Providing your patients with exceptional care from the moment they arrive to the time they leave is critical to your dental practice’s success. Your patients deserve nothing but the best. That’s why a well-trained, enthusiastic staff is essential to your dental practice’s success.
Making your patients feel welcome, providing them with useful information, and offering convenient scheduling options — all while making sure your team members are working at peak performance — can be tough to juggle.
In this guide, we’ll take a look at ways you can improve productivity in your dental office to continue providing your clients with exceptional, efficient care.
Improve Commnication Between Clients and Staff
The first interaction between a patient and your office is most commonly via telephone. A good first impression over the phone can mean successful patient conversion.
If you miss a patient’s first call, there is an 87% chance that they won’t be calling back. And unfortunately, the average dental practice misses 34% of calls. This oversight means missed opportunities to book new patients and schedule needed appointments for established ones.
With a dental practice, your telephone system is essentially your “front door.” It’s how you interact with many potential patients — and it can make or break a deal. That’s why it pays to invest in great training that can inform your entire team on the best telephone etiquette and ways to get patient information over the telephone.
Phone Etiquette Is the Heart of Successful Dentistry
A phone call is the best chance you have to turn a prospect or potential patient into a paying customer. Many people are nervous about picking up the phone and calling a dentist. A friendly voice on the other end of the line could be just what they need to hear to help them make that call.
Training Creates Comfortable Employees
It’s not uncommon for employees who answer the phones to be a little shy, or maybe even scared, about trying to keep a caller on the phone or overcoming objections. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Try providing your staff with a script and train them in phone etiquette. Combine these options with a strong phone presence, and your staff should feel more comfortable speaking with callers, booking appointments, and answering inquiries.
Improve Efficiency with Internal Training
Properly training your office staff to use work time effectively can help decrease patient wait times and increase overall satisfaction. The front desk team should be properly trained on how to handle common situations like:
- Checking in with new and returning patients
- Scheduling appointments, including online scheduling
- Updating patient information, like insurance details
- Handling billing questions and concerns
- Communicating with other departments and offices, such as lab or radiology
- Sending appointment reminders
- Greeting customers professionally
Use clear and concise training when your onboard staff. If you train your staff correctly, patient satisfaction will increase, and your team will have a better understanding of how to work effectively with one another.
Delegate Tasks and Define Goals
It’s good to start by defining job descriptions and procedures for each member of your staff. Defining each person’s position means everyone knows how they fit into the picture, how they should play their role, and what they need to do their job effectively.
Training your staff on how to handle work-related tasks specific to their roles, like using the computer system or paging the doctor, is crucial. For example, if they need to make an appointment for a patient, they should know what information needs to be included (e.g., appointment type and person’s reason for visit, etc.)
By clearly defining each staff member’s responsibility, you can improve productivity in your dental office.
Use an Online Patient Scheduling System
Online appointment scheduling not only prevents incorrect data entry but it streamlines the entire process of scheduling appointments. Clients can book their own appointments at any time of day or night, which means you’re less likely to miss out on opportunities because your staff isn’t in or is busy with other tasks.
Patients can book their appointments from anywhere, whether they’re at home, at the office, or even while traveling. They don’t have to rely on your office’s hours or location to get an appointment.
Online booking eliminates the need for purchasing, managing, and maintaining a large inventory of schedulers. With the right tools, your patients can schedule appointments anytime, anywhere, creating a convenient alternative to phone calls.
Go Paperless
Going paperless streamlines your office and your staff’s workflow.
With a digital record, all patient information is stored in one centralized location that can be easily accessed regardless of location.
You will also enjoy the time-saving features of using an electronic health record solution that improves efficiency and productivity by eliminating the need for manual data entry and interdepartmental communications. With a paperless office, staff members can be more productive while focusing on tasks that actually help improve patient care.
Your front office staff will no longer need to spend valuable time trying to decipher illegible handwriting, making copies of documents, or manually inserting patient data into the system. You’ll also see faster checkouts thanks to the ease and efficiency of electronic signatures.
A paperless office is one of the best ways to stay organized and reduce clutter. With fewer administrative tasks to do, your staff will have more time to focus on other important tasks.
Help Your Staff Improve and Stay Motivated with Feedback
Tackling feedback with a welcoming mindset sets the stage for changing how we provide care — and how we perceive it in turn.
While receiving feedback can be uncomfortable, it’s often the best way to improve your business. Great companies that provide excellent customer service have systems in place for gathering and utilizing feedback from their clients, employees, and partners.
Focus on both positive and negative feedback. While negative reviews may seem to be more important at first glance, positive reviews can provide useful information as well. It can be useful to know what your best-selling products are so that you can promote them more in the future.
As you gather feedback, relay it to your staff in a motivating and encouraging tone. Use your positive reviews to show them what they are doing right, and discuss how you can help them improve to address complaints.
How Automation Can Help Your Dental Practice
CareCru is an innovative cloud-based software platform that combines point of care technology and practice management software into one easy-to-use system. Our platform empowers practices with the tools they need to improve efficiency and enhance patient satisfaction.
At CareCru, we’re on a mission to make your team more efficient — and your patients happier. We help your dentists, hygienists, assistants, and support staff perform daily operations more easily and efficiently with Donna™, our all-in-one dental office growth technology.
Our goal is to reduce the amount of time spent on tasks like scheduling appointments and communicating with patients. And by freeing up so much time for your team to focus on what matters most — patient care — we’re bringing smiles to the faces of everyone involved.
We designed Donna™ to put all of your useful daily tools in one place and make them easier than ever to use.
We’re Excited to Work with You
By choosing CareCru, you can rest assured knowing that your practice is in the hands of innovative professionals who will help you save time and improve your staff’s productivity.
During our demonstration, we’ll help you understand how CareCru can transform the way your practice works and show you the ways automation can help your team succeed.
Schedule a demonstration to learn more about how CareCru can take your practice to the next level.
