Dr. Jean Luc Dubois – A Services Rethink*
15% Assessment (62 marks)
Due Week 9
Situation:
Jean Luc Dubois had just finished reading an article in a major Canadian newspaper about the fearS that 50% of Canadians have when they go to the dentist. The headline of the article was very discouraging, almost depressing for Jean Luc who has been a dentist for over 23 years since graduating from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Dentistry. According to a new national poll conducted in 2016 as reported by City Tv News in Calgary the highlights (or lowlights) included the following:
50 per cent of Canadians fear going to the dentist and say they would rather do anything else
Many feel the sounds and smells of the dentist’s office are enough of a deterrent to avoid seeing a dentist.
More than one-quarter would rather suffer through a dinner with their in-laws.
One-in-seven would rather watch their favourite shade of off-white paint dry.
15 per cent would be in favour of running into their ex-spouse.
And the fear of feeling pain or the possibility of discomfort held them back from seeing their doctor.
This so-called ‘dental dread’ is highest among those between the ages of 18 and 34 and highest among those who live in British Columbia. Hensley, Laura. “Why some people are afraid of the dentist”. globalnews.ca. August 24, 2019. www.globalnews.ca/news/5798131/dental-fear
After reading the article, Jean Luc was shocked that with all the technology improvements in dental care over the past decade to help with patient comfort and improve the quality of care, many patients still dreaded a trip to the dentist. This was not good news at all.
Jean’s Luc’s dental practise was called Bytown Dental Associates* and he had just opened a new, larger office in Ottawa, Ontario to take care of his established patients. It included several new changes in the way the office would operate and how process of treating patients would be improved. Jean Luc made the changes to improve the overall service experience and quality of care for his patients. But now Jean Luc wondered if the high level of fear of dentists that he just read about would overshadow the changes he had made in his own practise and be less meaningful to his patients, especially new patients. He needed them to notice and appreciate the changes to justify the fees he charged in his practise which were higher than most dental offices.
When Jean Luc was in dental school, he learned a lot about the medical and technical side of dentistry but not much about the business side, especially how to communicate and market his services to his patients. In fact, when he was in school the professional dental guidelines discouraged marketing or advertising in any way. This was not a big problem when he graduated, but things had changed dramatically in the last 20 years. Profit margins were declining as operation costs continually increased due to higher business insurance requirements, equipment upgrades, staff training, more specialists, more technology and marketing costs as a result of more competition. (Wright 510)
As the costs of operations increased two very general types of dental professionals were emerging:
Low-Cost Providers of most dental services that charged only the Ontario Dental Association recommended fees for standard services like teeth cleaning, cavities, root canals, Xrays/diagnostics, and consultations. Most dental insurance plans (individual or corporate) cover only the basic recommended fees published by the Ontario Dental Association (ODA). Dentists are not required to use these fees exactly and can charge higher or lower rates. The ODA’s fee schedule are the recommended fees. Low- cost dental service providers would generally charge the ODA recommended fees or less.
Higher Quality Care premium dental service providers – these dentists charge premiums on many services over the ODA recommended fees. Patient dental insurance would cover the basic fees published by the ODA, but the patient is required to pay the difference.
For example, a patient at Jean Luc’s office could receive a root canal and be billed $1500 for the services. If the recommended ODA fee is $1150.00 for a root canal, then that is what the patient’s insurance company would pay to Jean’s office and the patient would be billed the difference – $350.00 depending on the type of insurance the patient has (some plans might cover 80% of the fee, or 100%). The more comprehensive the insurance coverage that the patient has is reflected in the insurance premiums (costs) required. Some insurance plans cover the entire fees but are more expensive to get for either individuals or employee dental plans that provide dental insurance as part of the employee compensation package.
This does not include dental specialists like Dental Surgeons who only perform certain operations like root canals and extractions, Paediatric dentists or Emergency Dental Clinics, some of which operate longer hours, 7 days a week some operating 24/7.
Jean Luc’s dental practise is a High-Quality Dental Care provider, with his fee structure premium priced, and his patients pay for some costs not covered by their insurance policy. The risk for Jean Luc is that if his patients don’t’ feel his care is higher quality his patients might switch to another dentist or a low-cost provider. So far this had not been an issue in his dental practise, but he worries that his cost structure might need to be increased in his new office because some of the costs of upgrades were significant. So, he needs patients to notice the changes and appreciate them to justify his fees. He knows now that he needs to do more from a marketing standpoint.
Jean Luc’s Office Changes:
When Jean Luc decided to move his office to a new more spacious location in Ottawa, he believed it was a good time to re-evaluate the services he offered. He wanted the experience to be a good one for both his patients and his staff. So, he decided to make some significant changes that he hoped would differentiate his dental practise from most other offices.
The first change he made was to purchase an older home (circa early 1900’s) in the downtown area of Ottawa, so that he could physically restructure the practise. His former office was also in downtown Ottawa, but it was small and located in an office tower and not much different than most dental offices – not very interesting and antiseptic.
Most of his patients lived or worked in or near the Ottawa’s downtown area so location will not be an issue for his patients and in Jean’s view a goo opportunity to attract new patients.
The new office used two floors of the 3 story, older row house that Jean Luc purchased and has lots of windows and bright light on every floor. Jean Luc grew up near Quebec City and many homes and business in Quebec were furnished with antique pine furniture. Jean Luc decided to use a lot of antique pine furniture and pine accents in the office reception area as well as a large waiting area ( images below). He hoped the wood accents and warm colour of antique pine would create a more calming atmosphere in the office and make patients more relaxed. After reading the article about ‘fear of dentists’ he was happy he made this decision early on when they were designing the new office.
