Clackamas Dental Consultant | Dental Practice Solutions

Creating Dental Patient Loyalty

By: Debbie Seidel-Bittke, RDH, BS

May 3, 2023

Dental practices can begin by evaluating their current patient retention and new patient acquisition strategies and identify areas for improvement. From here you will develop a patient loyalty program that aligns with your practice goals and values as well as the needs and preferences of your patient base.

How to Design a Patient Loyalty Program May Include:

Rewards: What rewards or incentives will be offered to patients for their loyalty and engagement with your dental practice? How will these rewards be communicated and distributed to your patients?
Eligibility: Which patients will be eligible to participate in your patient loyalty program? Will it be open to all patients, or will certain criteria need to be met (For example: Pre-scheduling routine dental hygiene appointments, calling 24+ hours ahead to change a dental appointment, referring new patients)?
Communication: How will the loyalty program be communicated to patients? Will it be promoted through email newsletters, social media, or in-office signage? How will patients be reminded of their rewards and encouraged to schedule appointments?
Tracking and Reporting: How will the practice track and report on the success of a loyalty program? What metrics will be used to evaluate its effectiveness (For example: patient retention rates, referral rates, new patient, and revenue growth)?

By taking these factors into account and designing a patient loyalty program that meets the needs of both the dental practice and its patients, dental practices can improve patient retention, attract new patients, and ultimately grow their dental practice.

Get More Patients to Ask for Your Care

Ask your patients this one question, “What is one thing we can do for you today that will create your most beautiful smile, what would that be?”

Most patients will respond by saying, “I want whiter teeth!”

Yes, some patients will report they want straight teeth and many patients will have a variety of other answers. Start asking this question of your patients and see for yourself how your patients respond.

The worst thing that can happen is that you may have more patients enroll into Invisalign, veneers and even more teeth whitening services.

Rewards to Your Dental Office & Patients

The latest data shows that only 17% of dental offices actively offer teeth whitening services to their patients. Why is that?

Are we too busy cleaning teeth and trying to get patients to schedule their next dental appointment? What’s wrong with this picture?!

One simple system that will not only keep your schedule full but this patient reward system called Celebrity Smiles Club. The club has proven for many years to get more new patients call your office and schedule a New Patient Appointment.

The Celebrity Smiles Club is similar to offering your patients a membership program such as a COSTCO or NETFLIX membership. When patients are part of “The Club” they know what is expected to reap their reward, i.e., One Free Teeth Whitening Pen. Your patients enroll in the Celebrity Smiles Club and they understand the expectation to get their reward.

These expectations are:

Enroll in The Club
Pre-schedule routine dental hygiene appointments,
Call (X days) in advance to change an appointment.

When patients keep their dental appointment they are rewarded at their dental hygiene appointment with a free whitening pen.

Most patients will buy another one or two pens which adds huge net production to your revenue.
You buy your whitening products at wholesale prices and in return you offer patients a free pen and a discount to buy other whitening products. Think of a patient paying $15-$20 for one whitening pen and you paid a wholesale price of $4.50 per pen.

Celebrity Smiles Whitening System means no more messy impressions, no models to pour up, trays to make and patients returning to get their whitening trays.

Your patients never need to sit for an hour under a blue light to whiten their teeth. You can still provide ZOOM teeth whitening but for touch-ups you have your patients return for a whitening tray. Using Celebrity Smiles System means you send your patients home with their whitening kit.

Teeth whitening is a six-billion-dollar business in North American and why should your patients buy their teeth whitening products at AMAZON or WALMART, etc.?

Using the Celebrity Smiles Club reward system will not only gain more new patients but will keep your schedule full. When patients enroll in your rewards program they are less likely to call last minute and change their dental appointment.

Think of using The Celebrity Smiles Club as a “Carrot”. It’s that adage, WIIFM that works very well to keep your practice highly profitable with patients showing up for their dental appointments!

Once you partner and implement the Celebrity Smiles Club, you gain access to a web portal of information (No added cost to you!) that will reduce cancellations, provide scripts to keep patients on the schedule when they do call to cancel, how to enroll your patients into the club, a smile evaluation and how to get patients to want more than JUST a clean, plus a lot more.

Check out everything included in Celebrity Smiles Club here.

Ready to get started offering The Club? Send me an email (debbie@dentalpracticesolutions.com) and in the subject line write, “The Smile Club.”

In the body of your email provide your office name and I will respond with the order form and information about The Club.

Not sure if this is right for your dental office?

Schedule a quick demo and learn more about how to grow your new patient numbers, reduce cancellations and keep patients returning to your dental office using Celebrity Smiles Club teeth whitening system.

Schedule a Call

Creating Dental Patient Loyalty

By: Debbie Seidel-Bittke, RDH, BS

March 17, 2023

Dental practices can begin by evaluating their current patient retention and new patient acquisition strategies and by identifying areas for improvement. From here, you will develop a patient loyalty program that aligns with your practice goals and values as well as the needs and preferences of your patient base.

Some key considerations when designing a patient loyalty program may include:

Rewards: What rewards or incentives will be offered to patients for their loyalty and engagement with your dental practice? How will these rewards be communicated and distributed to your patients?
Eligibility: Which patients will be eligible to participate in your patient loyalty program? Will it be open to all patients, or will certain criteria need to be met (for example: Pre-scheduling routine dental hygiene appointments, calling 24+ hours ahead to change a dental appointment, referring new patients)?
Communication: How will the loyalty program be communicated to patients? Will it be promoted through email newsletters, social media, or in-office signage? How will patients be reminded of their rewards and encouraged to schedule appointments?
Tracking and Reporting: How will the practice track and report on the success of the loyalty program? What metrics will be used to evaluate its effectiveness (for example: patient retention rates, referral rates, new patient and revenue growth)?

