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Creating An Incredible Client Experience with Michael Ashford of The Receptionist · The Trauma Therapist

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Trauma Thepist podcast Plus listeners can listen to episodes early and ad free right now.
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Become a Plus listener by going to Apple Podcasts searching for the Trauma Thepist
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podcast and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Neveris podcast. A show
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about the incredible people dedicated to helping those who experienced trauma. My name is
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got macpherson, and my mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
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each of us to help those around us. Perfect. I am ready sorry
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than you are here we go, So five or three, two and one,
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our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
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my guest today, Michael Ashford. Michael, welcome. Thank you so much,
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guy. I appreciate you inviting me on. All right, So,
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Michael is the director of Marketing at The Receptionist in Denver, Colorado, and
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has spent the past decade building and leading marketing teams at companies large and small.
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Prior to his career marketing, Michael was award winning journalist after graduating from
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Kansas State University. His approach to marketing focuses on scaling companies through the power
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of effective communication, storytelling, and humanizing brands. Michael, welcome again,
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thank you so much. So before we get go in here and before we
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dive in and share with the listeners where you're from originally and where you are
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currently originally from the Kansas City area. Now, those of you who are
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up to it, you do know that there is a Kansas City, Missouri
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in the Kansas City, Kansas and I am from the Kansas City, Kansas
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side of things. Oh so, I grew up in the Midwest on the
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Kansas side of the Kansas City metro area. And then I have lived almost
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a decade now in the Denver, Colorado area, where where I came for
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my job at the time, switched jobs to where I'm at here at the
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receptionists. So been here, like I said, for about ten years.
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Okay, So break it down. What is the receptionist? Who's it for?
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Let's dive into it here. Well, in the context of what we're
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talking about here today, we work with a lot of behavior health professionals mental
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health professionals therapists both in private practice and in group practice to help streamline and
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make more efficient the act of somebody coming in to a practice and notifying the
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therapist that they're there. That what we have found is a blind spot for
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a lot of practices, whether large or small, that somebody walks in,
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there's nobody sitting at the front desk oftentimes, and so they don't know what
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to do. They may have anxiety about the fact that they're there, especially
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if they're a first time patient or client, and the therapists themselves may not
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know that somebody just walked into the door. If you're in a group practice,
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if somebody if you hear that door open and close, is it your
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next appointment? Right? Is it the person the other therapist down the hall,
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is it their next appointment? Is it a delivery? Is it your
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lunch? Is a salesperson? We just don't know. And so that disruption
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of time that you have to stand up, poke your head out the door,
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or walk down the hallway and say, oh no, sorry, you're
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not mine. Somebody will be with you in just a bit. We aim
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to disrupt that, we aim to alleviate I should say that disruption from your
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day and from the person walking in the door from their day. So we're
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a checking system that's as simple as I can make it. We're a check
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in system that the person walking in, checks in and the person that they're
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there to see is notified that they're there, and we remove that messy middle.
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So a check in system specifically, do you provide that system or is
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it like, okay, it's software. It runs on an iPad, and
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so you you can have a wall mounted iPad, you can have a desk
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stand, you can have one that stands on the floor however you want to
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set it up. But yeah, we provide the software that runs on an
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iPad. Okay, And so let's go into more specifically how does it work?
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So what does the software look like? How user friendly is it?
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Well, I mean, you've got the marketer here, guys, so I'm
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going to tell you it's incredibly user friendly. But it is. It's button
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based, and what that means is when every action that the person using the
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iPad to check in on, there's a button that allows them to Did you
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ever read those books that choose your own adventure books where you got to choose
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the chapter and then it told you, okay, go to page one fifty.
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Yeah. Yeah, that's a little bit like the system works. Oh,
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you say, what you're there for, who you're there to see?
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In the case of because we're dealing with people's sensitive information. We're not going
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to ask them for things like their social Security number, or we're not going
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to ask them for things like their credit card information, but we may ask
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them has your building information changed since your last visit? And in that way
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that they therapists can be notified, oh I've got to get more updated billing
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information from them. But you choose what makes sense for you. You pick
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your therapist, and then once you're done with just a few short questions,
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you tap to check in, and that notification gets sent to the person that
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you're there to see. That notification usually, in with our therapy clients that
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we work with, usually comes in as a text message. So I'm wearing
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a smart watch here. I just get a little buzz on my phone.
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Your next appointment has arrived. Maybe it's their first name, last initial for
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again, privacy concerns, privacy reasons, and now they know. Now the
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person at the front desk knows who just checked in. Somebody's there. There's
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a record of me being here, and somebody has been notified that I'm here.
