Posted by Amy Carbone on Dec 16, 2020 9:00:00 AM
It’s no easy task to garner new patients, so once you get them into your practice, you most certainly don’t want them to leave. One strategy to seek to retain patients and turn them into promoters who help bring in even more patients is to provide a five-star experience.
How to Make Your Dental Practice Stand out
The five-star rating is the highest rating you can obtain in many services and review sites. One good way to garner that five-star review is to give a five-star experience. These tips may help you seek to do just that:
Optimize and Improve Patient Experience
Especially in this time of a global pandemic, you may want to seek to improve upon and optimize the patient experience in your dental practice.
Before the pandemic, you might have relied heavily on the amenities you offer or the in-office experience you give a patient, today, communication may weigh more heavily in their experience. Here are a few suggestions on how to seek to improve this facet of your patient experience:
Establish Expectations for a Patient’s Arrival
If they are supposed to stay in their car and call your office before entering, make sure they know this. If they are supposed to fill out COVID related paperwork, communicate this. Make sure they know before their appointment what they can expect once they arrive.
In addition, give them any applicable information on how to find out if you are ready for them as well. What if you are behind schedule? Does this system change? Is there a certain place in the parking lot patients are supposed to park? Inform, inform, inform.
Follow up after the Appointment
Is there a post-appointment follow up for your office? Do you have a way to collect feedback from patients after their appointment so you can address any concerns that you notice being raised? If not, it’s important to create some sort of post-appointment follow-up so you can try to ensure a patient comes back for needed services and can give feedback regarding their experience.
Provide Educational Resources and Information
Share helpful information via email or social media to educate your patients, as this can positively impact your patient’s experience. Make sure to use personalization to share this relevant information with your patients. For example, if you own a pediatric dentistry practice, ensure you are sending age-appropriate information to educate parents on how to take care of their children’s teeth. In other words, don’t send out an email about general dental care aimed at the over 60 crowd when your patient demographic is under 18 years-of-age. Make sure all information applies to the recipient.
Highlight What Makes You Different
If you are using newer technology than other dental practices in your area, make sure you inform your patients about this fact, or even better, show them. For example, a device like an Apple TV can allow you to display images on the TV screen that you would normally show your patient on a smaller computer screen. Also, because TVs are usually already in the exam room, the patient doesn’t have to move from one room to the other for their consultation. This is a luxury that may help you give your patient a better experience.
Ask for a Review
Even if you provide the very best service to your patients, if you don’t request a review, you likely won't get one. Here’s a guide on ways to help do this, followed by a few succinct points on the topic:
Often, you have to ask for online reviews in order for someone to create one. If you aren’t comfortable actually saying the words to the patient, post signs in exam rooms or waiting areas like “support us with your Google review,” or “like and follow us on Facebook,” or “review us on Yelp.” This “asks” the patient for you, without saying a word. You can also create a hyperlink to a review page via a newsletter or email.
You can also look beyond social media and Yelp to niche testimonial sites that primarily focus on the dental industry. These sites will not garner the web traffic the others do, but they are more targeted in their approach for reviews, so the feedback you receive from them may be much more helpful.
Help Your Dental Practice Thrive
Reviews are one of the many ways that you can seek to grow your dental practice throughout your career.
For more opportunities, download your free copy of our guide on ways to seek to grow your dental patient list.
Treloar & Heisel and Treloar & Heisel Property and Casualty are divisions of Treloar & Heisel, LLC.
Insurance products are offered through Treloar & Heisel, LLC.
This content is intended for general informational purposes only and should not be construed as advice. Treloar & Heisel, LLC. does not offer marketing advice. Please consult with a professional concerning this topic.
20-172
