetings. Not those kind of meetings. He says it’s OK it will only take 30 minutes max.

“I am happy to book another appointment”, I tell him.

The dentist kindly starts outlining the options he was trying to take me down today with no information, very minimal explanation and providing me with the feeling he is selling me and not serving me. In other words, I was getting the feeling it was ‘not’ the best path for ‘me’, but the best path for ‘him’.

The two options were $2,000 and $5,000 for a tooth I had already had root canal on. No information, no explanation, no rapport established and no time to think about different options and a form clearly stating that I am nervous. This hard-selling dentist has turned me right off going to this practice. It certainly didn’t provide any assistance in calming my nerves next time I see a new dentist.

In fact, I will be flying to Sydney next week on business and have booked to see a dentist I do trust.

Maybe dentists are being trained on sales these days. If they are, they should definitely invest time in understanding trust, rapport and ability to explain information in terms normal people can understand. Also, the should become aware, that if someone clearly states they are nervous, railroading them into an expensive path is not the best course of action.

From a business perspective, it highlighted how important trust is, and giving people the time to think. That trust can easily be developed through balanced information, and an understanding of someones personality. If you need to hard sell and railroad people into your product, then get a new product.

Also in listening to my own thoughts, I started to notice how I began generalising an industry because of one persons actions, and by the end of the day 5 other people knew about my experience.

And now I write about this experience in this post which will be read by over 1,000 people. This the impact we can have each day in our business. Positive or negative.