Transforming Missed Opportunities into Marketing Opportunities

Kari Stupans
ACT Speaker & Coach

The mysteries of marketing can be solved easily, quickly and very economically. By changing your point of view and thereby changing your conversation, you can transform your "hurry-up and get it over with" tasks into marketing opportunities. The confirmation call is one of the easiest tasks to transform into a marketing activity.

The Call of Concern protocol replaces what is commonly referred to as "confirmation calls" or "hygiene recare calls." A call of concern is exactly what it sounds like; we are calling because we are concerned for the patient and want to make every effort to help them stay on track with the agreements they made to maintain/achieve their dental health.

The first habit we must break is our mindset. This call can be transformed from a babysitting activity (are you coming?) to a marketing activity (is there any additional information we might need to properly prepare for your appointment?) Leaving a message on their answering machine is certainly faster, but does it differentiate you? Does it build value for the appointment? The results clearly prove to the contrary. Challenge your thinking here. Could this phone call contribute to that "it's just a cleaning" mentality? Why not make the call, speak to a person and build value for the appointment instead!?

A few things need to be in place for this opportunity to be maximized. Starting this week, let your recare patients know that you will be calling 3 days prior to their Hygiene appointment and ask permission to call them at work so that you may speak with them directly about any changes in their health that may have occurred between now and then.

The conversation might sound something like this:

Patient with an appointment: (call 3 days before if this is a recare pt.; two days prior if this is a dr. patient.)

"Good morning/afternoon Mrs. Patient, this is _______ from Dr. _______ office. I am calling in preparation for your appointment on ________. The last time you were in to see the hygienist was ____ months ago and during that appointment You and the hygienist agreed that you would work on ____________ and ___________. How are those areas feeling?" (pt. response - if better: "Great, I will pass that information onto the hygienist." If the same or worse: "Why do you think it has not improved?" (pt. response) Thanks! I will pass that information onto the hygienist, since it has been ____ months since we have seen you, is there anything else the hygienist or doctor need to know in order to be prepared for you on ___________?" Great! We are looking forward to seeing you at (time and day)."

If the patient does not have an appointment: The modifications to the previous conversation would only be slightly different and sound something like this:

"Good morning/afternoon Mrs. Patient, this is _________ from Dr. ________. I am calling in preparation for your next Therapeutic Hygiene Appointment with the hygienist. The last time you were in to see the hygienist, you and she agreed that in order to successfully maintain your dental health goals, you would schedule an appointment in _______ months. Would you like an appointment on ________ day or _______ day? ** Since it has been _______ months since we've seen you, is there anything else the hygienist or doctor need to know to be properly prepared for your appointment?" Great! We are looking forward to seeing you on _______ day at _____ time."

**If the patient chooses not to schedule at this time, ask permission to contact the patient again in a reasonable time, that way when you call again, you will feel more comfortable because the patient agreed to the phone contact.

Converting the confirmation call into a Call of Concern is just one of the many missed marketing opportunities in your practice. At your next staff meeting discuss the other "hurry up and get it over with tasks" that can be converted into marketing opportunities. (Hint: just about every interaction with your patient is a marketing opportunity). Happy Marketing!