The Smile Spa team of Susan and Simon Andrews are DBC Elite clients. The Smile Spa 2010 Private Dentistry Awards nominations are for: Most Attractive Practice, Best Employer, Best Patient Care, Best Dental Team and Most Improved Practice
They recently answered some questions about their nominations, and this is what they said.
What does it mean to you and your team to be on the nomination list?
We find that by having us on the nomination list we are making a statement about what the practice is about, it supports our vision and ambitions, it tells our team and our patients that we think we are worthy of recognition and hopefully the judges will think so too. It helps to reinforce the standards we expect from within the team, the self esteem of the team and the pride that they have in their job and the practice. We also know from past experience that it offers a great opportunity to market the practice both internally and externally.
What particular achievement in your team/practice/business this year are you most proud of?
Our practice is based on the outskirts of Middlesbrough, an area in the North East that the Government says is most likely to struggle to recover through the current economic downturn. Despite that we set ourselves an ambitious target to grow the practice from an already strong base. Six months into the financial year we are on course to achieve our goal.
We have also had to recruit five new members of the team to allow for adding three additional team members due to the planned increase in practice size, (we now have added a fifth fully functioning treatment room) as well as two team members on maternity leave. It has involved a lot of hard work from the existing team but four months later we now have a fantastic new team that is gelling well and supporting themselves excellently.
What have been the best tools, advice or ideas for your practice that you’ve gained from your time spent with the Dental Business Club?
With Chris’ help, it is all about the detail. He has helped us improve our financial analysis and refine our KPIs. We are able to compare ourselves with what is happening at other successful dental practices. His knowledge has enabled us to successfully identify opportunities for developing the practice which has contributed to the growth of the turnover and profit. He has also been instrumental in recruiting key members to the team. In summary, he has helped us get better, to identify our objectives and then achieve them.
