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Welcome to Dental Unscripted, a podcast brand that meets doctors wherever they are at in their professional journey. We talk about starting a practice, buying a practice, and running a practice. We cover a lot of ground on this channel!

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Dental Unscripted

The Game Changer: AI Staffing Solutions

To mitigate higher than ever overhead and staffing shortages, many practices are looking for new solutions. AI phone agents are one of these obvious technologies that serve as an extension of the team at a fraction of the cost of hiring a new employee to pick up the load at the front desk. Adrian Lefler from My Social Practice came on the show to talk about his AI phone answering system. The technology has come such a long way! He got into it at the very forefront and has created a solid solution for dentists looking for answers and solutions. 

What is the Opportunity? 

The immediate growth opportunity lies in addressing the high volume of missed calls. Data indicates that the average dental practice misses between 75 and 250 calls per month, with some larger practices missing over a thousand. In a typical practice, approximately one-third of phone calls go missed, often because staff are busy assisting in-office patients or are at lunch. AI agents solve this major flaw by answering 100% of the missed calls. They can also integrate directly with the practice management software to schedule appointments.

The financial impact of this alone for smaller practices is potentially generating $5,000 to $10,000 in monthly revenue that would otherwise be lost. These new AI phone agents have been proven to be effective at scheduling five to ten additional appointments per month for practice using them! 

Implementation and Training a Phone Agent

Implementing this technology requires thoughtful setup owners must "inject" the AI with specific knowledge regarding insurance, hours, and the practice's value proposition. Furthermore, you must train your AI phone agents with a customized style adhering to your office's specific sales frameworks or pricing inquiries.

Training the AI phone agent, known as "Annie AI", involves a sophisticated, multi-layered process designed to replicate a skilled receptionist. Built upon the conversational "brain" of ChatGPT, the agent starts with a general "base layer" of dental industry knowledge,. 

Before going live, practices utilize a website facing tool to test and tweak the agent's responses, ensuring that Annie AI adheres to the desired tone and protocols permanently without the repetitive retraining often required for human staff. 

Automating Outbound Growth

Beyond answering inbound calls, the technology has evolved to the point that it can be used to drive growth through outbound "recare" campaigns. This function allows the AI to query the practice management system for active patients who are due for hygiene appointments but remain unscheduled. 

The AI then calls and texts these patients to fill the schedule, achieving a conversion rate of approximately 5% to 8%. This represents "money on the table" because most human staff are too occupied with daily operations to consistently work the phones for recare. By most measures that 5-8% conversion rate is the same a human calling and chasing patients down for treatment and reappointments. 

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Adrian Lefler - CEO, My Social Practice ?? Learn About Annie AI: https://mysocialpractice.com/annie-ai/
• Founded social media specific marketing company in 2009, pioneering social media for dentists • Expanded into full-service digital marketing: websites, SEO, reputation management, digital ads • Developed AI agent chat bots for website for dental practices management • Now developing phone support for dental offices using Annie AI • Serving 200+ dental practices with AI phone solutions