So many dentists name their practice as “______ Family Dentistry.” The key word in there is family. Most take this to mean that it’s a welcome place for their family. If your practice welcomes whole families into your dental practice, does your waiting area reflect that?
Waiting areas are notoriously boring. Chairs, some magazines, bland walls, it’s not very interesting especially for children. Having a waiting area that appeals to children is valuable because if you make the children happy, their parents are happy, and they keep coming back as patients.
To provide an example, the dentist I took my son to growing up had a mural in the waiting room with hidden items in it. Part of a tree could be a ruler, the sky could hide a rabbit, and so on. My son would stare at it the entire time we were waiting, and we found something new every time we went to the dentist. He actually looked forward to going to the dentist because he was convinced that they added items to the mural. There were also some video games and toys in this waiting room too, so he was never bored.
Having a kid look forward to going to the dentist is quite an accomplishment, and it’s not a waste of money to appeal to kids. Happy kids mean happy parents, so it’s worth investing in. You may not be able to have a mural, but making your waiting room colorful and having some interesting toys can go a long way to appealing to families and getting people to talk about you. It doesn’t have to cost much to have an awesome waiting room, and it could get you more return on investment than you might think.