Ask your patients this one question, “What is one thing we can do for you today that will create your most beautiful smile?”

Most patients will respond by saying, “I want whiter teeth!”

Yes, some will report that they want straight teeth, and many patients will have a variety of other answers. Start asking this question of your patients and see for yourself how your patients respond.

The worst thing that can happen is you may have more patients enroll into Invisalign, veneers and even more teeth whitening.

The latest data shows that only 17% of dental offices actively offer teeth whitening services to their patients. Why is that?

Are we too busy cleaning teeth and trying to get patients to schedule their next dental appointment?

Celebrity Smiles Club is a simple system that will not only keep your schedule full but also this patient reward system has proven to have more new patients call an office and schedule an appointment.

The Celebrity Smiles Club is similar to offering your patients a membership program similar to a COSTCO or NETFLIX membership. When patients are part of “the Club,” they know what is expected to reap their reward: free teeth whitening. Your patients enroll in the Celebrity Smiles Club and know the expectations such as pre-scheduling routine dental hygiene appointments and calling in advance when they need to change an appointment.

When they keep their dental appointments, they are rewarded at their dental hygiene appointments with a free teeth whitening pen!

Teeth whitening is a six-billion-dollar business. Why should your patients buy their teeth whitening products at AMAZON or WALMART?

Using the Celebrity Smiles Club reward system will not only gain more new patients but will keep your schedule full, and when patients enroll in your whitening program, they are less likely to call last minute to change their dental appointment.

Think of using Celebrity Smiles Club as a “Carrot.” It’s that old adage, What’s In It For Me? (WIIFM) that works very well to keep your practice highly profitable!

SCHEDULE HERE

7 Ways to Eliminate Short-notice Cancellations and No-show Appointments

By: admin

June 3, 2013

For the past 3 years dentists have been calling my office to ask “Debbie, how can I stop all these last minute cancellations?!” and “Debbie, how can I stop the bleeding of my hygiene schedule? Look at all these holes in the schedule!”

The calls from more dentists continue and I continue to create more and more solutions for the new callers and the offices that still feel stuck and have not implemented any of the suggestions.

I am sorry to say but listening to be give solutions is not going to stop the cancellations and the bleeding. There will always be emergency situations in your patient’s lives that cause them to call and cancel. The situation is that will never be able to completely eliminate cancellations. This is a fact of life. What you can do is eliminate the cancellations and no-shows that occur because your patients do not consider their dental appointment important.

Today, I write about strategies to consider and eliminate or at least decrease your last-minute and/or no-show appointments down to a very low number week.

1. Identify patients with a history of last minute cancellations and no-shows. You need to create a different strategy to work with these patients.

2. Do not call and confirm patients appointments and then ask them to call back to verify they received your message. This will only invite them to call you back and cancel their appointment.

3. Do not allow patients to call and leave an appointment cancellation on your voicemail or answering service. Your message needs to state that your office doesn’t not accept cancellation messages. The only way a patient can cancel an appointment is to speak to someone live in your office.

4. When a patient is known for cancelling appointments short notice and/or no-showing for their appointments do not allow them to reschedule an appointment within a 2 week period. Do not allow these patients to think that your time is not valuable and they can return to your office quickly. These patients may need to be on a “short-notice” call list.

5. When you do call a patient to confirm an appointment, say phrases such as “Susan is looking forward to seeing you tomorrow at 2pm for your preventive care appointment. Please take your Amoxicillin one hour prior to your appointment and we will see you then.” That is all. Stop saying things like “This is Dr. Jones’s office calling to confirm your cleaning tomorrow at 2pm. Can you please call me back to let me know you have received this message?”

6. Stay connected with your patients in between their dental appointments. This can be done through an office newsletter, text messages and social media. I suggest that every office have an office Fan page. Communicate at least once a day when you are working at the office. If you have a special running or contest post this on your fan page. Let patients know you have the fan page and give them a chance to “Like” your page while they are in your office. Many offices today have an iPad in the treatment rooms and/or reception area which can assist your patients with writing a review and “liking” your page while they are in your office.

7. WIIFM syndrome. It seems to be typical these days for people to be motivated to do something because there is something in it for them. Offices seem to have a decrease in short-notice cancellations and no-shows when they offer free whitening touch-ups to their hygiene patients. Patients are rewarded for continually showing up for their dental appointments. When patients do not cancel short-notice or no-show they qualify to receive 2 syringes of whitening for free. 1 syringe 2 times a year. Forever White™ is the same premium ingredients but for about 60% less money. The syringes are individually packaged and the size of each syringe is 25% larger than most whitening product syringes.

CONCLUSION

There are numerous ways you can reduce those short-notice cancellations and eliminate the constant no-shows. The most important thing you can do is to choose one of these 7 tips and implement at least 1 of these today. Meet with your team and set some goals to implement more of these suggestions. Monitor your success and remember to celebrate your successes.

Consider utilizing Forever White™ today. You will receive our eBook to Boosts Profits, all the team support to get your patients enrolled in this program and so much more, with your first order.

Debbie Seidel- Bittke, RDH, BS is founder of Dental Practice Solutions. Debbie has immersed herself in the science, systems, services and methodologies that create success and profitability in a dental practice, beginning with increasing the bottom line in the dental hygiene department. She writes for numerous dental journals, speaks at dental conferences nationally and for seven years in a row, she has been known as one of Dentistry Today’s Top Consultants.