By Julie Parker, Julie Parker Practice Success

We live in this information age, where you don’t need degrees in marketing and business in order to learn how to run highly successful dental practices. We can research online and tap in to other people’s brilliance at the click of a mouse. As a result there are many stylish and sophisticated marketing campaigns being rolled out in many surgeries. I love a good promotion and honour the creativity that goes in to producing them. Although I encourage all small businesses to develop smart marketing and promotional systems to attract new business, it is important to never lose sight of THE MOST effective new business generator of all; and that is REFERRALS.

Most of you are keenly aware that generating referrals from your existing patients is the cheapest form of advertising. However there are even more compelling reasons to encourage referrals. Note in the above graphic that people are four times more likely to come to you if they have been recommended by a friend. When someone you know and trust suggests you try something, it is a compelling offer. There is a ‘transfer of trust’ from the friend to you. You think “If they are happy with it, it is likely I will be too”. Considering that trust plays such an enormous role in treating your dental patients effectively, leveraging off another patient’s trust in you is a smart move.

Dental practices are only viable with repeat business. It is your loyal patient base who return for all of their required dental treatments that are likely to be responsible for around 80% of your turnover. So it is not enough to simply get new patients. You also need to provide them with the service that they will return for, and become part of you5r loyal patient base. The Journal of Marketing states that of all of your new patients, the ones who come from referrals have a 16% higher lifetime value to your practice than those who came through other methods.

The wonderful news is that if you put in the effort to create the ideal environment for your dental patients, if they are indeed satisfied then a whopping 83% are willing to recommend you to their peers! And that’s where the gold lies…they are WILLING to refer. In order to enjoy these referrals make sure your patients are aware that you want these new patients. I suggest to not be shy in this area of your business. Notify patients through promotions, rewards and gifts, signs and website content, and through your conversations with them that you want and appreciate every new patient they bring in to the practice.

By Carl Burroughs, Integrated Dental Marketing

When you really impress a patient you often find out about it as they may have written you a note or sent you some flowers or a bottle of something nice or left you a good feedback. Equally, if someone is really unhappy the chances are you will already be aware of this. But most of your patients are somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, and what this group of people think about the services that you are providing is the true test of how healthy your practice is.

Surveying your patients has always been a great idea, but before digital platforms came along conducting surveys was a cumbersome process. Today however, it is as easy as automating an e-mail to be sent directly to every patient after they have attended an appointment with you.

Creating a patient survey is now easy to organise, but in order for this exercise to give you meaningful data, it needs to be the right survey. I think we have all experienced completing a ‘dumb’ on-line survey where all the questions are weighted to give the answers the company conducting the survey wants to receive. When Bill Gates was busy building Microsoft, he was famous for starting every team meeting by just asking for the bad news and problems, as it was his belief that you only build a world class company by working on the issues and not wallowing in the glory of your successes. Your practice surveys should take from this approach.

Don’t get me wrong, it is fantastic to receive great feedback as it confirms the things you are doing well and allows you to congratulate outstanding staff members. However, it is the negative feedback that you receive which truly allows you to improve the services you provide whilst also enabling you to future proof your businesses.

Gaining meaningful feedback also creates opportunities to expand and adds additional income streams. For example, if 30% of your patients state that they would like weekend appointments, it allows you to expand your hours with the knowledge that there is a demand for these additional hours. A favorable response to a question such as ‘would you like to see us add anti-wrinkle treatments to our suite of services?’, means you can add these services with confidence and they will be successful.

Adding a survey function to your marketing is a simple yet effective way of improving your customer service as the public likes having a way of providing feedback that is easy, discreet and at a time that suits them. Also, no patient will be upset if you ask them for their opinion. They will either delete the e-mail if they don’t have time or don’t want to participate, or will undertake the survey in the same way we all do.

So the key is to have an easy to use platform, which asks meaningful questions, is intuitive and not too long.

The team at IDM have been working with one of the major survey providers to create such a platform. The platform had been developed specifically for the Australian and New Zealand dental sectors with the questions developed by a practice management expert in conjunction with a psychologist. Not only are the core questions developed to give you the information you need, but the platform is intuitive, meaning it will ask the additional questions you might want to know from a particular answer to a question. The IDM survey is also totally customisable allowing you to add specific questions that you want to know the answers to.

The platform allows you to login at will to see the results and the IDM service also comes with the option of having the results analysed by a prominent practice management expert, should you want.

If you would like a free demonstration of the IDM dental survey platform, simply email surveydemo@idm.com.au or call Sonia on 02 9211 1477. You can also visit www.idm.com.au to know more about the services offered by IDM.