In the Front Office waiting room Wifi is available, and patients can have free coffee and tea and read from a selection of current newspapers and magazines while waiting. Contemporary music plays in the background from Spotify playlists and there is free 1 hour parking available at the new house as well as 3 reserved spaces at a nearby City Parking Lot. Although none of Jean Luc’s patients are young children, he also included a supervised waiting room for kids where they could wait for their parents and watch movies and play with toys.
For the back office, all the treatment areas are on the second floor and are both functional and appealing. All have large windows with great views of the Ottawa cityscape and headphones and playlists are available for patients during their treatment. From a treatment perspective each room has computer monitors so that the dentist and patient could look at Xray’s and discuss treatment options and well as dental education with the dental hygienists. (Wright 511)
There are 3 dentists (including Jean Luc), 3 hygienists, 3 assistants and 2 support staff.
Pictures of all the staff and their families are prominently displayed throughout the office along with any professional degrees or personal achievements. Everyone meets briefly in the morning before the office opens to discuss the day’s activity.
Jean Luc also has monthly meetings with everyone to discuss any issues developing in the office or with patients. And once a month Jean Luc leads a staff meeting to discuss ideas from the staff to improve patient care and follow up. In these meetings he shares financial information and provides monthly bonuses when business exceeded forecasts. All employees in addition to salary and benefits receives an annual professional development allowance to take courses in their area or anything that they feel would make them better at their job. He believes this will make happy employees, high morale, improve service delivery and will be evident to the patients. (Wright 512)
Service Delivery Changes:
In addition to the physical changes to the office, all the office administration was standardized – billing, patient protocols, and lab work was redesigned to provide more consistent standards and service delivery for patients.
Jean Luc and his staff also established new time standards to complete specific procedures and made internal commitments to adhere to these as much as possible so that appointment times were more realistic for patients and time intervals between appointment times reflected the actual time to complete certain procedure, not average times. This customized appointment approach will eliminate some of the avoidable waiting for patients. And if a patient waits 20 minutes or more for their appointment to start, they have the option to rebook their appointment and leave the office with no cancellation fee. Part of this new policy has staff also calling patients the same day before their appointments if delays are being encountered to give them the same option to rebook the appointment if they can’t keep an amended/delayed appointment time. Jean Luc believes that this would be a key benefit to his patients who work in downtown Ottawa and are time pressed. (Wright 512)
All the staff except the three dentists are trained in other office responsibilities so that they can help in certain situations to keep everything going smoothly and avoid patient wait times. Jean Luc sometimes spends time at reception when required to help relieve administrative staff and demonstrate leadership to keep morale high.
Patients are mainly business professionals, university and government employees, small business owners – retail and commercial, and live throughout the city and suburbs of Ottawa but generally work in the downtown area. They are mostly middle to high income earners, aged 25 – 55 and split approximately 50/50 male and female.
Jean Luc started some advertising and marketing activity 2 years before the office move. Until then, virtually all his new patients were the result of referrals/word of mouth from his existing patients, but competition has increased substantially, and new competitive dental offices and clinics were using lots of marketing activity. With his new office and increased overhead costs, he knew that he was going to have to step up his marketing activity to help generate new patients and more revenues
The Future:
Jean Luc was very confident that he and his staff would continue to deliver high quality service, but he was concerned that his patients continue to recognize that they were getting superior service and would continue to pay premium prices. The article he had just read about Canadians’ high level of “dental dread’ was very concerning. He knew that it certainly existed because he had to reassure some patients from time to time, but he thought modern dentistry was much less of an issue with Canadian adults. Was there anything more that he should be doing to make both his existing and potential new clients more comfortable and less anxious about his services?
Case Questions:
a) From the case information identify and describe 2 Facilitating Supplementary Services and 2 Enhancing Supplemental Services in Bytown Dental Associates, Jean Luc’s dental practise. (8 Marks)
b) Briefly explain how each in a) above improves the Core Service Delivery for Jean Luc clients (4 Marks)
c) Based on your knowledge/experience do you believe any of the Facilitating or Enhancing Supplemental services would provide Jean Luc’s dental practise with a competitive advantage? Specify which one(s) and why? (4 Marks)
Provide and describe examples from the case for any three P’s of the Marketing Mix (9 Marks)
One thing that was not discussed in the case was segmenting the market for Dental Services.
As a marketing consultant how would you segment the dental market by different consumer needs? Recommend 4 different market segments and describe (in your own words) what the consumer needs are for each segment. What is the core service need for each segment that would distinguish it from other segments? (15 Marks)
In sixty words or less, write a positioning statement for Jean Luc’s new look dental practice. You may use either a statement or the ABC format discussed in class. (5 Marks)
a) Given Jean Luc’s recent concerns about the need to attract new patients to his practise recommend 3 marketing/communication/advertising activities (not mentioned in the case) and briefly describe. (6 Marks)
b) To help his patients overcome their anxiety about visits to the dentist recommend 1 education/promotion or PR tactic that would help his patients, especially new patients overcome their fears. This could be something added to the patient process at their appointments or done publicly. (6 Marks)
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS:
This case study should be in a report format with a separate cover/title page, separate agenda page, introduction and conclusion, and separate citations/references page (apa format).
Use Times New Roman font or Calibri, with Font size 12.
Grammar, spelling, punctuation, creativity, report format. 5 marks
Submit through Blackboard SafeAssign – link is in the Assignment tab
Group Assignment – Maximum 5 students per group.
