One of the best things about working in a dental practice is the fact that everybody who contacts your office with a treatment enquiry of any sort is contacting your office because they NEED that treatment.
Or they THINK they need that treatment.
They are in need of that treatment.
Just take a minute to think about this….
Remember, dentistry is a GRUDGE BUY.
Like buying new tyres for your car.
Or paying your Land Tax.
It’s something that when people have to get it done most people do so begrudgingly.
The truth of the matter is that on a Monday afternoon, after a good morning of tennis, there’s not a group of women sitting around a table somewhere saying:
“I wonder what all the local dentists charge for a two-rooted root canal?”
And:
”Why don’t we phone around a few dental practices and see what they charge?”
It just DOES NOT happen.
When someone phones your dental practice asking for the price you charge for a procedure, what that really means is that THEY [that person calling] NEED that procedure that they are enquiring about.
THIS IS NOT A SECRET.
Yet most dental offices do not understand this fact.
FACT.
F.A.C.T.
FACT.
What most dental offices think when someone rings them about a price, for a procedure, is that the person ringing is doing so as part of some ritual of checking for the lowest price possible.
This is wrong.
This belief is totally wrong.
The reason someone calls your dental office and asks for the price of a particular dental procedure is that they simply do not know what else they should be asking.
Otherwise they would be asking THAT question instead of asking the price question.
So when they call your office and ask you:
“How much do you charge for checkup and clean?”
They are NOT calling for a pizza.
What they are really saying is:
“I NEED a checkup and a clean.”
So what your front office people need to do is find out more about why they NEED a checkup and a clean, rather than simply go and BLURT OUT a number and wishfully hope that that number will be a catalyst for further conversation.
Because it won’t.
The simple fact of the matter is that the utterance of a number, to a caller who asks a price related question, is simply the same to that person as saying:
“I DON’T GIVE A RATS.”
Because a number on its own is not an answer.
So what should we say, then?
When someone rings and asks the price of a procedure, the reply from your front office people should be:
“So you need a checkup and a clean? How long has it been since you last had one?”
“So you need a crown? Which tooth is it that needs the crown? What’s on that tooth now?”
“So you need a filling? What’s going on with that tooth now? Are you experiencing any pain at the moment?”
Please note that all these questions acknowledge the caller’s problem, but then dig deeper, twice, into that problem to extract more [much needed] information.
So that we can show concern and also raise concern in the caller.
By asking further questions we are able to lead the conversation toward the prime purpose of the call.
And that is for the caller to make an appointment and for them to be happy that they are getting their problem addressed as quickly as possible.
You see, no other dental practice is providing this sort of interest and attention to the caller’s problem on the phone.
You must remember that the caller has already decided that they want your dental practice to be fixing their problem, because otherwise they would have phoned another dentist instead.
They’ve done their online research of you already.
And they are calling your office to make an appointment.
They just don’t really know exactly how to do that….
So they ask the price.
When we realise that the price question is simply a GHOST, and is not the true question, and when we understand the way to address that ghost and to navigate around that ghost and into the desired appointment, then it is only then that we raise our own bar, and schedule more new patient appointments that get kept, and are attended.
The average dental practice out there schedules one in five phone calls into an appointment, and only 43% of those scheduled actually end up attending.
Which means that only eight percent of callers ever actually become patients at the “average” dental practice.
92% of callers end up going elsewhere.
And it’s simply because of the poor way that our dental office phones are answered.
Can you afford to be dropping 92% of your new patient phone enquiries straight into the bin?
Wouldn’t it be smarter to fix the way that new patient calls to your practice were answered?
So that more people made and kept appointments.
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Do you need your dental phones monitored?
Do you think your dental phones could bee answered better?
Are you concerned about the number of calls that are not being answered as best they can be?
You need Call Tracking Excellence.
For the cost of a less than one cleaning per week, you could have your phones being answered much much better….
Convert more calls into appointments…Click the link: http://www.calltrackingexcellence.com
Call Jayne on 1300 387 044or email Jayne@theDPE.com for more details.
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Linda Miles is coming to Australia in August.
Don’t miss this once in a life-time opportunity to see and hear Linda speak first hand…
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Make sure you subscribe to my monthly Dental Water Cooler Podcast Series…. “The Ultimate Patient Experience”
Click on this link for all details
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Have you read my book , How To Build The Dental Practice of Your Dreams [Without Killing Yourself!] In Less Than Sixty Days.
You can order your copy here: Click Link To Order
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The Ultimate Patient Experience is a simple to build complete Customer Service system in itself that I developed that allowed me to create an extraordinary dental office in an ordinary Sydney suburb. If you’d like to know more, ask me about my free special report.
Email me at david@theupe.com