Integrated Marketing
Every dentist is unique. Every dental practice is unique. And every local market is unique. Because of this, we’ve found that the best marketing strategy for your practice is likely to be —you guessed it—unique.
However, uniqueness doesn’t necessarily mean doing something different or new. Instead, the uniqueness is in the blending of specific marketing tactics for your specific situation. We call it “integrated marketing.”
Essentially, integrated marketing for a dental practice involves optimizing each marketing component in a way that creates synergy and an increased return on investment. Study the chart below and imagine the impact on your dental practice if you were to improve each of the marketing tactics you currently utilize. Then imagine adding in just one or two tactics you don’t currently use. Finally, imagine the impact of improving your feedback loop to track ROI and train your team to better optimize each tactic.
Appointment Conversion Guide
for Front-Desk Staff
How to Make Every Caller Happy, Increase Appointments and Make a Few Friends Along the Way
The first impression
First impressions mean a lot. And because the telephone represents most people’s first impression of your practice, it could mean everything if they don’t love what they hear, they’ll hang up and keep calling around until they find someplace that they will love. And if a caller is not interested in what they hear within the first 30 seconds, you’ve lost them for good!
So here are a few tips on how to give a great first impression over the phone, answer callers’ questions thoroughly and politely, increase appointments and create a pleasant atmosphere for everyone involved.
• Be enthusiastic and caring in all that you say. If it helps you to get the right attitude, think of the caller as a close friend who needs your help.
• It may sound trite, but smile while you talk this actually helps you to transmit a positive “vocal transmission.”
• It’s more important to be comfortable and ready to talk with a caller when you answer the phone than it is to answer on the first ring. Be sure you’re at your desk with your script in front of you.
• If you have too many calls to handle at once and you have to put one (or several) on hold, make sure you come back at least once a minute to tell the caller that you’ll be right with them. Studies show that after about 45 seconds on hold, attention and interest fall dramatically.
Your opening words
The first 30 seconds will make or break the call, so how you answer the phone, and then how you answer the caller’s first question, will set the tone for the rest of the conversation...and maybe the rest of the caller’s relationship with your practice. Remember that many people are a little intimidated when they have to call a new place. Just like you, they want to make a good impression. So remember that they might already be uncomfortable, so do what you can to ease their fears.
A few more tips:
• Answer the phone with the full script opening each and every time. Speak the words cheerfully, as if welcoming guests to a party you’re giving.
• Speak at about 180 words per minute. Many people tend to talk too fast while explaining information, and the listener can’t absorb it all and tunes out remember school? You might want to count out a 180-word text and practice.
• Learn the name of your caller and use that name frequently. It’ll make him or her feel more comfortable.
• Be empathetic show that you care about their concerns. For instance, if the caller says, “I hate to wait when I have an appointment,” you can reply,
“I know what you mean. It makes me feel like my time doesn’t matter.”
• Make sure you ask questions, too. It keeps the caller’s interest. Especially if your answer to a question is a long one, you’ll keep the interest of the caller better if you break up your long answer with a question or two. It can be as simple as, “You’d agree with that, right?”
• When you do ask questions, you’ll want to ask questions that have a positive response for your practice. For example, instead of asking, “Would you like to come in for an appointment and see how experienced we are?” you should ask, “Would you like a really experienced doctor?” When they answer “yes,” you say, “Great. Let’s set you up for an appointment.”
The point of the call
Both you and the caller have about the same goal you want to set an appointment, and your caller wants to find a place worthy of making that appointment. Remember this in every conversation. That means you’ll want to try every opportunity to get the caller to
make that appointment. A few more tips:
• People like to be convinced. They want to hear how “wonderful” something is, and they hear that through your enthusiasm, your glowing reports and your personal endorsements.
• After you’ve answered a question, assume the caller is convinced and go right into setting the appointment. If the caller has another question, he or she will ask, so you don’t need to say, “Do you have any more questions?” That will only make them think of one.
Answering your caller’s questions
• Listen carefully to your caller instead of just waiting until he or she stops speaking so that you can talk again. Here’s a handy listening checklist:
• Think like the caller
• Ask questions
• Don’t interrupt
• Listen for ideas, not words
• Interject occasionally, to indicate understanding of what the caller is saying
• Turn off personal worries
• Be prepared
• React to ideas, not the person (you may not like the sound of the caller on the other end)
• Don’t argue mentally
• Don’t jump to conclusions
Handling objections
People like to be convinced. Therefore they throw out questions and objections, one after another, putting up barriers to the eventual need to say “yes” or “no.” And while some of the questions and objections might be real concerns, an important study found recently that in 62% of the cases studied, the objection raised was not a true objection. This study points out the importance of knowing how to recognize and handle a false objection.
Some examples are:
“I’m not interested.” (Maybe so, but that’s usually because the prospect needs more information to become interested.)
“Your prices are too high.” (The real meaning here is that the desire for the service is too low.)
Basically, the false objection just means that the prospect’s interest has not been aroused or that you are going to have to probe deeper to find out what the hidden reason for the objection really is.
The more you identify the caller’s needs before giving out any information, the better you will be able to provide information that will help the caller to make a decision. For example, if a person calls and says, “Tell me about this doctor,” you can respond by saying, “Sure. What kind of doctor are you looking for?” If the caller then says, “I want someone who’s not going to leave me waiting for 25 minutes,” then you can start your answer by saying, “Well, we make it a point to always run on-time here. It’s rare that anyone waits more than a few minutes. Besides that, are you looking for an experienced doctor?” Then continue probing what is important to the caller and answering accordingly.
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