Imagine the following scenario. You are a dentist who has been in practice for several years. You have a stable business and provide high-quality dental care. However, you have noticed that some of your patients do not return after their first visit. Perhaps they did not enjoy their experience or found another dentist closer to their home or workplace. Whatever the reason, a decrease in patients will affect the growth and profitability of your business.
Therefore, it is essential to focus on retaining existing patients and attracting new ones. Retention is about building long-term relationships with patients. This requires a holistic approach that takes into account their needs and concerns. In this blog, you'll find tips and tricks for maximizing dental patient retention and ensuring the success of your practice. Whether you're an experienced professional or new to dentistry, these strategies will help keep your patients happy and coming back to see you.
Why Is Patient Retention So Necessary?
First, acquiring new patients is much more expensive than retaining existing patients. It is estimated that acquiring a new patient costs five times more than having an existing patient. Existing patients are also more likely to use additional procedures and services, which can increase a practice's revenue.
Beyond the financial benefits, dental patient retention is critical to building solid relationships with patients. Patients who feel valued are more likely to trust you and recommend your practice to friends and family. Patient retention also ensures continuity of care, which positively impacts overall health.
In short, retention is a win-win for both your practice and your patients. Focusing on patient retention strategies can build a loyal patient base, increase revenue, and provide better patient care. Let's look at some key strategies for maximizing patient retention in your dental practice.
Dental Patient Retention Strategies
1. Always Provide Quality Service
Although this advice may sound cliché, it is essential to keep an appointment schedule. Exemplary service should begin with the appointment, continue through the office reception area and end with an evaluation or assessment.
This action will ensure that the client is satisfied and will return for further treatments or examinations and that they will recommend your services to their family and friends. In this sense, word-of-mouth is very effective and brings essential professional recognition.
2. Pay Attention to Feedback and Opinions
Finally, get feedback from patients who have been with you for a long time. You can do this by email or taking a survey while waiting for an appointment. For example, ask, "Would you recommend our dental office to others?" Ask questions such as. You can also offer a free opinion form.
Don't ask for identification if the patient feels more comfortable. Listening to your patients makes you more likely to make improvements and adjustments to attract more people. This way, the agenda is always full, and you can be more involved.
3. Create A Referral System for Dental Patient Retention
Dental practices should pay special attention to creating a referral system and a loyalty program encouraging clients to offer their services to potential patients. It should be a specific system that can be monitored continuously and used to improve marketing efforts.
You may consider the following strategies.
- Improve systems and technology to enhance patient care.
- Create a portfolio of before and after photos of success stories.
- Personally, ask for patient feedback.
- Personally, thank patients for their recommendations.
- Request referrals on social media.
- Create incentive programs to reward clients for referrals.
4. Offer New Technologies in The Dental Office
Finally, remember that standing out from the competition is vital. So, offer your patients new technologies. Learn about your specialty, attend seminars and events, and keep up with the latest developments in the dental market.
This will make you a state-of-the-art specialist with many ways to treat specific cases. This way, you can be sure that more people will visit you and leave with a more beautiful smile.
Implementing these techniques may seem complicated at first glance for dental patient retention. But trust me, they can fill your dental office appointment book and make it easier to recognize your professional talents.
5. Post-Consultation Service Makes A Difference
You want patients to come back regularly, not just once. Good service and communication are necessary to build customer loyalty.
Why not keep in touch with each of your patients with an SMS campaign? With Organised Dentistry, you can send birthday events, automatically trigger birthday messages, or send SMS messages with follow-up care tips.
6. Using The E-Appointment System
Online appointment scheduling is a great tool for making patients' lives easier. It can also be combined with other activities, such as advertising on social media for dental patient retention.
This way, patients don't need to call the clinic and can make an appointment at a convenient time, such as on the weekend or after work. In addition, this can be done quickly and easily without human assistance.
Using these tools is very simple. First, link these tools to your practice's online appointment calendar (e.g., Google Calendar). Patients can only make appointments that you have marked as available. Then, as appointments are booked, they are automatically updated and synchronized.
You can display this feature on your website and social media to attract more patients. If you need more powerful tools, invest in a chatbot or virtual assistant to reduce no-shows by allowing you to interact with patients, answer their questions and even send appointment reminders, in addition to online scheduling.
7. Work on Your Personal Image
You are sending a message through your appearance, clothing, accessories, and tone of voice. If that message is positive, people will connect with you, trust you, and feel more comfortable.
Therefore, always analyze yourself and ask yourself if the message you want to convey is getting through. Today, many professionals care about their personal image to achieve their professional goals.
Pay attention to your appearance, whether on Instagram or seeing patients in the clinic. Pay attention to your tone of voice and ensure your patients feel welcome, even if they are sitting behind a screen.
8. Focus on The Patient Care Space
However, investing in a marketing strategy that creates the image of a first-class clinic is only meaningful if the reality matches the predictions of the ads. That's why you need to pay special attention to the places where you offer your services. This means not only cleanliness but also order and competence of the staff.
Imagine a patient coming in for an exam and being confronted with a messy space and well-trained staff who don't know what to do with it. Naturally, this will not make a good impression on them, and they will not use your services. In addition, it may even create a bad reputation for your clinic.
9. Offer Some Benefits to Your Patients
As we mentioned at the beginning, patients are becoming more demanding and want more than just a solution. They want something in return for being able to choose their dentist. So, count on some unique features to attract patients to your practice and enhance dental patient retention. Such as,
- You can offer gifts, such as oral hygiene kits, or discounts on care costs when they receive new treatments.