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I can sit back, I can relax, I can maybe grab a
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drink water or coffee or go to the bathroom, and the therapist who might
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still be wrapping up their last session, they might be finishing session notes and
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they're kind of on a roll because you know, once you get done,
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once you get into type in obsession notes, you just want to finish them
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right now. They don't have to go stand up and say, hey,
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Michael, I'll be right with you. Just hang out for a few minutes.
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You now know that they're checked in and you know that they're there.
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And again we alleviate that messy middle So button based workflow for the user,
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simple notifications for the therapist. It can also be email, it can be
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Slack message, it can be Microsoft Teams messages, so you can be notified
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in a variety of different ways. And is that the only kind of point
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of contact between the client and the therapist? For example, the client doesn't
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have an app that they do that, Okay, it's just at the office.
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One of the things that I'm thinking about, just off the top of
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my head is it feels like a very professional way of creating that interaction.
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Right you have this system that just seems and feels very professional to me,
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And that is feedback that we get I do want to address one thing.
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Yeah, you can. We have we have mobile check in, so you
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can use your phone, you can scan a QR code. Sometimes our therapy
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clients, if they're doing a virtual session, will email a check in code
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to their customer, to their client and they'll say check in here when you're
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ready to go, and all start the zoom link. Okay, right,
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And so there is that ability to even virtually check in. So but it's
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not done through an app. It's just done through your phone's mobile Bros.
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Browser. But you're absolutely hitting on something here that and I lost my train
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of thought because I just took you off track there, No, well,
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I had just said. It just seemed to me like a really the professional
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professional integrate that's right now, something to bring into an office that normally or
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might not even have. If you don't have that, if you don't have
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that system, it can seem on the on the far end of the continuum,
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unprofessional on the less so just kind of bumbling like, right, we
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don't have our act together here, but this seems like okay, you know,
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it just seems more professional and you've got your act together, you want
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to there's this, there's this common adage, right, the therapy starts from
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the moment that first call, and in a sense that this could even be
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part of that. You thank you for getting me back on track, and
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you're absolutely right. What we what I have found with my own therapist,
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with the other therapists that we work with here at the receptionist, is that
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so this group of people, this population of people, is so good at
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thinking of the entirety of the human experience, from the first interaction like you
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talked about, to how you show up, to how the paperwork looks,
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to the notifications that you receive, the reminders that you receive, to billing,
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to the experience in the office and the nice furniture, the comfortable furniture,
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the perhaps pleasant music playing in the lobby, the white noise, the
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comfortable seating and environment in the session room itself. So much has been thought
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of, so much detail has been ironed out, that this is one of
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those ways that we have found can get overlooked, that check in process.
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What does somebody do the moment they walk into your space, whether you're a
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one person practice or in a group practice of fifty and everywhere in between.
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It's it's that part of the patient client experience that we just for some reason,
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for a variety of reasons, I should say we can overlook it.
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Can be why we'll get specific. Why have you found or have been told
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that that is overlooked. Most often it's because they don't think a system like
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ours can do what it does at the cost and the price point that it
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does. Small practices especially are very price conscious, no doubt, as they
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should be. They're trying to get their business off the ground. They're taking
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their first foray into entrepreneurship or business owner in many business ownership in many cases,
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and that is seen as an expense. You want me to put up
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this iPad and have a notification system and a check in system, and also
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a broadcast system in case anything should go wrong where I can notify other people
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who are checked in. Hey, something's going on here. We need to
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evacuate things like that. They don't believe that there's a system in place that
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can do it as simply and effectively and at a price point that makes sense
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for a small business as what ours does. Time and time again, that
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is what we hear. But I will say, one of our customers up
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in Fort Collins, Colorado, here in Colorado, just north of us Bloom
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Counseling and Nutrition. One of the things that she said is this is one
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of those aspects that as she was starting her business during the pandemic. Mind
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you, she was having a walk in therapy therapy space right after kind of
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the first initial wave of the pandemic started to wane. She said, I
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knew if I wanted my business to present the professional look that I wanted and
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to grow in the way that I wanted it to grow, had to think
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of everything, and that included the check in experience. And I knew I
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had to make the investment in my business for the systems that would help me
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scale down the road. I knew I had to implement that from the start,
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and she did. Yeah, it's funny. As you were talking,
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I was thinking about a therapy experience I had a long time time ago where
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I walked into an office that was open and there was a room there with
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chairs and I was like, what's going on here? And do I have
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an appointment? So but on a couple of levels, right, it's like
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just logistically for a client, it presents a real big question like do I
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have an appointment? And then of course, the other side of it is
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the professional side, like, is this person, is this therapist taking care
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of me? Do they have their stuff together enough such that they're not only
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thinking of everything to make this a comfortable experience for me, but making this
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seamless, you know. And I can't think of a better word than just
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being professional. I mean a lot, a lot goes into that. I
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also like, if we're talking about words we like, I like the word
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that you use there seamless that it is. This type of technology is so
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ingrained in. I mean, we order off of QR code driven menus at
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restaurants for the most part now these days. It's a part of what we
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have come to expect that we will use technology when we go out and about.
