You have been looking at your appointment book wondering why your patients are cancelling and changing their appointments.
Does this sound familiar?
No I haven’t been secretly recording you!!!
Part of the reason this is happening is that you end up helping your patients cancel their appointments.
Of course you never do this intentionally but whether it is intentional or unintentional, the result is the same, your patient cancels their appointments.
You now have an appointment to fill or it becomes horrible downtime in your appointment book where you have helped no patient at all, let alone help your business to thrive.
Convenience for patients is very important to them and can be the difference when patients are choosing their Dentist.
You spend a lot of time and effort making life convenient for your patients. After all, this is part of why they love you and come back for further appointments and treatment.
But what if I told you that this convenience you create for your patients could actually be detrimental to you and them?
You make appointments for your patients that are so convenient for them, at the expense of your appointment book and of other patients. Then it gets all too convenient and appointments are cancelled very conveniently.
Can you see how this can happen?
So how do you make it convenient for your patients but not so convenient that they conveniently cancel appointments?
The first mistake I see many Dental Offices doing is asking patients this question:
“When is a convenient time for you to book in for your appointment?”
Instead why not ask your patients this simple question:
“Would you prefer morning or afternoon?”
Then you can guide them to a two appointments choice. You have now let your patient feel they are making the decision on the time that suits them as well as what suits your appointment book.
I know you have probably heard this many times before but guess what?
Dental Offices are still not doing it!
Some offices are being even more specific. They offer two times that works for their appointment book and then see how that fits the patient’s schedule.
The big mistake I see dental practices making is forgetting how urgent and important the patient’s dental treatment is and rather than focusing on an immediate appointment, it becomes more about the convenience for the patient. This results in a delay in urgent treatment being done.
There is a fine line between helping your patient by creating convenience for them and doing them a disservice by delaying urgent and necessary dental treatment.
Be mindful of how you are making the appointment for the patient and keep in mind that dental treatment is urgent and necessary and important and your patient is relying on you to make it happen for them.
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My next public speaking event is my live full day Master Class “How to Turn Every Dental Phone Call Into A Valued and Kept Appointment” and is being held in Melbourne on Friday March 2nd 2018.
Click here on this link to register.
Click here for information on Sydney, Gold Coast and Brisbane.
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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…..
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At present I have availability for THREE new private clients. For more information on how I can improve your Dental Office’s Phone Numbers contact me, Jayne Bandy at jayne@theDPE.com
