Al Lipper who is a Dental Success Consultant gave some interesting insight into dental marketing on the dental discussion forum recently. He talks about how persistent interaction with the patient help retention and in the acquiring of new patients. He give some very interesting information that is very helpful to all practices. The following is an excerpt from his article:

Interaction #1 – The Medical Questionnaire
By surveying patients, Dr. Wise learned that most patients prefer to complete their paperwork at home. Many perceive the form as “too time consuming” to complete during the visit. To improve patient satisfaction, Dr. Wise has office personnel complete patient’s medical questionnaires by phone.

Interaction #2 – The Patient Orientation Package
Dr. Wise mails an orientation package to welcome new patients. The kit features useful dental information accompanied by a copy of their completed medical questionnaire. The completed form gives the new patient a chance to add or amend any information. The patient orientation kit instills patient trust that Dr. Wise’s office is professional and devoted to quality dental care. Since the practice started mailing new patient packets, the number of appointment cancellations has been reduced substantially.

Interaction #3 – The Personal Appointment Reminder
When Dr. Wise’s office leaves the appointment reminder message, it demonstrates a commitment to reliable dental care.

Interaction #4 – Distinctive, Branded Giveaways
To distinguish his practice from other dental offices, Dr. Wise equips new patients with a gift box opposed to a gift bag. By using a different encasement for the dental supplies, Dr. Wise’s giveaways brand and set his practice apart from the competition.
Interaction #5 – The Appreciation Communiqué
As a follow-up to the patient’s appointment, Dr. Wise uses the appreciation letter as a form of market research. The letter requests that the new patient provide feedback on their experience so they can receive even better service in the future. The thank you note again exemplifies Dr. Wise’s devotion to customer excellence and supports the exceptional patient experience.

Interaction #6 - The Referral Reward
At Dr. Wise’s office, referring patients receive a $5 Gift card from Starbuck’s Coffee. However patients who provide on-going regular referrals or those who refer large cases get specials gifts - anything from a nice pen or travel alarm clock to a new iPod. You might think this is excessive, but gifts like this are more than paid for by a single additional referral. What’s more is that each time the patient uses one of these gifts, they are reminded of what a great dentist he is. Rewarding existing clients for making patient referrals conveys an appreciation for patient loyalty and inspires future referrals. Not to mention, maintaining patient allegiance is as important as cultivating new customers.

At the end of the day, Dr. Wise wows and dazzles new patients with attentive customer service. It’s not because he doles out nifty gift boxes and gift certificates. It’s the exceptional patient experience. Aside from extraction, cosmetic procedure or other dental services, it’s the cumulative patient contact or interaction that provides the patient experience.

Perpetual persistence is the tool and strategy multi-millionaires apply. Ask any uniquely successful individual the secret to their success, and they will purport perpetual persistence among their keys to success. At least, it’s what Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates claim. Whether it’s the persistence of knocking on doors for new business or perpetually following a proven market strategy, this strategy provides dependable, consistent results.

Perpetual persistence is a marketing methodology that not only cultivates new patient relationships; it ensures the retention of new patients. How will you implement it in you practice?

I wanted to make my own comment regarding what Mr. Lipper has stated here. I believe that all 6 of the above interactions can be done via the Internet! That is what is so wonderful about the web. Granted it’s still good to interact with people in person. But all 6 of these interactions can and will add up to be quite costly for you in terms of overhead. But if you can utilize the web to help you in these interactions, you will save time and money and make more money reaping the benefits of such practices.

WebDentalMarketing.com is a company that helps dental offices with online marketing through websites and eNewsletters. I came across their website by browsing around the ADA website. If you go to their website and read the homepage you will read an interesting statistic that they reference. It’s a statistic from the Dental Products Report, January 3, 2001. It states that “80% of patients with Internet access would like to communicate by e-mail  with their health professionals.” Wow! What a powerful statistic. And what makes this statistic even stronger is the fact that it was generated over 6 years ago. You could only imagine what the current percentage is of patients who prefer e-mail communication with their health professionals.

What does this mean for the dental industry? It basically means that e-mail communication systems  are vital for the dental industry and must be a part of every practice in order for a dental practice to continue to succeed. This is how patients want to be communicated with. This is how they want to be treated. And if you don’t treat them how they want to be treated, they simply leave you for another dentist.

