By Tom Bellis, MBAc, BAS, BA
With the plethora of dental marketing methods available, dentists can invest in products and services to raise awareness about their practice and generate quality leads.
But if the front desk team is not trained to handle those calls properly, or they allow calls to roll over to voicemail and do not return calls within minutes, all of the marketing in the world will not bring those callers into the dental chair.
The latest data reveals that the average dental practice in North America misses 20% of their new-patient inbound calls; of the 80% that are answered, less than half are converted to a first appointment. The top 10% of practices answer 95% of calls and convert at a rate of 75%.
This means that if a practice goes from being an average performer to a top performer, it stands to gain at least $150,000 in practice revenue per 100 new-patient calls. This calculation is based on answering an additional 15 calls and converting 33 more new patients. The lifetime value of the average long-term patient (seven to10 years) is at least $4,500, which is based on the American Dental Association’s average annual spend of $653.
“Oftentimes, a call from a prospective patient might be the only chance a practice has to connect with that person,” said Joanne Bishop, senior vice president of Patient News. “The majority of new patients won’t wait to leave a message on voicemail.”
Business intelligence tools enable practice owners to quickly identify the total number of calls to the practice, how many calls are missed and when, and who handled each call. By implementing call tracking and scoring, all calls are recorded so that they can be reviewed at any time. Professional call scorers, combined with artificial intelligence, can evaluate each call based on a set of criteria. All reports are available anytime on a software platform.
Tracking and measuring what occurs during those initial calls has proven eye-opening for many dental practices. Once they discover where their gaps are, they can take advantage of a telephone training program to improve marketing ROI, increase profits, and book more new patients.
Tom Bellis, MBAc, BAS, BA, is the senior marketing manager at Patient News. He has 18 years of experience in marketing, having worked both on the client and agency side in consumer, business, and public sector markets. Bellis is in the process of completing an MBA in strategic management and holds a BAS Honors in marketing and a BA Honors in communications and psychology. Lean more at linkedin.com/in/tombellis/.
