The acronym KPIs has only drifted into view for many dentists with the recent imposition of the “PDS plus” contracts under the watchful eye of Dr Mike Warburton who is seeking to bring the same harmony to GDPs that he has to their medical colleagues.

A part of Peter Drucker’s philosophy of management by objectives, KPIs arrived along with the mantra “no management without measurement”. I firmly believe that there are certain basic parameters that must be measured and monitored in order that the performance of the business can be assured.

However, I know that measuring everything without regard for quality, the individuals involved and their understanding of the systems in which they work can lead to a target driven environment. This can rob the organisation of leadership, remove its flexibility and its ability to adapt to a changing environment.

So KPIs are important as a tool and a means to an end but not an end in themselves.

Figures highlight mounting expenses of dental practice warns BDA

New figures published by the NHS Information Centre today highlight the increasing expense of providing dental care, the British Dental Association (BDA) has warned. The Information Centre’s report, Dental Earnings and Expenses, England and Wales 2008/09, shows expenses borne by dental practices escalating at a faster rate than incomes were increasing during the period it details. It also highlights an increase in the average self-employed dentist’s taxable income of just £500 during the year.
The average taxable income for all self-employed primary care dentists in England and Wales in 2008/09 was £89,600, compared to £89,100 in 2007/08, according to the report.
The expenses borne by dentists – the costs of providing the building, equipment, staff and materials necessary to provide patient care – increased rapidly during 2008/09. Practice principals saw their expenses rocket by 7.6 per cent from £218,000 in 2007/08 to £235,500 in 2008/09.
John Milne, Chair of the BDA’s General Dental Practice Committee, said:
“These figures underline what the BDA knows from its own research and talking to members: that the costs associated with providing high street dentistry have risen dramatically. Changes in the exchange rate have had a pronounced impact on the costs of equipment imported from overseas and costs associated with compliance with a variety of regulatory requirements.
“Trends in expenses will need to be monitored carefully to ensure that dental practices are properly supported and are able to provide the resources they need to continue providing high-quality care to patients. The Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body will clearly need to consider the issue of expenses carefully this year and the BDA will be requesting it does so.”
Notes to editors
1. The report is available at: www.ic.nhs.uk/statistics-and-data-collections/primary-care/dentistry/dental-earnings-and-expenses-england-and-wales-2008-09

DDRB role on GDP pay in England suspended

The Doctors’ and Dentists’ Review Body (DDRB) will play no role in determining the remuneration of independent contractor general dental practitioners (GDPs) and general medical practitioners (GMPs) in England for the financial years 2011/12 and 2012/13, it has been announced. The decision has been taken in light of the current financial climate and the previously announced pay freeze that will affect public sectors workers earning over £21,000 a year.
Instead, the government will determine any gross uplift for GDPs and GMPs directly. It is understood that any uplift will be determined based on the efficiency assumptions government wishes to apply and evidence on non-staff expenses. The government has said it will enter into dialogue with relevant professional bodies about expenses. The BDA will be contacting the Government to take forward that dialogue.
At the time of writing, it is unclear whether the governments in Northern, Scotland and Wales will mirror the decision made by the administration at Westminster.
The announcement comes just days after an NHS information Centre report showing that the 2008/09 financial year witnessed an average 7.6 per cent increase in practice principals’ expenses across England and Wales.

What are you doing to make sure that your team works together and stays together?

Editorial – Are Staff Happy?
By Steve Gold, Editor, Management in Brief

www.managementbooks.co.uk

I’ve just got back from not one, but two business shows this week in, respectively, London and Birmingham, and the one thing that struck me was that – behind the smiles to customers – staff were not happy.

When I say unhappy, I mean unhappy with their lot in life as regards business, and judging from the off-guard comments, it all comes down to the managers at the companies they are working for.

Poor management? Quite possibly, so I was interested to see a news story from P&MM Motivation in which John Sylvester, the firm’s executive director, said that keeping employees motivated throughout the recession is “a marathon and not a sprint.”

According to Sylvester, the announcement that the UK `officially’ came out of its recession at the beginning of 2010 may have offered some encouragement of a positive outlook for the year ahead.

