Win the Hearts and Minds of Your Patients and Keep Them for Life

In this environment of stiff competition, where dentists or doctors are fighting for better online traffic, it can be highly challenging to keep patient or win new patients and grow your dental or medical practice. So how do you differentiate yourself from the rest of the crowd?

The big differentiating factor is your customer service. It's what will help you thrive in such a competitive market. Here, we compiled a list of 5 Customer Service Tips to help you and your dental or medical staff.

Fish for positive reviews
There are numerous avenues for your tech-savvy patients to post online reviews of dentists and doctors. There's ZocDoc, Yelp, Rateadentist, Healthgrades, Angie’s List, etc. Actively seek out positive reviews by encouraging your patients to go on one of these sites to post share their wonderful experience at your office. Remember, it is these very same reviews pages that prospective patients check out before deciding to avail of your services, so make an effort to regularly monitor what your patients say about you on these review sites.

Don't panic if you find some negative comments in your reviews. The first thing you need to do is understand what the complaint is about, see if your other patients are commenting on the same issue, listen hard and perhaps you will find that it's a valid concern that needs to be addressed, helping improve your services.

Get help from new technology
Impress your patients, starting with a dental or medical website that is both stunning and highly functional, and they will be talking about your practice with friends and families. You know by now how word-of-mouth is good for your practice. Nowadays, most patients seek dentists and doctors with offices that are technologically connected. In healthcare, technology means less paperwork, less waiting time, less invasive procedures and less pain!

Patient portals can give patients access to their lab results without having to call or come in the office to collect results. Online appointment or contact forms can save time for your patients and your employees. A report by the Internet Journal of Healthcare Administration revealed that message appointment reminders reduced patient no-shows by about 36 percent.

Survey your patients
Regularly surveying your patients two to three times a year should be a key part of your efforts to win over your patients and keep them for life. This allows for enough time to analyze the data and to work on the improvements to help you perform better for your patients. Separate your questions about your performance as healthcare provider and your office so that you can assess the information accordingly.

Educate your patients
Empower your patients with the right information by explaining procedures fully and completely. This is where resources , such as our Patient Education Videos, discussing conditions and procedures are important to help them get prepared. The more the patients understand, the less anxious they will be about their treatment. 

Achieve a balanced atmosphere
Maintain a balanced atmosphere in the office— friendly, professional and strict. Greet your patient as soon as they walk into your office with a pleasant greeting and a smile. Ask them how their day is coming along, ask about their families and their pets or work. Never leave the front desk vacant, and always assist the patients as if they are your number one priority.  Be a little more personal by standing up to talk to the patient to have an eye to eye contact.

When patients refuse or fail to pay, don’t brush it under the carpet nor confront or offend them. Instead, kindly remind them of the practice policies. If a patient is perennially late for appointments, gently discuss how it effects your practice. Build a trusting relationship with your patients and they will likely to return and stay loyal to you and your practice.

At Solution21, we’d like our clients to get ahead of the competition with great websites and exceptional customer service. Is there anything we missed? Write us and give us your feedback here or by calling us at 888-423-9235!

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Have a Great Website for Your Practice

In this day and age of internet browsing and online buying, having a website is now a business necessity. A compelling reason is that one cannot simply ignore the growing 180 million Americans who use the internet at least once a month. Recent statistics show that more than 80 percent of Americans use the Internet to search for health information, out of which 54 percent specifically look for healthcare providers. It is believed that there's over 11 million internet searches for dentists every month on average.

1. It's Business 24/7

Your office operates during usual business days and hours of Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm. However, your website is your 24/7 hour office front. With current and prospective dental patients leading busy lives, having the ability to schedule appointments, submit questions and learn more about your practice online extends convenience to patients, as well as your office staff.

2. It’s Your Online Brochure and Referral Program

Printed marketing material takes time and money to maintain, not to mention its impact on our environment. A website, on the other hand, takes little time to design, build and manage. In addition, you can integrate reviews, testimonials and social media sites like Google Places, Yelp, Facebook and Twitter, allowing prospective patients to read what current patients are saying about your practice.

3. Your Extended Waiting Room

The same efforts and thoughtfulness you put into your dental office design can be extended to your website with significantly less effort. The design and function of your website should inspire the same confidence in you as it does when patients walk into your waiting room. Thinking of your website as your digital dental office is especially important when attracting new patients.

4. Customer Service

Information availability can have a significant impact on patients’ likelihood to visit a particular practice. One of the easiest ways to extend excellent customer service is to answer relevant questions before they are asked, and there is no better vehicle for this than your website!

Keeping your practice’s website content current and relevant educates the public about your practice, projects a culture of transparency and delivers the information your patients are most likely to require – saving both patients and your office staff a phone call.

5.  Gather Information and Generating Leads

A website that is properly optimized with Searching Engine Optimization (SEO) ensures you achieve the highest possible rankings when prospective patients perform online searches.

About the Author. Andrew Esphahani is Solution21's go-to guy for everything SEO and AdWords. Solution21 takes the guesswork out of website production for dental practices. We help create websites for dentists, surgeons and medical professionals. Solution21 is the only solutions provider in the market that offers cost-effective turnkey website solutions.