What is happening?
Or has this always been going on!
I am hearing many Prospective New Patients calling dental offices, and going into a long description of the bad patient experience they had at their previous dental office.
I suppose if the caller was happy with their current dentist, they would be staying with them!
It is a missed opportunity for the dentist when their patients are leaving or running away from them, and an opportunity knocking on the door of the new dentist.
I know there will always be a few patients that you are happy to release to the world of other dentists, but we won’t go into all of that!
Think about it.
Most patients over the age of three, become your patient because for some reason they decided to leave their previous dentist. We are not going to count the patients who come to see you because they have never seen a dentist in their life!
There is a reason why people leave their dentist, and finding out what that reason is, on that very first phone call, is crucial.
Don’t be scared to ask the caller, “John, is there a reason why you have decided not to return to your current dentist?’
No you are definitely being a ‘nosey parker’!
You are trying to get to the bottom of what the caller does not like.
The caller may not like it when the team are rude every time they attend their appointment, or the dentist never listens to them.
The list goes on.
While I am on the subject, here are some of the reasons why people do not return to their previous dentist:
- I have moved house and my dentist is just too far away now.
- The team were rude for no reason.
- The dentist never listened to me.
- They never did the right treatment.
- All I wanted was………and they did this…….
- They cost too much!
- I could never get an appointment.
- They kept me waiting forever.
- I felt like they didn’t know what they were doing.
Losing patients, other than poor health, death and relocation, all comes down to something the patient was not happy about. It may have been unintentional or the team at the dental office, just missed the mark with the patient, but it still happened.
So in a nutshell one dentist’s loss becomes, the gain, for another dentist.
When you find out what the caller was not happy about, you now have the opportunity to turn this around and give the caller what they need or what was missing at the other dental office.
So pay attention on these phone calls.
Listen carefully and remember, when you know why a caller has left their other practice you have an opportunity to help the caller and keep them as your patient for a long time!
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