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One of the things that we want to make mind of in the therapy
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space is a there's a heightened level of privacy. We don't want to say
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our name and who we're there to see or why we're there when we walk
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into the space, especially if there are other people sitting in that waiting area.
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And yeah, the anxiety that is built up when you walk in and
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the room is empty. I've been there too, guy, I've walked into
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my therapist space at a previous therapist sixteen eighteen different chairs around. I'm the
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only person in there, and I just I grabbed the seat and I'm like,
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okay, twiddle in my thumbs. I don't know what to do here.
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Well, ten minutes after my session was supposed to start, my therapist
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comes out into the waiting room and he goes, oh, Michael, I
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didn't know you were here. I didn't hear you come in right. Well,
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that's that's not my fault. It's what's going through my head. But
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I still get charged for those ten minutes. So it's just it is.
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It's that professionalism, It's that dedication to making sure that every step of that
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experience is accounted for. What are some I'm wondering if you've heard of some
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hesitancies that maybe therapists have talked about or shared or have been clients, because
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one of the things I'm thinking of you mentioned privacy. So if I'm a
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client and I'm walking in and i'm checking in, how do I know someone
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another client who comes in next to me, maybe you won't see my name
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more anything else in that instance, because as soon as soon as your check
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in is done, and you tap check in, your information goes away.
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It is not displayed there as it would be in a paperlogue book sitting on
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the table right where I could just say, oh, I know, with
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a big photo. Yeah right, we do again. I think I referenced
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this earlier. We do suggest that people for privacy concerns in this space check
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in using just initials. That's a popular one, so m A or first
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name, last initial Michael A. So we're not giving any particular identifying information
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out there, but that is a hesitancy is just can I make sure that
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my customers or my clients and patients are are that their information is kept private.
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Another hesitancy we hear is well, I'm I'm it's only me. I'm
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just a one person show here, and I can hear when that front door
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opens and the only people that are coming in are my patients, my next
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patient. And again I go back to but what is the cost of disruption?
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We've all heard of task switching and how long they're varying estimates on how
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long it takes us to get in back on task after we've been disrupted.
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I think the most common that I've heard is it takes up to twenty minutes
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to get back on task after you've been interrupted, and if you only have
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ten minutes in between sessions, and three of those minutes have to be your
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bathroom break, we're human, right, But you also if while you're in
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the bathroom, want to make sure that your client knows that you're there,
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Well, if nobody, if nothing is there to check them in, then
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they don't know. And or those if those seven minutes, those last seven
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minutes that you have are spent finishing up notes, planning out the rest of
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your day, maybe making a call to your kids to check in on them,
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you don't want to be disrupted in that way. So that's a hesitancy
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that we hear is just I'm not big enough for a system like this.
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This is too much. I guarantee you, and I promise you that it's
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not the last one would be At larger therapy spaces, we have several co
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working spaces that are specifically for therapists. So all of the you know,
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they may have fifty offices in their co working space and it's all therapists,
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it's all their own private suites. And some of the hesitancy there has been
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well, we have somebody sitting at the front desk, and won't just throwing
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a system up like this make it less personal because we have somebody there to
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check them in. And what we say is the two are not It's not
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binary. It's not a yes, and it's not an either or. It
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is a It is a yes, and it's not a yes no. It
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is a yes. And you can work this works very well in tandem with
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a human receptionist, somebody sitting at the front desk, because they our system
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can take care of the things that robots do, past the mundane, the
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privacy stuff, the just simple basic tasks of checking somebody in and the person
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can be there to be a human being. Can I get you a cup
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of coffee? Can I show you where the restroom is? Do you have
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any questions? Is there anything we need to be aware of, Just things
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that allow that person to feel like again, I'm interacting with a human,
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and we can save the stuff that makes humans into robots. We can save
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that for the robots. You mentioned before that in terms of the information that
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is input into the system, you said sometimes it might offer does anything need
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to be changed or updated? Talk more about when someone walks up to that
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iPad. What are the options they have? It's completely customizable, okay,
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And so we have some therapy and behavioral health customers in this space. Only
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ask first name, last initial, and who's the therapist that you're there to
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see. And when you check the therapist, you can you can add the
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therapist picture so that they can choose from the picture. You can of course
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have their name, they can display all their license licensure, or you can
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make it so that those contacts are hidden to where you have to input the
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first you know, three to four characters of your therapists name to check in
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with them. So it's perhaps hidden behind a little bit of a barrier there.
