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Welcome to the Dental Office blog. On this site we will share information on how we conquer the real-world challenges that we each face in our pursuit of running high-quality, successful, profitable and harmonious dental offices.

The Dental Blog invites you to share your knowledge, successes, failures and crazy stories with fellow dental professionals. Sharing our combined knowledge, we can each create our own unique dream practices.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Retention is the key to long term success

Most dental offices are very aware of how many new patients they acquire each month BUT most dental offices do not know how many patients they LOSE each month. When doing consulting for many dental offices I often found that offices with good new patient acquisition numbers often had a NET NEGATIVE patient flow!

Can you imagine paying large number of dollars in marketing to acquire new patients only to be losing patient base size each month? It happens all the time and the offices are blissfully unaware basking in the high number of new patient data – not realizing that they are actually shrinking in size.

The least expensive patient to acquire is the ones you already have. Let me say that another way – the most important part of the growth plan for your practice must be to keep your current patient base satisfied and STAYING with you.

Keeping patients happy is inexpensive and the easiest to accomplish practice growth thing you can do for your office. I know offices that spend over $10,000 a month on new patient marketing and don’t spend $1 or one minute on maintaining their current patients – a bad strategy and bad math.

A focus on current customer satisfaction is the key and most important step in growing and maintaining your practice size. Read other articles on this and other websites about customer satisfaction ideas and start implementing right away.
Dr. Corey Gold
President - Advanced Continuing Education Systems

17 comments:

  1. You gave a lot of information in this post that I had not considered. It is interesting that dentist offices will spend so much money acquiring new patients but it is so much more efficient to keep the patients you currently have satisfied so that they stay with you. I think that is a very great piece of information. Thank you for the useful information, I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the posts you have made and learning even more from them.
    Elizabeth Ives | http://www.southtraildental.com

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  2. I find it interesting that many dentists are not conscious of retention. Patients like to go to the same dentist, so it should not be difficult to keep them coming. I think you are wise in suggesting that dentist focus on customer satisfaction.

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  3. It shouldn't be a difficult thing to keep your customers happy. We actually are in-between dentists right now, as a result of that. We're looking for a clinic in Surrey to accommodate to our dental needs. Let's hope for the best. http://www.doctorben.ca/

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  4. I agree, if you don't retain your patients you will have such a harder time keeping up your business. Having a fun personality, and making a trip to the dentist a fun experience is the key. If people feel comfortable working with you, they will want to come back. http://www.broadmeaddentalcentre.ca

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  5. I am excited to go see a dentist tomorrow. My front teeth have really been hurting lately. I don't know what I did to them though. http://www.mjmylnedental.com.au

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  6. I am glad that all my dentists have shared your point of view. I guess that is why I have only had two different ones in my life. Like Eugene said, patients don't like to change dentists either. As a matter of fact, I have a dental appointment in a week, and I can't wait to see my dentist.

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  7. I am a retired dentist, and I couldn't agree more with what you said in this post. If you don't retain your patients, or get them excited to come in another 6 months, you will not have any success in your practice. I think that dental schools should offer more classes about how to start and run a business. It would help out so much in the long run. http://therockforddentist.com/

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  8. Retention is important. I'm sure that you could run into a lot of business problems without it. If you can't keep the clients, it's not worth it to market for them.
    http://bayviewdentalarts.com/

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  9. I think you are right, retention is very important to long term success. I think that dental care is very important and I would hope that people go to see their dentist regularly. A big part of having healthy teeth is going to the dentist.

    Amber | http://www.glenmorefamilydentalcare.com

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  10. Retention is the best way to keep some interesting in the memory of patient. Now-a-days building audience with the help of Social Media Management for dentist is growing much. By following some social media strategy any business can grow their business.

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  11. To retain any patient we must adapt to all sort dental practice management. Some of the best dental practice business plan will help any dental office with full service dental practice management consultants, and dental seminars plus cutting edge dental speaking, knowledge, dental team training and executive coaching. You must be prepared with all sort dental concepts to retain all your patients because patients are always used to deal with the same dentist only.

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  12. I can definitely understand how retaining your customers would help keep your business successful. I imagine it'd be incredibly difficult to be in the dentistry field and constantly have to find new patients because you can't retain the ones you have. It'd be easier to keep current patients happy than to try and win over new ones.
    Keara | http://www.eastmalldental.com/en/

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  13. Thanks for the good info- I think a great way to encourage retention is by publishing your own Dental office newsletters, which can keep patients more engaged and make you stick in their minds for longer =)

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  14. So true and not just for dental offices. I loved reading this post because it gave me a whole new insight into how dental offices are run and succeed or fail. I always find it fascinating how similar businesses can have such different results and many times it is due to just the smallest detail that one decided to do.

    Karen Perry @ Brook Side Smiles

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