- You can also encourage repeat patients to return for their subsequent therapy by providing different payment options.
10. Invest In Marketing And Increase Dental Patient Retention
The more people you know, the more audience you will have in your networks, the more possible patients and partners, etc. So, take time during your week or month to network with others.
This could be a business group, a study group on a particular topic, a class that interests you, or a public event. Connect with more people, improve your network, and see how patients and referrals turn out.
11. Engage with Your Patients and Leads Via Email Marketing
Interaction is an effective way to keep your brand top of mind.
- The straightforward idea is to add a newsletter subscription to your blog. This way, people who like your content can leave their contact information so you can notify them when you update it.
- Another good idea is to invest in rich content, such as eBooks and infographics, and make them available for download on your blog. To get this content, you must ask people to leave their contact information. You can then send them tips and content from your blog or social media to build relationships.
12. Don't Underestimate Social Media
You may say you need more time or money to invest in social media, but you think your competitors are already out there, reaching and engaging with many people. So, consider the power of social networks like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok to bring new patients.
Take the time to engage with them by creating content, running personalized lifehack campaigns, and investing in paid traffic. The Organised Dentist allows you to create blocks of time in your schedule where your team doesn't have appointments so you can focus on them.
13. List Your Practice on Google My Business
Having at least one website is essential for digital marketing to attract patients to your dental practice. In addition, you can (and should!).
- When we need a service or product, we usually search for it on Google. Many of us may already be searching for "dentist + city name" or "dentist + city name.
- Keep your Google My Business listing complete in search results and update your website with critical patient information such as an address, phone number, services, reviews, and articles.
- You can also get feedback from other patients on the quality of treatment.
So, when a patient does a Google search on your clinic's name, they can find all the information they need on Google Maps, including directions to the clinic and essential contact information. In addition, they can read what other patients have to say. And if you have any doubts about the quality of your clinic, you can check the validity of reviews.
It's a quick, easy, and free way to increase interest in your brand, drive traffic to your website, and book new appointments.
If you still need to do so, head to Google My Business and sign up now to increase dental patient retention.
14. Create A Blog and Invest in Quality Content
A blog is an essential ally in increasing the number of users who browse your website and discover your brand. Indeed, if your content is optimized for your niche keywords, your website's ranking on Google will increase.
As a result, potential patients will find your blog when they search for relevant content and associate it with your brand because they will think of you when they search for dentists.
For this approach to be successful, you need to know your target audience and what they are looking for online. Then, create a sales funnel with content encouraging thought and decision-making and increasing dental patient retention.
This content is for
- People who don't yet know they have a problem
- People who already know they have a problem but don't yet know the solution
- and people looking for a dentist.
Do your keyword research and focus on developing exciting and informative content.
15. Invest In Relationship Marketing
Good relationships are the key to success in any business. Therefore, if you want to become a successful dentist, you must build relationships with your patients. Keep a database with different information about your patients and send cards and emails on special occasions such as birthdays, Christmas, Father's Day, and Mother's Day.
Calling a patient who has not been to the clinic in a long time is also always helpful. This is to remind them that they should visit the dentist for more than six months and that they should have their teeth cleaned at least once a year.
16. Participate in Dental Courses and Events
It may be known that professionals can only attend dental events to help organize their practice. However, this is not the case; it can be beneficial.
The primary purpose of attending trade shows and conferences is to keep up with market trends and to network. These are actually the primary goals of practitioners, and both help to organize the process.
Sometimes there are presentations from solution providers that can help clinics optimize their performance and increase revenue. In addition, participation in such events can help clinics improve their management skills.
The second point is networking. Some may need to realize this possibility, as they are more likely to interact with other professionals than patients. However, it is good to remember that by interacting with professionals, the quality of service and the empathy that comes with it can be remembered in the future. So be sure to attend events in your area. It can pay off over time.
These are just a few tips for filling your appointment book. Put them into practice and enjoy!
Dental Patient Retention Statistics
As a dentist, you know how important it is to keep patients returning for regular checkups and treatments. But have you ever wondered what the statistics are on patient retention in the dental industry? Here are some interesting statistics on dental patient retention that practicing dentists should know:
- About 20% of new patients are estimated to never return for an appointment.
- Studies have shown that patient retention drops by about 50% after the first year of treatment. On average, satisfied patients tell 3 people about their good experience, while dissatisfied patients tell 10 people.
- Studies have shown that a 5% increase in patient retention can increase a dental practice's profitability by 95%.
- One study showed that patients who are satisfied with their dental care are almost 3 times more likely to visit their friends and family at the dental office.
- Another study showed that patients with an emotional attachment to their dental office are 2.7 times more likely to continue treatment.
These statistics underscore the importance of patient retention to the success of a dental practice. By focusing on patient retention strategies, you can retain your patients and improve your profitability and reputation.
To Sum UP
Dental patient retention is a key component of a successful practice. Implementing the right strategies and techniques can keep patients returning for regular checkups and treatments. As a result, it increases their overall satisfaction and improves your practice's profitability.
There are many ways to optimize patient retention in dental practices, including providing excellent customer service and using patient feedback. Whether you're an experienced dentist or just starting out, maximizing patient retention and building long-term relationships with patients is essential.
Doing so will build a loyal patient base, which will help you grow your business and provide better care to your patients. So, take the time to evaluate your patient retention strategies and make the necessary changes to ensure that patients will return in the future.
