12 Tips to Personalize Your Patient Experience

We sat down with Shannon Nelson, the marketing director at Arkansas Family Dental in Littlerock, AR, whose motto is to “treat each patient like family.” By allowing this motto to inform everything they do, from marketing to care, Arkansas Family Dental successfully brings on 325 new patients per month and sustains a 4.9 star rating on Google Reviews.

1.Be selective in the hiring process

Your employees are the basis for forming relationships with new patients. If your employees aren’t connecting with patients, it’s unlikely that patients are going to stick around and become loyal customers.

2. Follow dentistry’s Golden Rule

Arkansas Family Dental has altered the Golden Rule to fit their approach to dentistry: treat patients how they want to be treated. This principle means it’s your practice’s job to find out exactly how patients want to relate to you and your staff.

3. Be patient-focused, not money-focused

Shannon believes her practice has found success by being patient-focused. Profit is of course important and vital to keep dental practices alive, but if dentists and their staff are fixated on their ROI instead of the people they serve, they’ll end up failing both.

4. Form relationships with patients

If your dental practice is hoping to grow and increase its revenue stream, start by building great patient relationships. According to Shannon, making new patients feel acknowledged, safe, and connected to your practice is far more important than getting your pricing and budgets exactly right. Emotions are the key to customer loyalty.

5. Acknowledge names and birthdays

Another way Shannon’s practice makes their patients into brand ambassadors is by making the effort to remember and use client’s names. From the first appointment, the staff at Arkansas Family Dental tries to learn all they can about their patients and treat them like family. They even wish each patient a happy birthday with a card from the practice.

6. Over-communicate

You don’t want to annoy new patients, but your practice can establish loyalty by being enthusiastic and communicative with new customers. This communication reaches customers along a number of lines: phones, texts, emails, social media, etc. Consistent communication sets healthy expectations and understanding between patients and your office.

7. Request reviews by text

Online reviews are not just a great way to build your reputation and improve your ranking in search results. They’re also an important tool for learning about your practice. After successful appointments is the best time to ask for customers to post reviews because the appointment experience is fresh in your patient’s mind. Save your staff and patients time by distributing review requests by text.

8. Provide flexible payment options

Along with review requests, your office can ask patients to pay by text. By sending patients a personalized message and a link to a payment site, clients can pay from the parking lot or from home and avoid the potential stress of traditional payment methods.

9. Turn patients into brand ambassadors

Arkansas Family Dental believes patients are their strongest brand assets. They show appreciation from the get-go by giving them SWAG at the initial appointment. They encourage patients to bring in family members for a cleaning or consultation.

10. Try to understand patient fears

Shannon says her practice tries to never downplay patient concerns about their health and safety. Instead, Arkansas Family Dental attempts to understand and address these fears. Showing empathy for your patients helps them understand that you care for them beyond what’s in their wallets.

11. Send paperwork as quickly as possible

Having new patients fill out paperwork early can create the commitment you’re looking for. Shannon says Arkansas Family Dental uses paperless forms that can be texted or emailed to customers to get the ball rolling.

12. Rely on customer insight software

Another tool for personalizing the patient experience is customer insight software. Because dental offices should put a premium on knowing their customers, they should use software that links with the phone system to bring up patient names, medical histories, and birthdays as soon as they answer a call.