Hello Friends,
So which is more important to your practice growth – obtaining new patients or retaining established patients?
The short answer, both are very important to successfully grow your dental practice.
Yes, new patients are very important, in fact, we should have a monthly new patient goal that we are working toward each month. Offices love new patients. I hear doctors and teams all the time saying “We need more new patients!” They believe that is the answer to all of their scheduling, production, and collection woes. But is that good enough to grow your practice, just ensuring that you’re getting fresh new patients each month?
Well, if you want to spend lots of money and ultimately work harder instead of smarter, then yes. But, I think it’s safe to say, that isn’t your intention or end goal.
And yet, that is exactly what I am seeing many doctors doing in their practice. They are investing time and money to bring in new patients but are not giving the same attention to retaining those new patients. Like they are just spinning their wheels and will eventually just burn out.
Oftentimes, I will see healthy new patient numbers each month, and yet, the office isn’t growing at all and their production is weak. Why is that? When I examine the data, I learn that far too many of their new patients are one-timers. They left the office without scheduling a future appointment. Why is this a bummer situation? Calling, emailing, texting, and snail-mailing our patients to get them to reappoint can be a drag. It’s tough to reach patients once they leave. It’s possible of course, but it takes money, time, and energy that could be better spent elsewhere. Unfortunately, we don’t always see those attempts being made to reach out to those unscheduled new patients. No one really knows what happens to the patient after their first visit. Or they make minimal attempts to reach out to the patients before giving up after a couple of months.
What does your new patient experience look like from the initial call, and first visit, to how you stay in touch with them after they leave?
Do you know what your new patient retention numbers look like?
So if the most expensive patients to acquire are your new patients, the easiest and best patients to fill your schedules are those who have come to you before. But, you may be thinking… that takes time and money to reappoint established patients too. That’s true but you have a huge advantage when reaching out to established patients of record; It’s the power of pre-existing relationships. (Oh, by the way, on average, it can cost up to six times more to gain a new patient than it does to retain an existing patient.)
What does retaining, reactivating, and reappointing established patients mean for you and the patient?
- We are creatures of habit. It’s easier to do something we are already doing than to do something different.
- Established relationship. (They already know, like, and trust you. You just need to focus on strengthening that relationship)
- No marketing costs – you’ve already paid the initial investment in getting the patient.
What are you doing to keep track of your established patients? What are you doing to ensure your established patients don’t slip through the cracks?
What are you doing to keep your new and established patients loyal to your practice?
Loyal patients, isn’t that what we want? Patients that return year after year, accept your treatment recommendations and refer their friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. They are loyal to your dental practice because they like and trust you. You’ve earned the privilege to serve them not just for a moment but for life.
Is it really a privilege to serve them? Absolutely! Any office that struggles with getting and keeping new patients, struggles with getting patients to accept their treatment recommendations, struggles with the hygiene department’s continuing care reports and Swiss cheese-like appointment schedules, struggles to keep up with all the record transfer requests from patients for their new dental office, will learn (hopefully quickly) that having loyal patients in your practice is an earned privilege. The best part with loyal patients is the aforementioned struggles are greatly reduced or eliminated altogether.
Of course, this takes some work – implementing and following closely, effective office systems/protocols are critical to you successfully retaining your patients and reaching/exceeding your practice goals.
Practice Owners, if you would like to grow and improve your dental practice and have wondered what it might be like to work with me and what coaching is all about… please feel free to reach out to me to schedule a complimentary, no-obligation coaching call at bhaydenconsulting@gmail.com.
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Yours for Greater Success,
~Betty (Dental Coach)
P.S. If you enjoy the complimentary ideas that I share or if they’ve been of help to you and your practice – I would truly appreciate it if you would please take a second and leave a review/recommendation for me on GOOGLE and/or FACEBOOK. Looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you!!
