There are dental practices today that spend a lot of their money and time to attract new patients. They offer good services and care for patients only to let them walk out the doors without forming a permanent patient-dentist relationship.
If you want to achieve better retention, the first step you need to take is to learn how to get patients to make dental appointments. How do you do it, then? Here are a few tips to convince more patients and keep them returning to your practice again and again.
Follow Up with Those Patients Who Fail to Schedule an Advanced Appointment
No matter how persuasive you and your staff members may be, there will always be patients who will still leave your dental clinic without even booking their next schedule in advance. Good thing that there are now many tools that can help you instantly view the appointment details of a new patient. Through this, you will be able to identify those with and without pre-bookings, so you will get in touch with those patients who didn’t pre-booked and schedule their next appointment right away.
Use Appointment Reminders to Reduce No-shows
No-shows can have negative effects on your dental practice. A good way to lessen these cases at your practices is to set appointment reminders. It has been revealed that these automated appointment reminders significantly lowered the number of no-shows at dental offices. It is best to send your patients automated reminders so you will never experience any no-shows.
Pre-Book Dental Appointments
You can let your patients know that if they have their next appointment scheduled while they are still in the office, they will be able to pick the time and date that will work best for them, and you can also schedule it right away. You will be able to schedule the next appointment of your patient right before their eyes.
This lets you develop an effective treatment plan for your patient and present them with several options for treatment to allow them to select the plan that suits them best. After the patient decides on their treatment plan, this can then let you schedule the appointment immediately.
Reach Out to Your Patients and Show Them That Your Dental Practice Truly Cares for Them
Some patients may delay treatment for a while only to feel embarrassed once they realize the amount of time gone with no dental appointment scheduled at all.
This is the exact moment when you need to reach out to these patients. Let them know that you didn’t forget them, and the only thing that matters for you is to have them back in your office again. You can choose to contact these patients by phone or email to encourage them to schedule their next appointment.
These are just some of the simple and easy ways on how to get patients to make dental appointments and keep them coming back to your clinic.