New patients are one of the constants that need to occur in a dental office for the practice to continue growing. Many offices spend a large percentage of their revenue on attracting new patients and others sit back and hope that the new patients will find their office.
Many times, when an established office tells me that they are desperately in need of new patients, my first question is how have your new patients found you in the past? And are you making concerted efforts to retain them? After a bit of hemming and hawing, we find that there has been so many resources in getting new patients, that they forget that retention of the old patients has moved to the back burner.
Let me take you back in time…. remember when you first opened your doors? Possibly you were right out of dental school, or heading into an established office as an associate or maybe you’ve moved your practice at some point in your career. How did you get the new patients then? Did you and your team sit around in hopes of new patients walking in the door, money in hand, ready to accept that long needed treatment? I dare say NOT! You busted your tail putting out flyers, meeting the neighbors, visiting community schools, going to Chamber, Rotary or other area meetings. Every patient that walked in the door was like gold to you and you treated them that way – everyone on your team did as well. You knew each new patient by name, who had referred them, what their fears were and you catered to those fears. You sent them welcome letters, emails or thank you notes. All became right in your world.
So now here you sit today, 1, 10 or 30 years later, looking around, wishing you had more new patients? Why? Where did they go? Those patients that you had acquired haven’t stuck around. So why not? Were they stolen from you? Possibly some other dentist with a new practice that is now treating them like gold; knows them by name, who their children are and what fears they have. They are sending out welcome letters, emails, texts &/or thank you notes. At what point did your practice become so full that it was no longer necessary to know your patients by name and show them appreciation?
Do you realize that a new patient costs the office 3X, as a patient of record because of the time of the phone, resources expelled and appointment time? You have a database full of patients who have not crossed your threshold in years and chances are, haven’t been to another dentist since you. Let’s find them, call them, and welcome them back. It’s time to activate your reactivation campaign! The organization of this campaign needs to be methodical and systematic.
The first step is to get your resources all working in the same direction. Your software contains reports to tell you who these patients are and how to locate them. Depending on the size of your report, your staff may need to divvy up the list and tackle it as a team. Each patient has different needs, personalities and attitudes so your team will need a standard script for approaching these patients. It’s not that they have to say the exact same words, however, the meanings need to correlate with each other. Goals need to be set to carry out this campaign effectively and the entire team needs to be onboard with those goals. When implementing a plan of any kind, the critical, most important step is to put it on paper, in writing. It seems overly simple, yet those that do it, understand its power.
Here are some steps to get you started:
1. Set Goals – specific, measurable and defined; how many calls, letters/texts are going out each day/week/month.
2. Actions – define the exact steps you must take to get to the goal; will you send out an email or text and follow up with a phone call or begin with the phone and follow up with an electronic message?
3. Deadlines – realistic, but achievable.
4. Routine review of results –don’t leave this step off, it is your way to determine the success of your campaign. Have a referral source so you can document the patient that return through these efforts. This is valuable information to share with the team to encourage continuation of the process.
There are many services available that will attempt to reactivate patients in your database using electronic means. However, a phone call is an invaluable method when trying to reconnect with a patient, even if it’s by leaving a voicemail.
As the process continues, the team will need to know what to do when, for instance, a patient’s phone number has been disconnected?
The options are:
Delete or inactivate the patient and move on?
Go online to try to find at least a valid address?
Dig through the patient’s intake form to see if there may be a spouse’s number or an emergency number that could be used.
What if a patient can’t be reached by phone, do you drop a letter in the mail or send an email or text?
In the morning meeting, when reviewing today’s patients, it is just as vital to mention the reactivated patients, as it is the new patients. Let’s remind the team who they are and what we know of them from before. When they enter the office, treat them, as you do all your patients, like gold, call them by name, know who their children are, send them hand written thank you notes. Show them that you appreciate them. When trying to deal with the state of today’s affairs, sometimes it’s as simple as looking back to the beginning. Your search for new patients is as close and easy as looking in your computer.
Denise Ciardello, Consultant
Denise is co-founder of Global Team Solutions. A professional speaker and published author, her enthusiasm and knowledge about the dental profession has helped many dental teams. She brings experience, insight, and creativity into her management style, along with a sense of humor. In a profession that can cause anxiety in some dental employees.
Denise’s consulting approach is to partner with doctors and team members to help them realize the dream of creating a thriving, successful practice.
Denise can be reached at: denise@gtsgurus.com