YOUR PRACTICE IS HEMORRHAGING MONEY FROM POOR NEW PATIENT CALL CONVERSION
Hi, and welcome to this special series on Unlocking Hidden Profits from your dental practice.
Our goal with this series is to show you a number of different ways that you can extract more profit out of your business without dramatic change.
In this segment, we are looking at where it all begins – with the new patient phone call.
Most dentists are surprised when they learn the number of calls that their marketing efforts are generating. But they are SHOCKED when they see how ineffective the average front office is at converting that new patient call into an appointment.
Watch the short video below where I explain the impact:
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Why is new patient call conversion important? Well, it should be obvious – conversion directly affects revenue.
Consider that when a prospect calls, they have acknowledged a need, researched your office, found your phone number, and made the time to call. They are primed to do business with you. But if your staff lacks the skills necessary to turn that desire into an appointment… then you are in trouble.
The average dental practice receives 135 new patient opportunities per month. But only 48 of those opportunities convert to appointments. That’s only a 35% conversion rate. Basically, two-thirds of calls into the practice are not booking appointments. That’s 87 appointments not booked. And, according to the American Dental Association, the average new patient appointment value is $642. 87 appointments at $642 is $55,854.
That’s a huge amount of money to be missing every month.
Over $670,000 per year.
But let’s not go crazy.
Very few dental practices convert every call that comes in. However, let’s take a closer look at those losses. For simplicity, we’ll assume JUST ONE missed conversion opportunity per working day. (But remember that typically there are many, many more missed opportunities than one per day.) If an average dental office is open four days per week, we have 16 working days per month. That’s 16 missed opportunities per month, at $642 per new patient. Add it up and, for this simplified example, you are losing out on around $10,272 in missed revenue per month.
Even with using this extremely simple model where you are missing out on only one new patient per day, you are still losing out on SERIOUS MONEY.
Another more subtle impact of missed call conversion opportunities is the drain on energy. You have to keep trying to fix the same problems again, again, and again. Not only are you losing money but you’re losing energy. You are not focused on what you do best – dentistry. You’re going home saying, “What did I accomplish? I was busy but I don’t have anything to show for all that effort.”
So here’s your chance to plug in your numbers and see how much poor conversion costs every month.
Download the worksheet and fill in YOUR numbers to see how much poor performance in new patient phone call conversion is costing you each month.
Listen to the Podcast version of this content below.
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