Visitors to the Dentsy AI stand at Dentistry Show 2026 learned something new about the potential of AI phone systems for today’s busy practice.
But it was also our opportunity to learn more about the frustrations, hopes, and priorities of practice managers and front desk teams. Here’s what we discovered.
1. Patients often have different priorities
Practice owners naturally want to offer an outstanding first impression and service that goes the extra mile. But sometimes the process isn’t part of the patient’s plans.
“Patients just want to book their appointment. They don’t want to go through the process.”
So how do you meet the compliance needs of transparent, complete information gathering without frustrating an impatient patient? Smart dental practices are finding the sweet spot with an AI phone system like Dentsy that takes care of the note-taking. The human receptionist can still provide efficient, personalised service. Dentsy takes care of the notes.
2. Consistency is as important as efficiency
When turnover is high, dental practices should take extra care to put systems in place that create a consistent experience for callers. Using scripts and templates has worked well up to now. Coaching and training with AI call analysis could be the way we do it in the future.
“The way we answer the calls, the way the email communication goes out. It’s very important for us how we communicate. With our team members they are trained well but the human factor is the big thing.”
Dr. Roksolana Mykhaulus, Happy Kids Dental
3. Systems need to communicate too
Practices rightly worry that adding a new phone system will add an extra layer of complexity on top of their existing PMS and CRM.
“We want a system that has everything in one place. We don’t want to jump from one system to another system.”
Gina Cespedes, Condor Dental
That’s why it’s so important to choose a phone system that has a tried and tested partnership with today’s leading PMS and CRM systems. Dentsy AI integrates seamlessly with Dentally, Semble, Boxly and DenGro.
4. Some practices need extra hands to take manual notes
Writing up call notes adds a few extra minutes to every conversation. But if you don’t have a system big enough to handle a surge in call volumes, you might end up having to hire extra cover just to keep up with the admin.
“We are spending a lot of time on notes. We have our receptionist who’s working towards the clients that we’re getting every day. But at the end of the day we’ve got plenty of messages and notes that we need to pass on. Sometimes we need to bring in extra people to work on a section to cover the empty spaces.”
Gina Cespedes, Condor Dental
5. Top-performing receptionists welcome coaching
One of the features you’ll find with Dentsy AI is conversational analysis. This allows managers to track call performance in terms of accuracy, thoroughness, and customer sentiment. In turn, they can coach staff on areas that might need improvement.
It’s a great tool for practice managers, but would the view from the front desk be as enthusiastic? You told us that it’s improving your performance and welcome on your dashboard.
“I like to know what I’m doing good and what I need to be better at.”
Zhara Ahmed, Dental Now
6. Some practices haven’t changed since the Seventies
Every practice has its own particular character and patient profile. By nature, some will be better inclined to early AI adoption and automation than others. However, in the end, it’s going to be costly and time-consuming to postpone innovation.
“I think at the moment there is a real dichotomy between very service-leading practices that have embraced new models, maybe city centre practices whose clientele is very much on board with doing things themselves and tapping themselves out, booking appointments online and so forth. And there are many practices who are doing things in the same way it was done in the 1970s. Where all the patient contact is by telephone or email. It’s very labour intensive to supply that service and it’s very hard to recruit and retain very motivated staff to give that sort of level of customer service.”
Dr. Timothy Webber, Park Dental Care
7. But new technology should be the means, not the end
“What we’ve found is that a lot of the time you bend your way of working to suit the technology rather than the technology suiting you.”
It’s true of any practice, office, agency, or larger enterprise. The best technology enhances the team you already have and the systems you’ve already put in place. Businesses struggle when technology is imposed on them from above, without taking the time to understand what problems it is designed to solve, and how it will be used.
That’s why we designed Dentsy AI phone system based on what practices told us, so that we were fixing the problems that actually matter.
8. We might already have built the tool you’re dreaming of
“What would be really great is that we could use a system so that as calls come in you already know who the patients are, they pop up on the screen, that would be fantastic.”
Hollie Madison Spooner, Elegance Dental
That moment when a practice owner describes the Smart Caller Pop-up, and how they’ve been managing up to now by typing in the mobile number manually to bring up the customer details.
9. Front desks aren’t just busy. They’re overwhelmed
We weren’t surprised to hear about workload and burnout, but we were shocked at just how many practices are routinely overwhelmed. The need for a smart AI phone system that can give busy staff back their time has never been greater.
“The biggest issue is a lot of admin work, especially when there’s a lot going on, patients coming in, phones ringing, emails and having to multi-task everything. That’s why even with two receptionists sometimes it can get a little bit overwhelming.”
Thank you to all those who took the time to share their inside perspective and drop in at the Dentsy AI booth.
Missed the show and want to know more about Dentsy AI?