However, he says, nobody is really left in any doubt that the end is, in fact, nowhere near to nigh as the UK’s economy remains in its turbulent predicament.

“To see this dim light at the end of the tunnel only for it to be quickly extinguished again, as the patience and resilience of organisations and their employees is tested further, really brings home the truth that maintaining morale through this difficult era must be considered as a marathon and not a sprint,” he said.

Sylvester argues that motivation must remain high on the business agenda throughout 2010 in order to break through the brick wall that marathon runners meet in the final stages of their race.

Continual re-engagement, he says, is required in order to keep employees tuned into the changing company objectives so that they can head enthusiastically onto the next stage.

“Many job roles will have changed over the last year and feelings of job security may also be frail. Take the time to communicate with a workforce and inform them of what the organisation collectively requires in order to get back on top,” he explained.

The P&MM Motivation chief executive says that, on an individual level, managers should redefine each job proposition and set appropriate targets linked directly to the wider company goals.

They should, he observes, offer incentives for reaching these targets, as this approach to `sharing the fruits’ of success will be well received in an environment where pay freezes are the norm.

“All things going well, the need for further redundancies is less likely this year so employers are tasked with assuring staff of their job security,” he said.

The key to all of this, he says, is `recognition’ as this will help to ensure that employees feel valued and rewarded for the extra hard work, commitment and contributions that the current situation demands.

Sylvester claims that, if these efforts are not properly recognised, staff will quickly lose their enthusiasm and begin to set their sights on leaving once the recession has subsided.

In fact, he says, CIPD figures suggest that over a third of workers intend on seeking new employment as soon as the recession has subsided.

If managers can pre-empt this negative attitude by looking after valued staff now, they will weather the storm, as he quite rightly observes – the marathon is far from over.

I think he’s right too. As my experiences at the two business shows I’ve attended this last week clearly show, junior and mid-ranking staff in a large number of organisations are not happy with their employers.

We all have to pay the rent or mortgage, which is why most of choose to work as we do. When this recession ends, you can expect large-scale staff movements between companies.

As some companies will discover to their cost, when their most valuable staff start jumping ship.

Have a good business day.

STEVE GOLD
Editor

Yes, you get to choose them, not the other way around. You choose them with your pricing, your content, your promotion, your outreach and your product line.

When choosing, consider:

How much does this type of customer need you

How difficult is this sort of person to find…

and how difficult to reach

How valuable is a customer like this one…

and how demanding?

It’s not a matter of who can benefit from what you sell. It’s about choosing the customers you’d like to have.

The latest NASDA survey in which Alan Suggett, partner in charge of the unw Dental Business Unit and editor of the quarterly survey, comments on the continuing rise in the goodwill value of dental practices.

NASDA goodwill survey reflects rising dental practice values

The goodwill value of dental practices continues to rise according to the figures gathered in the quarterly survey of deals and valuations by NASDA, the National Association of Specialist Dental Accountants. The average figure for both valuations and deals is now back near 100 per cent, the kind of level last seen before the recession struck in 2008.

Alan Suggett, a partner in unw LLP and the NASDA technical committee member responsible for gathering the figures, said that while the figures were snaking back up, the amounts achieved by dental practice vendors lacked consistency. It would be difficult to draw any conclusions on regional trends or on the merit of private versus NHS as an income source.

“As always,” he said, “this is very much a snapshot in time which reflects the general trend of the marketplace. The corporate chains are still buying, which helps keep dental practice values buoyant, although the big groups are more interested in NHS or mixed practices.”

The average goodwill valuations as a percentage of turnover during the quarter ended 30 April 2010 was 99.6%, while the percentage for actual deals done was slightly lower at 99.2%. This compares with valuations at 92% and deals at 86% in the last quarter of 2009 and a year ago, in the first quarter of 2009, the figures were as low as 71% and 75%.

If you would like to speak to Alan about the above or any other related matters, he can be contacted as follows:

Alan Suggett

Free advice is often worth less than the price. Much of the time, you already know what you need to do about something—you just need to do it.
Nevertheless, I hear a lot of things being repeated, and I get asked a lot of the same questions… so here’s my less-than-$0.02 for anyone who cares. As the saying goes, take it or leave it.

