As a dentist, you lose 7 out of 10 patients when calls go to voicemail. People prefer talking over the phone, especially when inquiring about dental services. Any business aims to provide the best customer service. Doing so increases your chances of receiving repeat patients and attracting new ones, which means more revenue. Additionally, a first impression matters as you do not have a second chance.
A patient will feel a sense of excellent customer service when they call your dental office, and you answer their calls. It is important to have a professional answering service for your dental office to handle calls. Using a professional answering service provider for your dental office has a host of advantages.
A professional call center company will offer excellent customer service and save you time and money. It will become easier to schedule appointments, customer calls will be handled after-hours, and you will have increased productivity at your dental practice.
In this blog, you learn the benefits of hiring an answering service provider for your dental office.
What’s an Answering Service Provider?
An answering service provider is a third-party company that you hire to answer all your incoming calls. Some of the services that these companies provide include:
- Taking and screening the incoming calls
- Provide patients with the necessary information about your dental services
- The service provider also records and passes along the messages they receive from potential patients
- Set up appointments for patients
- They remind you of the scheduled appointments
In other words, answering services perform the task of an in-house secretary as far as answering calls is concerned. One of the greatest advantages of these services over an in-house secretary is providing live feedback to patients 24/7. With an answering service, every patient who calls your dental office speaks to a real person, and their concerns and questions are professionally handled.
Benefits of Using an Answering Service for Your Dental Office
Patients Are Treated with Professionalism
One of the greatest advantages of using an answering service is that the staff is completely dedicated to speaking with patients over the phone. Patients with various inquiries will receive professional services, and their queries will be answered appropriately.
The staff has enough experience, and they can communicate efficiently and effectively with the patients. They gather the required information from the customer and relay the same to you in the correct manner. Since they are professionals, they communicate the right information about your dental services to the patients who call. When patients receive such professional services over the phone, they will be inclined to visit your dental office in person.
Saves You Time in Your Dental Practice
You may be busy at your dental practice all day through. It is also true that you might be missing an opportunity to receive new patients if you ignore phone calls. It is difficult to leave a patient on the dental chair to answer a phone call.
Even if you have an in-house receptionist, they may not give the walk-in patients all the attention they need due to constant interruptions as they answer calls. An answering service offers a solution to this pertinent problem. Using this service, you not only concentrate on your patients 100%, but you also save time since you do not have any interruptions as you work.
Answering Services Offer Great Communication to Your Patients
Since the virtual receptionists’ sole purpose in answering service companies is to interact with people, they do so in a delightful manner. Patients who speak with them over the phone feel appreciated and welcome as they are treated with the utmost respect.
Although the remote receptionists work independently, they represent your organization in the best way possible to clients who might have any inquiries about your dental practice. As a result, your patients receive great customer service every time they call since the staff is trained to be professional at all times.
Patients Receive Multi-Language Solutions
Another great advantage of using an answering service for your dental practice is that they offer multi-language communication. The ability of your dental practice to speak with your patients in their language can’t be overemphasized.
The ability to speak to your patients in their native languages comes in handy, especially if your dental practice is in a metropolitan area where there are patients of diverse nationalities. It does not matter if the patients prefer to speak in French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, or any other language. You will communicate with them and understand each other perfectly through the answering service providers.
Patients Enjoy Human Interaction
As earlier stated, humans love to speak to real humans. It is a turn-off to patients, especially when they receive an automated response. Most patients will simply hang up and call another dental practice. This means you lose patients who might otherwise make an appointment with your dental clinic. Most patients are frustrated if you cannot immediately respond, especially if it is a medical emergency.
Patient retention is essential for the survival of your dental clinic. Why? Because return patients can account for the increase in your profits by 25% to 95%. Using an answering service will ensure that your patients speak to a person every time they call.
Due to this reliability, the patients will be inclined to build a lasting relationship with your dental office. Note that receiving patients through the door is one thing and maintaining them is entirely a different ball game. Once patients physically come to your dental practice, you should offer them exceptional services to come back and tell others about your dental practice.
An Answering Service Offers Round the Clock Services
It is essential for patients who call your dental practice to interact with a live person. Since an answering service has customer care representatives 24/7, your customers will interact with a live person every time they call. It does not matter if it’s during the holidays, the weekends, or at night- the lines are always open.
Some answering services which offer live support round the clock do charge extra for the service. Others still charge more for answering the patient's call after 10:00 pm or during the holidays. Some of the answering services offer live support up to a certain time and switch over to an automated system- you would want to avoid these.
Therefore, you must choose an answering service for your dental office that offers live support 24/7 to your patients.
Answering Service offer Patients Great Service
One of the greatest factors that can affect your dental practice is the professionalism of the answering service customer care representatives. If the customer care representatives are not extremely professional, you run a risk of losing patients before they set foot in your dental office.
One of the greatest professionalism indicators is the customer service representatives’ ability to represent your dental office to first-time patients correctly. Since the agents are well versed with the medical services that you offer at your dental office, they are in a position to handle patients' inquiries in the best manner.
Additionally, different people have different personalities. A professional customer care representative is able to distinguish the personality of each caller and adapt accordingly. Some people are solemn while other patients do not mind having a chit-chat as they are easy-going. Answering service agents know how to handle patients with different personalities who call the office.
The Answering Service Personalizes the Calls to Your Dental Office
When a patient calls your dental office twice or thrice and receives the same response, they will realize you use the same script for every call. This is not what you want your patients to feel.
Rather you want them to feel that each one of them matters to you. It is therefore essential to use an answering service since they do not use the same script for every call. Answering service customer care representatives give a personalized experience to every patient who calls.
A response like “Their office hours are from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, and you can visit them then” is very different from “Thank you for calling XXX Dental Office, our office hours are from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Please visit us at our dental office, and we hope to see you soon”. When patients receive the first response, they conclude that your dental office does not care about their wellbeing. However, the second response shows that your dental office does care about the patient as it conveys empathy. A professional response goes a long way in communicating how much you value your patients.
Saves Your Dental Office Money
Another great benefit of an answering service is that it saves your office cash. Answering services charge different prices ranging from as low as $20 per month to $1000 and above. The charges depend on the line activity.
Most of the answering services base their cost on how many calls you receive in a certain period, mostly a month. This means the more calls your dental office receives through the answering service, the higher the charges. Other answering services base their pricing on a tier. This means that for a certain number of calls, you pay a specified amount.
When you have in-house staff, you pay them a salary, medical insurance, and other benefits. When you use an answering service, you only pay for the calls that you receive. No insurance, no benefits, and the customer care representatives are live 24/7.
The Answering Service offers Additional Features
Some of the answering services do offer a free trial period. You can therefore take advantage of this free trial to get a feel of the answering service professionalism. It is possible to place test calls to get an idea of what your patients will experience should you choose to work with the company. It is also possible to test out any other additional features like appointment scheduling to get an idea of how everything works before you commit the cash.
Contact an Dentist Answering Service
For your dental office to remain competitive, it is essential to streamline your customer service. Before a patient sets foot into your dental office, they already have a prior experience of our customer service when they call for inquiries. It is essential to have a professional answering service. Using an answering service for your dental clinic has many advantages, as explained in this article. Your patients will enjoy personalized customer care support, talk to real humans, and receive responses around the clock. Hire a call answering today to place your dental service a step ahead of the pack.
