Want To Grow Your Practice? Understand This About Your Current Patients

Not All Patients Will Stay! People Leave! Its Called Attrition!

It happens to some more than others…..so what can we learn from those that have mastered client retention?

Lets go through some things that you can do today to minimize patients jumping ship and going over to your competitors office.

• Greet clients by their first name and with a smile (take photos for patient chart)
• Offer them coffee or tea.
• Doctor greets them in the waiting room with a handshake.
• Provide an office tour.
• Introduce a new-patient gift delivered at the cessation of the exam.
• Offer a warm towel, neck pillow or blanket during treatment.
• Ensure their favorite TV show, Netflix or music station is playing during treatment.
• Send them a birthday card every year, signed personally by each team member with a gift card/voucher for free dessert
• Complete comfort checks throughout treatment appointments. Always asking how patients are doing. Use a signal to start–thumbs up or down for example. That way they are not wondering how they are supposed to communicate comfort or discomfort to you.
• Stay on time! If you happen to run behind, address it immediately by going out to the waiting room to explain. Then move the client into an operatory and put on a TV show or music of their liking and have an assistant get started on some level of their treatment. Do not be disrespectful of people’s time, or you are indirectly saying my time is more important than yours, which is never good. If someone arrives early to the office for an appointment, do everything you can to get them back right away.
• Never have anyone interrupt a patient mid-treatment. For example, your assistant enters the operatory to explain they are ready for you in Room Two. Nothing says you’re just a number more than this.
• Do not rush into your appointments. Instead, learn to be efficient with the dentistry. Give people the time they desire and deserve before and after treatment is initiated and completed.
• Do not forget about them after the transaction: Complete post op calls for all patients that have received local anesthetic. We recommend the doctor do these personally.

The entire purpose of this level of engagement is simply connecting with people and delivering more value to them than anybody else. That’s it. Remember, we can’t control whether or not clients choose our practice. We only control our activity, which can influence their decision to stay once they have chosen us. If we have done our job, we have built a ton of value, we will probably have our clients for life. That is because of how we make our clients feel. People do not remember what you say to them, but they do remember how you made them feel. Great customer service makes people feel valued and important.