The #1 Question To Ask In An Interview When Hiring The Perfect Front Desk

How do you get more new patients or hire more clinicians at your clinic and yet still remain profitable? This is the question, and I'm on a journey to get you the answer. I'm going to interview the best marketers and clinic owners across the world to give you access to their winning strategies from recruitment, marketing, operations, finance and more. So you can easily take action on the secrets to grow your clinic. I'm Rick Lau. Welcome to Clinic Boss Secrets. Hey, everybody, it's Rick Lau here. You're gonna love this episode. It's one of my favorite topics. What type of questions do you ask in the interview to hire the perfect front desk? Check out this episode with dbillz.

What are like five characteristics like that you look for? Because I'll be honest, the turnover and the front end of PC is so high, it's almost like a Starbucks. Every time you go, there's a different barista.

Right?

Okay, what advice can you give? Like, what are five characters you look for when it comes to the front end?

Okay, so I'm going to answer it a little bit differently. First of all, I test the hell out of people before I ever get on the phone with them. So you're. And I give this away. Tiffany will tell you this is super successful for her. So will Judy. You should test somebody in your ad or in an email response to an ad. Ads that come off of indeed are automatic responses. So you could say, send your cover letter and resume and nobody sends a cover letter. And you're like, delete, delete, delete, delete. But you could be losing valuable people because it's an automated. That is how indeed is set up. So first of all, have a test send an email back that's like, hey guys, you know, here's three things I need from you. And if and by this date and time, by the way, dates and times, super important for everything you do when you're testing.

I love that I did the exact same thing too.

Give them a test.

If they don't respond, look at it.

Right? Yeah, you delete it. Right. And so if they. And if they don't follow your test, whatever your test is, delete it. Don't you don't. Thank you so much. I've moved on in my process. I unfortunately, I'm not able to offer you the opportunity to move on with us. Have a beautiful day. Right? I love you, but you're not keeping moving forward. The other traits I'm looking for, I actually don't hire other medical front desk people as a primary. I'm not saying I won't look at them, but that's not what I'm looking for. I look for somebody who wants to learn, who has a proven history. I actually learned this from a mentor years ago who has a proven history and can get things done. So you ask them in an interview, what can you get done? What have you done that was successful for another company? That if I called the other company, they will tell me you did this. Those are the kinds. Those are two big things. And then it's their interest in your company. Right. Oh, I like that. Hell yes. So, yeah. So when you're looking at people traits, okay, so one trait I love, but I don't. It's not my first choice. I like somebody that can talk to people. Right. We actually make our front desk in their first interview, we hand them a piece of paper that says, go sit in our front office. Make friends with the patients that walk in the door, ask them if you can ask them these questions. If they say no, leave it if they don't. Right. So we're looking at, can they talk to people. But here's the thing. You don't want somebody who's super chatty. I don't want somebody who's going to walk around my front desk every five minutes and be like, so, Rick, how's it going today? It's so nice to meet you. Because that's inefficiency. I want somebody that Rickbox in. I'm like, hey, how's it going? I'm doing really well. Okay. So. So how have you been doing with your therapy? Oh, it's going really well. Right. Relationships. But I don't want somebody that's like, oh, let's talk. Let me show you my pictures. Want to see my kids? I went to Alabama this weekend. You want to see my trip to Alabama? Like, you don't want somebody that does that because that's not. You're not going to be efficient if somebody spends 20 minutes talking to every patient. Right. So you. So you want somebody that can build a relationship without spending 45 minutes with a patient.

How do you know? How do you know in your interview whether they have that skill?

