Dental health is important, and, as a dental practitioner, you will want to attract as many dental patients to your surgery as you can. Aside from investing in SEO and online marketing, there are some things you can do that will help retain patients and make every dental appointment as easy as possible for you and your patients.
How can you do that? Read on to find out!
Check The Equipment
There are few things worse than needing to give a patient-specific treatment and having the equipment conk out on you halfway through the process.
Badly maintained or poorly performing equipment can ruin the efficiency of any dental surgery, and it can also make your patients nervous. So, at the start of the day, make sure that all of the tools that you will likely need to use are working as they need to. This will help keep the appointments flowing smoothly and will also save you a lot of time and stress throughout the day.
Have a Welcoming Surgery
Remember the old-school dental surgeries that had a deep color scheme, paired with a rather unpleasant receptionist to book in patients? That was common in the early 90s, but now, you will attract and retain more patients if your dental surgery is welcoming and your staff is friendly. Indeed, some dental surgeries have even designed their waiting room to look and function like a coffee shop, offering WiFi and serving coffee to patients while they wait for appointments. That’s clever and friendly, and such surgeries have a higher patient retention rate. So, opt for more lights, brighter colors, appealing pictures, and, of course, friendly staff!
Be Open With Patients
Now, on to the appointments. When you have patients coming in, you will likely have a few who are nervous. For most dental patients, this is because of a feeling of lacking control while they are in the dental chair. So, try to be open with them and talk to them about what you are doing, or ask them about their hobbies, their job, etc. In short, you need to be friendly, as being a grumpy, uninviting dental team will ensure that your patient list shrinks!
If your patient is a nervous patient, ask them what they may need to feel more comfortable during the appointment. In most cases, it is reassurance from the professionals, which is part of bedside manner anyway.
Patient-Focused Amenities
Going back to the idea of the very clever dental surgery that had a waiting room that resembled a coffee shop, another way you can improve dental surgery appointments is to aim to make your surgery as patient-focused as you can. This will include having free, high-quality WiFi, TVs in the waiting room, toilets, music, and toys in the waiting areas for kids to play with, as well as up-to-date magazines. Many people are less than eager to attend dental surgeries, so you need to ensure that they have adequate distractions while they wait for their appointments.
