Dentist Practice Management : the New Patient Experience
In this article, Wendy Briggs will talk about the new patient experience in dentist practice
. Now, this is the area in dentist practice that needs focus in terms of the management in dealing with the patients as soon as they show up your doorstep. This is something we focus specifically at our dentist practice management website! A few questions to ponder as we take a look at this topic: Why do we talk so much about this?; Have you ever had new patients that come in once, and don't come back for treatment?; How are we doing in our practice?; and What are the trends, and how can we be sure we are maximizing the potential of our new patients?. In the management of your dentist practice, you should be able to know how to deal with your new patients the right way and get them to stay in your practice.
Here's what Wendy will share to you about the new patient experience:
When Ed and I were introduce to each other a couple of years ago, we found something that has been incredibly powerful! And that is he can teach you (and he has taught many of you) marketing techniques in dentist practice management that work, niche marketing and all of these other great concepts that dentist profits has brought to many of you and can bring to those whom we haven't worked directly with yet. But what we found was once the patients come into the door, there were clients who were spending thousands of dollars in marketing, but just weren't getting any results and they were not satisfied with it. And so we really took a good look, and I, of course, started doing this when I was doing a lot more in-office coaching. As I read the numbers and pulled the audits, I found out that we had 45 new patients last month! But here we are 45 days later, and only 5% of them have returned. Now, what's happening? Well, obviously there's something wrong with the picture. Patients are getting in the door, but the ball is being dropped somewhere! So again we've really focused a lot and spent a lot of time and energy on how to make this better. When we try to do marketing, our goal is to get patients in the door, to make money. Now what happens is that once you get new patients in the door, we fall short, we don't make any money, and we don't accomplish our goals. I guess we've all experienced having patients who come in once, but don't come back for treatment. And that's because we might not be the perfect fit for everyone! As long as you realize that you're okay, but if 95% of your patients aren't coming back for treatment, is that okay? I guess the answer to that would be NO, right? So what we've found is that there's enough of our members (dentists in general) who could use a little bit of guidance in this area (again this is one of our most commonly requested topics).
So what are the trends out there today in dentist practice management? For this, I'm always amazed at how many ads there are for dentists in my area (where I live in Utah), that are exactly the same. They are offering pretty much the same things. You have a longer list of services on one side, then you have a picture of the doctor smiling with the logo on the other side. And there's really no differentiation between the two! So as you find your prospective patient, you ask yourself: How am I supposed to know who to call? What are the trends? What are we marketing right now? Once we get the patients through the door, does your team know what the offers are and what the patients are looking for when they come to the office?. There are 65 points of contact with every new patient. Now, you should know the secrets on how to hit the home run in these 65 points of contact. With the 65 points of contact its really exciting because what that means is that we got 65 ways to give patients the wow factor.... 65 opportunities to wow our patients! But, on the other hand, it also means that there are 65 ways to earn a failing rate as well... 65 different ways that we can blow it! And how many times do you think we can get failing grades before we lose a patient? Sometimes, sad to say, it takes only 1, if it's an important issue. So that's why its so interesting to take focus on this matter.
Now, some of the concepts of improving your new patient experience in dentist practice management has something to do with the initial phone call and the first visual impression of the office. Now, it always starts with the initial phone call. This is where we really begin the relationship with the patient. For this, you need to have somebody who sounds pleasant on the phone; who's actually good with multitasking. The patient on the phone should always feel that he/she has the 100% of our undivided attention. The next thing here is the first visual impression of the office. Now, I have had the pleasure of being in the offices all over the country. And I can say that there are really offices that has very nice first visual impression... and there are offices that don't have one. How important is this? Your patients have already formed probably 11 subliminal impressions about how their experiences are going to be in the first 7 seconds of contact! And that doesn't necessarily mean that the first 7 seconds of you being in the room with them and having contact. It means that in these first 7 seconds, they are already making judgments of their experiences with you! Therefore, first visual impression of your office is very important. Make sure that your office looks very enticing for the patients to visit, and that the environment is quite comfortable for the patient. These are only some of the concepts that you can have to improve your new patient experience, and there are lots more of other helpful ways to do it! Log on to our dentist practice management website,
www.DentistProfits.com and get a free CD and Book titled, How To Predictably Grow Your Practice 25-35% Every Year While Enjoying More Control, Time Off, And Bottom-Line Net Profits!.
Dentist Practice Management : the New Patient Experience
By: Ed OKeefe
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