“The customer is always right.”

Actually, sometimes the customer is dead wrong. Sometimes you don’t want the customer, and if you go out of your way to please one of them, you’ll disappoint the others.

I recently received my first PayPal buyer complaint in more than two years of doing business with Unconventional Guides. Two years! A great streak. Then one guy comes along with an axe to grind and tells PayPal I owed him money despite all evidence to the contrary.

It depressed me. My PayPal rep said I could dispute the claim and I would win, because my account was in such good standing. But in the end I just gave up, sent the money to the axe-grinder, and said goodbye. That customer wasn’t right, but if I kept stressing out about him, my ability to help anyone else that day would have been negatively impacted.

“You should ask people what they want when developing a project.”

Who said that? Oh, it was me. Oops. Well, here’s the thing: sometimes this is true. I’m the first to say that it can be helpful to run your ideas by people, get feedback, etc.

But it’s also true that if what you’re doing is truly innovative, not everyone will understand in the beginning, and maybe you should just go for it. Lately I’ve been thinking about what Henry Ford said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.’”

“Never check email in the morning.”

I’m on a one-man crusade to say that it’s OK to check email in the morning, or whenever you feel like. If you read blogs about productivity, you know it’s a lonely crusade, but I think I’m on to something. You don’t have to feel guilty if you like checking to see what people have to say to you.

Who knows—maybe that’s even the most important work of the day? OK, I’ll duck now.

“Don’t waste time with Twitter when you could be doing real work.”

What if 25% of your business comes from Twitter? That’s how it works for me, even though in the past 30 days I’ve mentioned my actual business work a total of once. Therefore, I think I’ll keep hanging out on Twitter. And you can too if you want, or not if you don’t want. Oh, and one more thing about this –

“To build a following on Twitter, you should share interesting links and reply to people.”

It’s good to do those things, but they won’t help you build a following on Twitter. The best way to build a following is by doing stuff away from Twitter, and encouraging people who find you elsewhere to add you on Twitter. Yep, that’s how it works.

“You must have a local support team to succeed.”

I think a support team can be very helpful. But what if you’re on your own and no one around you believes in your mission? Those people sound like a non-support team to me. If you have to choose between a non-support team and going it alone, I suggest going it alone.

“Slow and steady wins the race.”

What race are we talking about? It’s probably a good idea to know which race one has in mind before making blanket statements. Some races go to the slow and steady; others go to the fast and furious. See Mario Andretti: “If you think that you’re in control, you’re not going fast enough.”

Maybe that isn’t your style, but I think there’s a time and a place for it. Speaking of that:

“Good things only come to those who wait.”

Some good things come to those who wait; others come to those who go out and get them. If what you want is in the second category, what are you waiting for?

Taken from BNET an excellent resource.

RULE #1: Have a business strategy. Decide what you hope to accomplish, then select your Tweets accordingly. Otherwise you’re just a twit.

RULE #2: Remember it’s about them, not you. People are only interested in YOUR life and activities when it impacts THEIR life and activities.

RULE #3: Never tweet more than 5 times a day. Sending too many tweets pushes other people’s tweets off recipient’s screens. That’s annoying.

RULE #4: Make your tweets interesting. Stay within your strategy, but don’t make every tweet identical. That just bores your readers.

RULE #5: Don’t continue with another tweet. People hate checking back and forth to reconstruct a multi-tweet post.

RULE #6: Assume your boss is reading. Twitter is a public service so you can’t necessarily control who’s reading.

RULE #7: Keep your tweets useful. If there’s not a good reason for your readers to read the tweet, don’t send it.

RULE #8: Don’t underestimate the impact. Studies show that less than 10% of tweets have any business value to the reader.

Think you know what motivates everybody? Think again.

You know where this is going I’m sure….4pm arrived and no fire; so I rang the “help desk” who took my details & rang me back to explain that there had been a “mix up” and the fire was going to be delivered tomorrow.

