Dental City and Dental Practice Advisors have teamed up to help you achieve increased success in 2016 with our upcoming event with the Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center “Creating Exceptional Patient Experiences.” To kick it off we’re sharing a series of articles with tips for exceptional patient experiences written by members of the Dental Practice Advisors team:
Optimize Your Patient Experience Through Every Touchpoint
As you learned in a recent blog, your practice’s brand is the emotional response that comes from all experiences associated with your practice. Be sure you have made a well-thought decision on what you want that emotional response to be for your practice. Do you wish to portray a comfortable and inviting experience for the whole family? Are you striving to be known for cutting edge technology and procedures? Once you determine exactly what your desired response is, make a commitment to clearly and consistently present that brand promise to your patients.
Each and every touchpoint a patient may encounter with your team and your facility shapes the total patient experience. All marketing materials and patient interactions should work in harmony to generate the experience you wish to create. Is the sign outside your building visible, inviting, and pleasing to the eye? When a patient walks in the door, are they immediately greeted with a smiling face? Is the waiting room comfortable and inviting? Each of these factors influences the way patients remember you and the treatment you provide. Certainly, your clinical skills are essential to your success, but realize these other touchpoints – your ad in the local paper, your team’s tone of voice when answering the phone, the entrance sign on your door, ease of navigation on your website, your appointment card, facility’s cleanliness, the waiting room experience, the treatment follow-up instructions you hand them, and more – all work together in generating the experience you want to create for your patients.
A great way to take stock in your total patient experience is to walk through your practice in the eyes of a patient. Because you are there every day, it is very natural to become impervious to what you “see” in your practice. You may not notice the crack in your treatment room ceiling or the burned out light bulb at the front entrance, but your patient does. Or you may not realize that your phone calls go to voicemail 25% of the time, resulting in missed new patient opportunities every day. Find out where the hiccups in the flow of a patient appointment are by mapping out a patient process flow chart. Put some effort into discovering what’s really happening in your practice.
Learn more about our Ritz-Carlton event “Creating Exceptional Patient Experiences” at Lambeau Field, the home of the Green Bay Packers, on April 28 & 29, 2016.
Wendy Schneider
Marketing & Graphic Design
Dental Practice Advisors