We hope you’ve found this course useful, and that you feel much more confident employing telephone and text communication to build strong client relationships and help your practice determine the best option for your patients and clients. Let’s close by summarizing the key points we covered:
- Telephone and text communication can effectively extend your capabilities in communicating with clients and can improve both the efficiency and impact of your overall client communication.
- Important aspects of telephone communication are technical, functional, and emotional quality.
- The Four As of effective communication (including by phone) are Active listening, Ask questions continuously, Adapt to the other person, and, Always be kind, empathetic and clear.
- A phone call offers a great opportunity to determine the urgency of a case.
- It’s important to remember, however, that a phone conversation is not the time to try and diagnose a patient’s condition. Always try to schedule an appointment.
- Communicating by text messages can be a very convenient option for both you and your clients.
- There are a number of ideal situations in which text messages are an appropriate communication option, for instance appointment or dosing reminders and informing a client about a patient’s status after surgery
- Just as in other types of communication, there are rules of ettiquette to follow when communicating by text.
