By John Ross
When a dentist calls us about growing his or her practice, the first thing that we need to know is the driving motive behind the desire to grow. The obvious response is to increase profits, however, there are usually less obvious reasons that have to do with more personal goals of the practice owner.
Dentists who want to retire want more profits to increase the value of their practice before they sell it. For dentists at the beginning of their careers, they may want to revitalize and modernize an older, established practice they have taken over. Transitioning into or out of a practice is a great motivator to increase profits.
Other dentists may want to expand services by furthering their own training. Whether a dentist is paying for more training or the necessary equipment that comes with new services, increasing profits will be necessary to offset the cost of growth. If the increase in services comes from adding an associate or two with their own specialties, then the need to increase profits is even more immediate.
The scenarios that precipitate the need for more income are endless. One simple fact about a consumer-driven, free market system is that if you are not moving forward, you are moving backward: Stasis is not an option.
Growth takes resources and the most notable are the investments of time and capital. Urgency is never a friend to this process. Most “quick” solutions still take 60 to 90 to start yielding fruit. One sure way you can increase your new patient numbers is having your phones handled 24/7. Most dentists discount the value of after hour service. They think that they do not get “real” cash-paying callers after they leave the office. Ignorance -in this case- is not bliss.
In the Concierge Contact Center our agents typically schedule enough new patients in the first seven to ten days to cover the rest of the month’s service. With a coherent online marketing program, the service can have an even quicker ROI. The reason is that our agents are not doing 90 things at once, so they can focus on your callers. Concierge Contact Center agents are trained to listen and professionally respond and move callers to schedule. They sell your office, your staff and you, as the consummate professional that you are. Of course, they are not dealing with arriving patients or exiting patients, or receiving payment or explaining treatment, so naturally their rate of success is higher than that of most front office staff.
The professionalization of new patient phone call is a relatively new idea and we have been in it since the beginning. Unlike most third party phone handling services, a modern contact center has multiple tools at its disposal to bring in more new patients at any hour of the day. When a dentist tells me that no one calls after hours, my response is that they are calling, but when they get an IVR (phone tree) or voicemail, they hang up and go to the next dentist in their Google search. Sounds tough, but hey, millennials are demanding. They want service, and they want it now.
Many busy people cruise the internet looking for service providers late into the wee hours and on the weekends. For our dentists with social media (and let’s face it; almost everybody has a website for their practice these days), we provide them with a live chat option on their site. Concierge Contact Center agents have scheduled many late night new patient callers by chat. People love chat and its use is growing exponentially.
Want to get your flat-lined revenue line to turn upward quickly? Then you should call Shea Davis at 877-827-4152 the Concierge Contact Center and take real action to increase your profits and get on with your life!
