One of the most important things about maintaining the success of your dental practice is keeping your patients coming back. It’s not a big secret that many people avoid going to the dentist, unless they have an emergency, or pain they can no longer endure. And unfortunately, many of those patients won’t be seen again until the next time they have no choice. You want them to return sooner than that.
Chances are you’ve spent a lot of money advertising your practice in order to attract customers and make your name known in the community. If your patients aren’t coming back once that 1st introductory appointment or procedure has been taken care of, you’re wasting a lot of money and effort on advertising and networking.
The only way to make money consistently and easily, is to keep your patients returning beyond that emergency procedure, or long procrastinated deep cleaning session.
Outstanding Patient Experience
In this age of social media, customer service is a hot topic. With unavoidable and abundant platforms such as Facebook, Yelp, and Twitter, you can’t get away with bad customer service, or perhaps even worse, mediocre customer service. Sometimes it‘s easy to forget that health care is a service. Just because people are doing something that needs to be done for their own health and well-being, doesn’t mean they aren’t shopping around, and looking for the best experience possible.
Look At Your Business with a Fresh Pair of Eyes
It’s important to mindfully look at your business with fresh eyes every so often. It is easy for your surroundings to become a mere backdrop throughout the course of your busy days. But this is an event for your patients, an unpleasant one for many of them. It is important to offer as much comfort, understanding, and professionalism as needed for those patients to keep coming back.
Pretend you’re seeing it for the 1st time; imagine yourself as a potential or new patient.
When you walk into the waiting room, do you feel welcome and comfortable? If you’re there for the 1st time, do you feel awkward and out of place, or calm and taken care of? Are the team members greeting you with confidence and warmth? Imagine you’re a patient with dental phobia, and a frightening procedure ahead of you. Are they keeping you informed of the agenda, and the details of your appointment?
As you walk towards your treatment room, how is the flow of the office? Is there décor on the walls? And if so, do you find it interesting, or soothing, or pleasant? Does the office look clean and professional, but not too scary or intimidating? Does this look like an office you would want to come back to?
Is the chair comfortable? What are you looking at as you sit there, waiting for your dentist to come in? Is there music? Is the temperature comfortable? Is there an accessible place to put your coat, or your purse, or your briefcase? These small details make up the whole picture of how your office makes people feel.
Communicating With Your Dental Patients and Team
Even more important than the pictures on your walls, or the view from the chair however, is the interaction that happens between yourself and your team members, and the patients.
Do your team members show compassion to those who may be particularly anxious? Is the whole team aware of whom those patients are? Do you ask kind questions about their lives, such as how many children they have, or how grad school is going, so that they feel more familiar and not like a procedure to check off the list?
Medical procedures, particularly dental procedures for many, are intimate. It is important to achieve that delicate balance between professionalism and compassion. You want your patients to feel they are in capable and confident, yet caring hands.
Language is important too. It is important for your patients to understand what their treatments consist of. Be honest about how long things may take, or your plan for pain management should there be any. Make sure your patients have time to ask questions if they have any, and they understand and feel comfortable with the answers.
This is especially important for your team members…they may have more opportunity for conversations with the patients than you do, and will be the ones answering phone calls, and making appointments. That first phone call or office visit is crucial to establishing an outstanding patient experience in your practice.
If you’re excited to give your dental practice a makeover, or maybe just a refresher course on how to make it thrive even more, We would love to work with you! We are experts at helping businesses generate consistent and repeat business, contact us today!
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