Do you know what advertising technique is making the phone ring in your practice? Do you know which pieces are actually producing new patients? Unfortunately, the answer in most dental offices is almost always “no.”
Competition for new patients is fierce for dentists in this time when loyalty is down and marketing noise is up. Most practices are spending thousands of dollars per month in digital marketing, print publications, direct mail, and other advertising methods in an effort to make their phone ring. The problem is that this spending does result in phone calls, but it’s difficult to determine which marketing piece has delivered calls, making it hard to allocate the budget for each piece. Further than that, when the phone does ring, staff may mishandle the call and lose that expensive lead.
What if you could find out where each call came from and have it reviewed for quality, too? With call tracking, you can. A unique number is used on each marketing piece to track and record calls, and simple reports show you which pieces are working and which ones are wasting your money. All calls forward into your office, so experience is seamless to callers. On top of that, each call is reviewed by human reviewers, which saves you time and shows you two things:
- Which marketing pieces are delivering quality calls? The goal of your spending is to bring in new patients. The human reviewers will mark if the call was an opportunity for an appointment, filtering out the noise of calls about an existing appointment, billing, directions to the office, etc.
- Was an appointment booked on the call? With all of the money spent on making the phone ring, you want quality leads to convert on the phone. If an appointment opportunity is not converted, take a closer look at the call to see why. Could your receptionist have done a better job handling the call? Is the caller looking for certain insurance providers that you don’t work with?
An easy-to-use online interface puts actionable data in front of you and puts important calls right in your email inbox. Call tracking and reviewing will allow you to spend your marketing dollars more wisely, while still allowing you to focus your time on dentistry.
