You have been looking at your appointment book wondering why your patients are cancelling and changing 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 intention 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 thrive.

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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 the convenience you create for your patients could actually be detrimental to you and them.

You make appointments for your patients so it is convenient for them at the expense of your appointment book and 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 you make it convenient for your patients but not so convenient 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?”

or

“When would you like to come in?”

Instead, why not ask your patients this simple question:

“Would you prefer morning or afternoon?”

You are now guiding them to a two appointments choice.

You have now let your patient feel they are making the decision on the time that suits them and at the same time the time suits your appointment book.

I know you have probably heard this many times before, but guess what?

Dental Offices are still not doing it!

Now if this does not work you can still offer two more times that will work well for your appointment book and your patient’s schedule.

The other mistake I see happening in Dental Offices, is the team 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 and a delay in urgent treatment.

There is a fine line between helping your patient by making it convenience for them and doing them a disservice by delaying urgent dental treatment.

Be mindful of how you are making the appointment for the patient and keep in mind that most dental treatment is urgent and important and your patient is relying on you to make it happen for them.

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What exactly is going on, on your Dental Practice Phones?

Call Tracking Excellence is a RESULT, not a product.

Call Tracking Excellence is More Patients MAKING appointments.

Call Tracking Excellence is More Patients KEEPING appointments.

If you are interested in my Call Tracking Service or have any questions please call 1300 378 044 or email jayne@thedpe.com. Stop missing out on making appointments.

www.calltrackingexcellence.com

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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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