I wasn’t cross because I had plenty of desk stuff to do today catching up from the BDA conference.

I wasn’t cross because I was going to have to move some appointments around tomorrow to cope with the new delivery time (which after some pressure was reduced from “sometime” to a 2 hour window).

I wasn’t cross because their systems are obviously crap but

I was incandescent that after several minutes of discussion and listening to the blame being passed to the couriers (who of course couldn’t defend themselves) I had to point out to the “help desk” that nobody had said “sorry”. Whenever anything goes wrong start with “I’m sorry to hear that, I understand how you must feel, how can I help.”

That’s www.discountedheating.co.uk then…perhaps someone from the company will read this blog from BNET

In a post on TheNextWeb, internet entrepreneur Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten says that businesses should go the extra mile to embrace their customers — even if they seem to spend most of their time driving you crazy.

You might have some animosity towards customers from time to time, but it’s worth remembering that you’re often a customer yourself.
Here are some of van Zanten’s observations:

1) Appease the angry customer

Accepted wisdom, notes van Zanten, isL “You shouldn’t feed the trolls. I say: feed them, nurture them, love them and they will turn into your biggest fans”. You might be reading an angry email, but that’s probably been written in a feverish state — it’s more likely you’re dealing with a reasonable person having a bad moment than an uncouth maniac.

Try stepping back from the situation and responding to these people in a calm manner. If you can solve the problem that has so incensed them, they might just end up as one of your most loyal customers.

2) Go the extra mile

Sometimes it’s worth devoting a little extra time to helping customers sort out problems that are outside of your remit. That doesn’t mean you should mow their lawn if they’re phoning up to complain about their broadband, but it wouldn’t hurt to offer advice around the enquiry — maybe optimising their network and pointing out any potential errors with their computer.

Use your knowledge and experience to offer additional help to customers and you may save yourself an angry call later.

3) Put people on the phone

Few things are more aggravating than being held up by an automated queue system for 20 minutes before you get to speak to a person. These might be ‘professional’ call centres, but van Zanten highlights eBay’s personal support policy as worth emulating.

“Every person who works at eBay has to answer the helpdesk phone lines at least one day a month. Even the CEO does it. Can you imagine calling eBay and getting personal help from their CEO? I’ll bet you that you will tell all your friends about it.”

4) Don’t let the minority rule

It’s important not to make broad assumptions about customers based on the opinions of the most vocal. Just because one or two customers express an opinion you think is stupid, it doesn’t mean the rest of your customers don’t understand your service or product.

Even more important, don’t take out your frustrations towards a couple of ’squeaky wheels’ on the innocent majority.

5) Your caller may be a journalist undercover

Ok, it’s unlikely, but it’s a useful way of remembering to keep your cool. You never know where your comments are going to end up, whether they’re relayed to hundreds of potential customers or plastered over a testimonials website.

This is van Zanten’s take: “Always imagine your emails ending up at the front page of the local newspaper… You are not just answering their questions but you are addressing the world. Would you tell the world to piss off? Then don’t say it to any of your customers either, no matter how angry and unfair they treat you.”

Irate customers have the potential to cause great offence, but it’s always worth keeping your cool and treating them with respect.
It’s easier said than done, but it has the potential to do great things for the reputation of your business.
Have you ever lost your temper with a customer? Or been on the receiving end of an enraged customer service rep?

Yesterday I had an encounter on Stand 116 at the Trade Show at the BDA conference here in Liverpool with a salesman from “Living Investments UK Ltd”. His demeanour was aggressive and intimidating, when I said “no thank you” to his initial approach he kept coming at me with why? & what’s your problem? Not having the sharpness of mind to ask him which bit of no thank you he didn’t understand I nearly got dragged into a slagging match. I objected to the intimidating body language of my interrogator and his mates – I can’t bring myself to call them colleagues.

I immediately tweeted about my encounter, my tweet was read by anybody who was receiving the #BDA2010 tweets, it was retweeted by the editor of an online journal to her contacts.

It appeared in a google search this morning and, hopefully, will move higher up the ratings with this posting. So thats Living Investments UK Ltd for a bad customer experience.