By now, you know we talk a lot about how important it is to follow up in a timely manner with new patient inquiries that come into the office. You’ve made an investment to get people to fill out a form or contact you via email to request their first appointment, unfortunately though, these requests sometimes fall through the cracks. The new, potential patient may not be responded to until days later. If the new patient inquiry is followed up with but there is no response on the first try, they may never be touched again. According to Invespcro.com, 48% of team members don’t make a single follow up attempt even though 80% of booking a new patient requires on average 5 follow-up calls.
We get it. Your team members wear many different hats in the practice, and contacting a lead can fall to the bottom of the to-do list. Yet, this activity is extremely important to growing your practice. When it comes to getting new patient form submissions from your website and landing pages, nothing is more frustrating than your practice dropping the ball or dragging their feet and not contacting new patients quick enough, often enough or not using all available avenues, such as text, email and phone to connect with them. It may be that your team members want to follow up and understand the importance of it but they lack the time and tools to do so effectively.
Things to consider
- Spend a little time and find out from your team what their process is when a new patient fills out a form on your website or landing pages.
- Ask your team members when the form submission came into their inbox and when did they follow up.
- Keep track of the next dozen that come in and write them down.
- Then find out how many different channels they are using to attempt to get in touch with the new patient.
- You’ll also want to know how many touch points they are making.
Keep track of these numbers and we will discuss what to do with them in part 2 of our Capturing New Patients series.
If you think about the person who took the time to fill out an appointment request, chances are they were really interested in hearing from your practice. Either they were looking for a new dentist or were seeking a solution to a specific dental problem such as dental Implants, cosmetic dentistry or Invisalign. With new patients like this it’s important to leverage that sense of urgency because you have a higher chance of booking an appointment with them.
Next month, we’ll talk more about how you can solve this challenge so that you don’t miss a new patient opportunity. Stay tuned!