Although this article is fairly short, I want to clearly outline three concepts that are critical when answering the phone in your dental practice. The first concept is the importance of a great first impression. The second concept is having appropriate hours of operation and the third is making sure your schedule is wide open to new patients. Improvement in these areas is needed by most practices and will result in dramatic gains in the scheduling of new patients.
As a dental marketing professional one of our core objectives is to get the phone to ring at a dental practice. It’s a skill that we’re very good at. However, in the past few months I have become aware of several dental practices that have failed to capitalize on their marketing investment because of a weakness in answering the phones. In fact in one case, nearly all the marketing calls made to a practice were lost because of poor communication skills at the frontline. For training purposes, our clients utilize an internet-based phone number that allows us to monitor their marketing calls. Because we’re able to listen to recorded phone calls from our office, we can review firsthand every marketing call made to the offices of our clients, good or bad. It’s rewarding when we hear a new patient call that is handled perfectly. It’s equally frustrating to listen to a prospective new patient who calls an office only to be treated rudely or with no enthusiasm at all.
Think of your receptionist as your “Director of First Impressions”. She can make or break a new patient experience and can make the all-important marketing call a huge success or a huge waste of your precious marketing budget. If a few prospective patients never schedule, thousands of dollars of income are lost, and believe me, it happens everyday.
Now in fairness to receptionists and office managers everywhere, sometimes dentists will run an ad campaign without even advising his or her office team. When this happens, it creates a lot of confusion and lack of professionalism when a prospective patient calls and asks about the special offer or discount seen in an ad. A good receptionist can overcome such an awkward situation, but I’ve witnessed poor receptionists do just the opposite by arguing with the caller or just acting ignorant.
Dentists often do a poor job of creating expectations for receptionists or providing training for individuals who are willing to learn and improve. I’m not an expert at telephone skills and any amount of advice I could give would be negligible. My only advice is to hire coach-able individuals who have great people skills and a great attitude, and train them until they are great at their jobs. Pay them well and keep them happy because great phone talent will bring many thousands of dollars into your practice every year, especially during an important marketing campaign.
As I mentioned earlier, your hours of operation are also an important component of your marketing success. Call records show that lunch hours, Fridays and early morning hours are the times most new patients call dental practices. Having a live receptionist available during those hours is critical for capturing those inbound calls from new patients. Call records also show that rarely will prospective patients ever leave a message or call a second time if the phone is not answered during regular business hours. Having a live receptionist also creates a sense of availability. Consumers don’t want to get a recorded message that reminds them that unlike most people, you only work four days a week. Consumers more than likely don’t work in a business that closes for lunch, so they don’t like the idea that you do.
The final important concept is that of making new patients feel like your schedule is wide open to them. If you have to work a bit later or make a change of some kind in the schedule to accommodate a new patient, you will leave a lasting impression that they are important to you. Running a marketing campaign only to notify a new patient that you are booked four weeks out or only have few openings available does little to make them feel like they’ve found a permanent home for their dental care. I’m not suggesting that you make it a permanent habit of allowing your patients to control your schedule. However, in the case of a new patient, treat them like they are a rare and valuable gift. In most cases, you’ve either spent a lot of marketing dollars to get them to call or you’ve been good enough at doing your job that a referral was given by an existing patient. Either way, a new patient is the life blood of your practice and they should be treated as such.
Remember that a great first impression, available hours of operation and a wide-open schedule will ensure that your marketing investment is not wasted.