Make sure you have automatic email systems in place for your practice. These systems should be easy for your office manager to manage. They should also be setup for automatic appointment reminders, as well as teeth cleaning reminders and so forth. If you don’t have these systems in place, go to www.patientdocs.com and they will set you up.

There is a way to add profitability without even having to add any new patients. That’s called taking advantage of your existing customer base. In an article written by Melinda Spitek of Hycomb Marketing in the blog site blog.wealthydentist.com, Melinda talks about marketing to your existing customer base and how important it is. She references to the part of California where she lives as “whine country” where less than 10% of the population purchases more than 80% of all the wine! She applies that to the Dental Industry and teaches us that it’s no different. Your existing customer base is critical. She gives five basic components of a successful internal marketing strategy to your existing customer base;

• Information value (keeping your patients up-to-date on what you offer),
• Educational value (teaching your patients about important health issues),
• Repetition value (reminding your patients that you are their dentist and that they might be past due for recare),
• Consistency, and
• Consistency.

I must say that is great advice worth paying for! Every dentist office should know and understand what Melinda Spitek is teaching us here. She then goes on to explain why a regular newsletter to your entire patient base is a good strategy and how it provides the following;

• Information and educational value,
• Repeated name recognition,
• A tangible link to your practice,
• Flexibility of involvement (your office can be closely tied to development of the materials, or not involved at all), and
• Cost-effective promotion to high-value current patients.

All this can be done through the PatientDocs.com Med eMail service. You can create a newsletter in our back office and mass mail it to all your existing customer base. You can send education pieces to them. You could send coupon’s or notify them of specials. If a tool like Med eMail can help you get more business from your existing customer base then this is a tool that you must have. It makes perfect sense.

Exceptional Dental Practice Management is a blog that we recommend to you if you are involved in the dental industry written by Linda Zdanowicz. She wrote an article in May of this year titled Keep The Customer Service Ball Rolling where she highlighted the importance of great customer service in the dentist office and how important it is to maintain it. Here is a small excerpt of what she said;

“Keeping customer service first and foremost in the minds of your staff reinforces the importance of top quality service to our patients. If they see that you mean it, day in and day out, it will become something they see as a normal part of what they do. Constantly recognize outstanding service and new ideas. What gets recognized gets repeated. If you hear a staff member say something especially kind or insightful to a patient, write it on the white board, in quotes with credit to the staff member. Have a part of your regular staff meetings dedicated to recognizing outstanding service that took place since the last staff meeting. Let the team members talk about what they saw each other doing that impressed them. Recognition by peers is particularly gratifying. Keep the customer service ball rolling and your entire practice will pick up speed. Just becoming great at customer service doesn’t guarantee that you’ll stay great. You have to continue to focus and work on it.”

In a perfect world this would be easy for a dental office to achieve. However, maintaining high levels of customer service also involves maintaining high levels of communication. And that part of it can become quite expensive over time. You will find that if you can use an automatic email service that can send appointment reminders and appointment confirmation emails, as well as birthday cards via email, that your communication levels will increase with your patients and therefore your level of customer service will increase as well.  And you will be able to maintain this level day in and day out.

According to Pew Internet Stats and a survey conducted between February and March of this year 2007, 71% of American adults use the Internet. And 91% of those internet users send or read email! That’s right! You heard correctly! It’s that large of a number. It’s pretty safe to say that’s a majority of American adults who send and receive email often. That makes email a critical form of all types of communication.

That’s why we feel strongly about our Med eMail program. Med eMail is our web based application that helps a Dental Practice send appointment confirmation and appointment reminders via email. It is nowdays a critical form of communication and must be adopted by businesses of all types. Including Dentists.

The most obvious and proven method is Patient Interaction. Don’t confuse this with the deluge of marketing and promotions that other companies will employ to sell products or services. A Patient Interaction is a 1 to 1 communication that develops a relationship with the patient and helps the patient feel like their long term health and beauty are your first priority!

If you are like other Practitioners, you are concerned about the cost of maintaining that kind of relationship with your patients. It may take much of your valuable office resources to make phone calls, write letters, or make and send post cards that would potentially takes time away from the patients while they are actually in the office! As one Front Office Manager stated… “We can now email pre-procedure instructions to our patients, appointment reminders, and all of our patient forms for completions before the patient even comes into the office. The patients love being able to complete the forms at home and not have to fight kids while trying to manage a clipboard in the waiting room. It’s great!”.

Click Here and learn about our Med eMail service that will help save you time and help you keep better communication with all of your patients.