Are you interested in getting new patients for your dental practice? Did you know that attracting new patients and retaining the ones you already have requires more than great marketing and excellent dentistry?
No matter how much you market or excel at providing superior oral health care to your patients, increasing new patients and maintaining current ones can be a struggle. Don’t let keeping up with daily operations become an interference with the most important goal—an exceptional patient experience.
You can be organized and deliver top-notch dental treatments, but if you don’t keep patient experience as a top priority, you could not only lose out on new patients but jeopardize the ones you already have.
As the lead prosperity coach, CEO, and founder of Prosperity Dental Solutions, I have over two decades of dentistry experience. My passion is to help dentists create a simplified path to predictable success.
Today I would like to offer 4 tips for improving your patient experience. Implementing each of these will help you attain a full patient schedule:
- Properly Train Your Front Office Team
- Make Your Practice Unique
- Create an Office Culture
- Flexible Financing Options
Tip #1 for Getting New Patients: Properly Train Your Front Office Team
Your front office team provides your patients with their first experience of your practice. This includes phone calls and the first time they walk through your door. Moreover, they provide a continuing experience with each phone call and patient visit.
Does your team know how to greet your patients and make them feel welcome? Do they understand the importance of every phone call made to your dental practice? Does everyone understand that the reception and response to new patient calls define your practice?
Attitude, professionalism, and good communication are paramount. Has your front office team received proper training to handle this? Do they know how to convert potential new patients who call with a question into a patient booked for an appointment?
Phone and face-to-face interactions between patients and your front office team leave a lasting impression that can make or break your practice.
Tip #2 for Getting New Patients: Make Your Practice Unique
What does your dental practice offer that other dentists don’t?
Do you know your vision? If not, Prosperity Dental Solutions can help. One of our main goals is to help dentists define their specific goals and dreams when it comes to their unique vision.
Do you have competitive advantages? Specific goals to achieve patient satisfaction? Maybe you offer a specialty service?
When you find a niche in your practice, you attract patients much more effectively than a “one-size-fits-all” mentality.
And once you know your vision and niche, you want to promote and market them consistently. This will set you apart as an authoritative choice and bring you new patients.
Tip #3 for Getting New Patients: Create an Office Culture
Do you realize every detail about your practice plays a role in your office culture? The treatment and care provided, your team attitudes, the physical environment, and even office décor all matter.
Patients interpret your values based on their overall patient experience, including how the team treats them and how your practice runs and looks.
Do the colors in your practice speak what you want to say? When patients call your office or come in for treatment, do they experience organization and timeliness or chaos and long waits? Does your team communicate your values and beliefs to patients with every thought, action, and word?
The first step involves defining your beliefs and values, which requires understanding your unique vision and mission. Next, you need to communicate this important information to your team and make sure they believe in it and understand your expectations.
When everyone works together at conveying your vision and mission to your patients, it increases team building and improves patient experiences. This helps your practice to thrive by boosting productivity, attracting quality staff, bringing in new patients, and keeping current patients coming back.
Tip #4 for Getting New Patients: Flexible Financing Options
Most successful dentists provide their patients with a variety of payment options.
Dental treatments can be expensive, and while patients may understand the need, they may believe they can’t afford it.
For instance, some patients don’t have dental insurance, and they are searching for a membership plan. Do you offer one? How about options for payment plans, such as Care Credit or low-interest payments?
The more options you offer, the more likely you are to hear “yes” to treatment plans.
Do you want to increase profitability and productivity in your dental practice?
If you don’t fully understand your vision, mission, beliefs, and values, or if you are interested in finding a niche, I can help!
Call (817) 975-4576 today to schedule a complimentary phone call with me so we can find out if we have what it takes to improve your profits together.