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So name or some sort of identifier as to who you are, then
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who you're there to see, and if that's all you want, that's all
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that's needed. You can check in from there. But then you can also
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add any other questions that you might have. We have some spaces or some
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customers that use us that have limited parking, and so in their parking lot
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it is they have to validate their parking to be able to park in this
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very small lot. So one of the questions is will you need parking validation
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today. Yes, no, so that your therapist can remember at the end
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of the session. Oh, here's your parking validation sticker, right right.
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Another another interesting use case that has to do with parking. We had one
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group practice that started to use our system to track inflow to their clinic and
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they were getting ready to move. They were getting ready to move because they
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were expanding, they were hiring, they were growing, and they said,
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look, our busiest times are on these days. We have to make sure
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we move to a space that has a parking lot big enough to account for
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the expected growth. If these are our busiest days, plus we're adding more,
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we got to have a bigger parking lot. So they chose their space
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based on our visitor data, so we can ask for that. We can
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ask for has your billing information changed since your last visit? Will you be
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paying for your visit today? Or should we build the credit card on file?
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Or types of questions that get asked. Then there's also so that would
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be if I'm if I'm a client or a patient and I have an appointment
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with a therapist. But you can also have a separate button completely for just
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visits. Let's say your let's say your husband walks in or your wife walks
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in and they want to visit you. They come, they want to come
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in to lunch, but you need to make sure you track everybody who's in
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your building for safety reasons. They can check in and they can automatic and
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you know, you can change all the questions that you're asked asking. There
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there's a button where you can have it for a delivery. So if you
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order a lot of Uber Eats or door Dash, they can check a button,
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say who the delivery is for and then just set the bag down and
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go and it. But it'll notify you that your food order has been dropped
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off. So it's very very customizable. Guy, very cool. Yeah,
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all right. So obviously people listening to this podcast are therapists of all kinds,
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people in the mental health profession. Someone listening to this is like,
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okay, you've got me, Michael, I'm sold. I want to integrate
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this. Whether they're in private practice or group practice, whatever, what do
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they need to do? What can they do? They can go and try
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our system, make sure it works for you. So if you go to
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the receptionist dot com slash trauma and you sign up for a fourteen day free
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trial there. If you end up actually coming on board as a customer of
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the receptionist and you use that landing page and sign up through that page,
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then you'll get your first month free. So not only will you get fourteen
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days to trial the system, but you'd also get the first full month of
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actually using the system beyond that trial for free. So that's where you can
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go to get started. Also on that page, if you just want an
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interactive demonstration of how the system works and you don't want to start a free
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trial just yet, you can actually sign up for a product tour. So
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there's a believe it's a seven to eight minute long video that walks you through
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our system. It's hosted by members of our team, so you'll see our
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bright, shining face and we'll walk you through the system and everything that you
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need to know there. And then the other thing I would say is if
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you want to test it but you don't have an iPad, we do have
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a way for you to test even without an iPad. It's called our iPad
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simulator, and so you can start a free trial. We can turn on
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that stint simulator for you and you can actually use your computer to simulate an
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iPad. It's very easy, very cool, and you can actually see what
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the experience is like. Okay, awesome, awesome. We'll have this linked
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up here at the show notes page at the Trauma theaspodcast dot com. Okay,
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so one more time, it's the Receptionist dot com slash trauma. That's
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right. Okay, we'll have that linked up. Michael. Awesome, really
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informative, excited to get this out there. And yeah, just thank you
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for joining me today. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. We're
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here to support your audience as best we can. We're very much tied into
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this audience. We have somebody on our staff dedicated solely towards this audience and
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the behavioral health community as a whole. Her name is Samantha Pinrod. And
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the last thing I would do and maybe you can throw this link in the
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show notes as well. Guy. She puts out a monthly newsletter called success
24:12
in Session, and it is all about how to think about the operational side
24:18
of your business. So many therapists go to school to be a great therapist,
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but when they start their own practice, the business side and what they
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perhaps don't know can catch up to them. And so Sam's newsletter is all
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about She brings in experts from other people who have done it. It's not
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just it's not I promise you it is not a sales pitch for the receptionist.
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It's all about the things to think about how to be operationally better at
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running your business. You go be great at therapy and will help you on
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what we know as a small business ourselves to be great at running the business.
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Awesome, Okay, and well I'll get that link for you. We'll
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have that link up here also. You got it all right, Michael,
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Thanks man, take care, Thank you many em