Like I said, I go stick them out in the main office. My clinic is completely open except for offices and eval rooms. So front desk is completely open. So my, my CEO or my front office manager will hand this person a piece of paper. The person has to go sit in our waiting area. Waiting area is right there. They. They can totally hear what's going on. How's it going? So they can step in if things aren't going well and we give them set questions to ask. So if they veer off those questions and spend. If I like you, Rick, which I do, and I spend 25 minutes on you, and by the way, they only get a 30 minute window to do this. So that I'm right, I'm huge on time, what type of questions do I give them? That's a really good question. Usually it's just they, first of all, they have to feel comfortable saying, hi, my name is Dee, I'm here interviewing for a job and what's your, you know, how long? And then it's may I ask you a few questions? Right, because if there are patients, all of our people that are in our practice to hire, they actually go back and hang with our clinical staff and all of our staff during that. So first it's, may I ask you a few questions as part of my interview process? Absolutely. Patient says, absolutely. They say, okay, great. So I only, I really have two questions for you. First one usually is, how long have you been coming for physical therapy? The second one is usually, would you refer other people to us? And then we usually give them the opportunity to ask a third one. And it's not, would you like, hey, Rick, will you refer somebody to me right now? Would you come back here and would you refer somebody else? Because what we're trying to have them do is just get more data from this person. They're supposed to take notes. So number one, now I can see their handwriting. Can they take good notes? Because, you know, I want to be able to read what they write on things in our clinic. And then we want to see that they've talked to five separate people during those 30 minutes. So if they spend, if I spend 25 minutes on Rick and I have five minutes to talk to four more people, that's not an efficient use of my time. I'm not a good time manager. I can't. So what we're looking is, can they. We're looking. And so Rick, to answer your question, one thing I am looking for is somebody who is organized and see. So if I. Here's a great question to ask during a phone interview or an in office interview. Tell me. This is my favorite question. Tell me. Describe your day from the time you wake up till the time you go to bed in order from start to finish, right? And I will tell you, I have done this, I did this for another owner once just for she was struggling. And one person I interviewed went, okay, So I get up, I go right downstairs, I let the dog out, I let her back in, I feed her. Like went right 1, 2. I go upstairs, I get showered, I come back down, I pack my shake, I go off to work for the day. I get to work, I answer, so.

Is that good or bad?

That's good. Another person. This is bad. Let me give you a demo of bad because this is what y' all are looking to avoid. I get up in the morning and I go downstairs. Oh, wait, wait, wait. First I go and wake up my kids and then I go downstairs and I let out the dog and then I start to make coffee. Oh no, wait, I go out and get the paper and then I make coffee. Like the person can't put, put their day in order, that they live every day is not going to follow directions, right? They just, they can't. If they can't get their own bleep in order, they sure as heck are not getting yours in order. So that's a really.

So how long is this question? Like does it last for 5 minutes, 10 minutes? Because you can ramble the whole thing.

This is a phone interview or a face to face interview. So understand my process and Tiffany and Judy will tell you my process is long. It's hire slow fire, fast. Right? So we don't hire any front desk staff without challenges on email and online. If they don't follow that, beep, beep, goodbye. Yeah, I said bleep. It's true. And then, then I do phone interviews. If, let me be honest, guys, if you can't sit at home in your pajamas and have a conversation with me and totally focus on me as I'm interviewing you, I'm not going to, I'm not going to move forward. So you have to have a, a process. I do have a process, start to finish. So that we, we now as many of the ones that aren't going to be a good fit as possible, then I get on a phone interview with you. Well, I'm looking for, there's stuff I'm looking for. You're going to take the salary I pay you. We have a young lady that my husband and I have known this young lady since she's my daughter's age, since they were in kindergarten and she came for a job interview with us and Marie had qualified. We aren't in our clinic anymore. We both do separate coaching and consulting. And so Marie is running our clinic and she, we were talking this morning and she did an interview with this young lady. This is how much we're willing to pay for this position. Is this good? Yes, it's good. You should always ask that on the first phone call. Don't bother with anybody if they're not willing to take your salary. I always say thank you so much. I can't afford you. Have a wonderful day. If somebody really loves me, they'll be like, wait, I really want to work for you. I'll take whatever you pay. I've had that. But don't waste your time. And so Rick, my process, I bring people in, I test them. I test them on the phone. Yeah. So I offer that as well.

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