A lot goes into owning and running a dental practice. Even if you can provide your patients with the best quality care when it comes to oral health, it is easy to spread your attention thinly in handling everyday operations that you end up neglecting the other essential element of a great dental practice: providing patients with an outstanding experience.
It is inarguable that your patients’ first impression of your management practices can affect your retention rates for better or for worse. It is therefore necessary to be organised, stay current with the best practices and understand how to structure a dental practice that provides exceptional patient experience.
How Can Your Practice Stand Out?
The most successful dental marketing campaigns expertly identify, market and protect the competitive advantages unique to their practice. This is important in order to make your practice truly stand out as one of the top oral health care providers in your area.
You have the power to attract and retain a high volume of patients with your unique perspective, whether your practice emphasises a particular speciality or you offer a wide range of oral health services.
The get the most results with your distinct perspectives, you need to constantly publicise them in all of your dental advertising campaigns and in all the interactions you have with each patient.
Social media contents, brochures, customised dental newsletters, dental postcards are proven methods to highlight the uniqueness of your practice. Traditional advertising channels are usually one-size-fits-all, but with these methods you can build awareness of your practice and the services you offer, reach higher quality patients and promote your practice as a definitive choice in your area.
In order to provide an exceptional patient experience in your practice, consider the following tips
Focus on Encouraging Patient Engagement
The most successful dental practices have a set of loyal patients they can count on, who visit regularly and would recommend their practice to family and friends. Having an already existing patient base is significantly less expensive than the process needed to acquire and grow a new one.
It takes more than offering convenient hours, accessible location and passable service to maintain your customer base however. The secret lies in engaging patients, earning their trust, reaching them emotionally and building lasting relationships.
In today’s digital age, there are countless opportunities for you to connect with your patients. With the use of social media, email marketing, and direct mail, you can remain at the front and centre in your clients’ minds, show them how much you care and enjoy a successful practice.
Broaden Your Services Where You Can
When it comes to growing your patient base, consider how you can broaden your services to boost value, strengthen your position competitively and get the interest of potential patients. There are different ways of expanding your services. If the size of your current dental office is limiting your production potential, you can consider moving to a bigger space or hiring more associates.
By introducing new specialities you can also improve your capability to meet the growing needs of your community. No matter the method of expansion you choose, it is important that you do not over extend your practice. Aim for the perfect balance of uncompromising quality and state-of-the-art technology in order to grow loyal clients and promote your reputation.
Get Training for Your Staff
Professional training and continuous education are key to running a dental practice. When a potential patient walks into your practice, his or her first impression is shaped by the attitude, interaction and level of professionalism that your staff display.
Because first impressions can make or break your dental practice, get targeted orthodontic practice management training such as provided by Orthosynetics for your staff. Ensure that each member of your staff, especially those involved with first receiving your patients in person or on the phone is trained to provide a personal, positively memorable experience.
Optimise Patient Referrals
Word-of-mouth referral is simply the best for practices looking to boost patient retention. A patient can make the decision to choose one dental practice over the other simply because of a trusted recommendation from a family member, friend, colleague or the internet.
However, your existing patients don’t always have the time or the opportunity to give the recommendation necessary to help you grow your business. So to boost this area on your own, you need to actively request for patient referrals. Effective methods include tucking cards into mailings from your practice, handing out referral cards at the office, offering a referral bonus program or providing existing patients with quick links to sites where they can give their experiences. It is important that you follow through on whichever method you use.
Whether you are an orthodontist, neighbourhood general dentist or a teeth whitening specialist, you can grow your patient base by ensuring exceptional patient experience in your practice by encouraging patient engagement in addition to the other tips discussed.