When I owned a private practice in the States, I had a young woman from one of the local universities contact me about completing a cultural study for her course. I didn't understand how this would be useful in a private practice setting. She said the final report was called an Ethnography (from Greek ἔθνος ethnos "folk, people, nation" and γράφω grapho "I write"). I, of course, had no idea what she was going on about. After some research, I understood it is the systematic study of people and cultures. It is designed to explore cultural phenomena where the researcher observes society from the point of view of the subject of the study. I welcomed her in so she could provide us with some insights from an outsider's point of view.
In most recent years, I introduced this idea to private practice. We had students come in and write up an Ethnography from their personal experience throughout the placement. The first student we had described the office as "grandma's living room." The owner was a bit shocked by this statement, and said, "I don't want to have a grandma's living room!" Now, every practice has its style, but the impressions that clients have may not match what you're expecting. When you have a third person come in and give you some honest feedback, you get valuable feedback that can help you move more in the direction of what you want your practice to be.
You don't need tips on your reception team. You know they need to be knowledgable, helpful, courteous, and all of the other adjectives coaches and clinicians use to describe their team.
What I suggest is write down what experience you want the client to have and how do you ensure you get that across to the client. In our SMS post, we spoke about asking the client ahead of time what tea/coffee they like. This may mean that you have a hot cup waiting for them.
Maybe it's creating a partnership with a cafe next door so that your clients can get a no cost to the client coffee.
Perhaps it's as simple as automation and innovation. For example, the client can check for their session via an online check-in portal. They already have their credit card details on file, so they don't have to pay at the end. They can book follow up appointments online.
Maybe it's as simple as having fresh flowers.
