Attract patients back … and keep them

Mark Allen considers ways to keep patients happy.

Patients know they are under no obligation to return to a dental practice, even to complete a course of treatment they’ve already started. They know they can look around, to see where else has more convenient appointment times, or is cheaper. Price could become the overriding factor going forward, as the cost of living crisis continues to bite.

There will be people whom you haven’t seen since March 2020, for reasons other than financial. Maybe they’re still anxious about coming in; perhaps you were the nearest dentist to their workplace and now they work from home. Or, if they could not get an appointment with their preferred clinician, their motivation to return may have slipped.

The trigger may have been the disruption to services, or if they became dissatisfied with the service from your practice. Patient satisfaction is complicated; it can take one negative incident to put someone off, even if they have been attending for years. If at their last visit they found staff unhelpful, this can influence a patient’s decision to change practice. Poor phone etiquette can be enough to push people away, including regulars, as can being kept on hold for too long, or unreturned voicemails. Email and instant messaging apps – as long as they are monitored daily – can reduce telephone traffic and call waiting times but, as with verbal communication, responses should always be kind, courteous and informative. Communication builds relationships which are key for both retaining and attracting more patients. If you introduced video messaging for some consultations, this may have enabled more ‘authentic’ and non-teeth related conversations. Although plenty of people loathe it, others feel less intimated and more relaxed when they are speaking to someone via a screen.