Your telephone, as a way to communicate with your patients, has never been as important as it is right now.

Our world has been rocked and we are all scrambling to know what to do and more importantly what to say to our patients.

Even from the time I post this blog and you read it, the line may have moved and we will be responding to the COVID-19 completing differently yet again.

I use the word respond rather than react. A response to COVID-19 needs to be proactive rather than reactive.

Keep your business phone close by at all times.

Already I am hearing from Dental Offices that they are getting quite a few calls.

They are receiving:

• cancellation calls because people are showing symptoms
• cancellation calls from people who are scared and being cautious
• rescheduling calls
• calls from concerned and confused patients
• calls from patients wondering if the practice is still open
• calls to check on their appointments
• calls from emergency new patients
• calls from patients who want to finish their treatment quickly in case the practice closes.

Now it is so important for your team to be ready and equipped with what to say to patients when the calls come in.

Does your dental team know what to say to patients right now?

Today I sent my doctor a message regarding something I was concerned about. He replied immediately. This is what the general public and your patients need right now. They are looking for immediate response with reassurance or a solution.

If your patients can’t contact you when they call, they will ring another dental office.

Now is the time to hold your patients close and make sure they are all okay.

Because of social distancing, the phone is our main source of contact and communication with patients.

Not only should you be answering and responding immediately to all the calls, your team need to be contacting patients.

Call patients who have:

• An appointment. Your courtesy call 2-3 days before the appointment is now also a “screening call” to find out if they are a high risk patient to have COVID-19. The current protocol is to screen patients by questioning them as to whether they could possibly have become infected with Covid-19.

These questions are:

• Do you have any flu-like symptoms, such as sore throat, fever, cough, or shortness of breath?
• Have you recently travelled overseas?
• Have you been in close contact with someone who is a confirmed case of Covid-19

 

Call patients who:

• Are in a high risk category of contracting the virus. These include: (https://www.healthdirect.gov.au)

• people with weakened immune systems
• older people
• people with diagnosed chronic medical conditions (such as lung conditions and kidney failure)
• people with diabetes
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who have higher rates of chronic illness
• very young children and babies

If you are a practice who for a number of reasons has closed or about to close, then you need to still keep in touch with your patients. You have a duty of care as their dentist and they are waiting for you to guide them during this time.

You also want to be ready for when your practice is back up and running and what the next step is for your patients.

You want your patients to remember what you did for them right now, not remembered for what you didn’t do.

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***FREE WEBINAR***

COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: Latest NEWS….

10 URGENT STEPS all Dental Practices need to be following to SURVIVE during the Corona Virus Pandemic on Mar 24, 2020 4:00 PM AEDT at:

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Call Tracking Excellence

With Call Tracking Excellence your team will learn the SAME exact processes Jayne used to:

1. Dramatically improve new patient call-in conversions to booked appointments..

2. Retain existing patient appointments and…

3. Prevent ongoing losses from appointment cancellations.

www.calltrackingexcellence.com

For those of you, who are ready to get started call me on 1300 378 044 or email jayne@thedpe.com

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Thank you to all the fabulous dental teams who have attended my Master Classes over the last four years.

2020 will be the start of a brand new, NEVER done before 2 Day Event. As soon as I have all the information you will be the first to know!

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Dental Phone Excellence is a simple to implement complete Phone Answering System I developed that helped me to build an extraordinary dental practice in the heart of working class Western Sydney.

If you’d like to know more, download my sixteen page FREE special report “How I Quickly and Easily Went From 35% to 77% New Patient Telephone Conversions, and Doubled The Size of my Dental Practice Along the Way” and discover some of the many costly mistakes being made on your phone…..

Go to www.dentalphoneexcellence.com.au

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