Your team is one of your most important marketing tools, so you’ll want to ensure you’ve got the right people in place. “You need staff members who will elevate the value of dentistry through everything they do and say,” Joyal says. “They should be just as passionate about dentistry as you are.”

Having a friendly person with great phone skills at the front desk is critical to creating a great first impression for every patient. “This person needs to be really nice, friendly and outgoing, which is much more important than being good at collections and software,” says Joyal.

Once you’ve built a great team, it’s your job to teach them how to talk to patients about everything from technology and treatment planning to insurance. “Many times they will over explain or improperly communicate about technology and the procedure to the point where the patient doesn’t think it’s worth doing,” says Joyal. “It’s critical to develop the right verbiage.”

When patients are deciding whether to schedule an appointment with your practice, one of the first things they will do is check the web. If your website is outdated – or even worse, if you don’t have a website at all – they may never pick up the phone. “You need a good, dynamic website,” Joyal says. “It’s the cornerstone of your practice.”

Your website should not only have information about your clinical experience, services and technology, it should also feature testimonials from patients. Joyal encourages doctors to grab their smartphone and record video testimonials to post on their website and social media channels such as Facebook.

Taking the pulse of your practice on a regular basis is key to your continued success. Joyal says that many practices fail to communicate with their dormant patients, allowing them to fall deeper into procrastination, and eventually to another practice.

Services such as ReActivation Pro use phone operators to help you understand why your dormant patients haven’t come back. “We probe to find out why they haven’t returned, and aggregate the feedback so the doctor can see a picture of two or three things they could be doing better,” Joyal says. “Patients don’t tell you what’s wrong, they just leave. We help you find out why so you can fix it.”

Looking for more tips to enhance the patient experience in your office? Contact your Patterson representative or call 800.873.7683.