It’s hard to keep up with all the different ways to contact patients and how you should use each method to communicate with them.
Appointment Reminders:
- Automated Phone Calls: For those patients who don’t use a calendar, a reminder for their next day appointment can be quite helpful.
- Email: Offer your patients to opt-in for a reminder email after they schedule their appointment. This will allow them to put it in their calendar from the email.
- Text Message: Not everyone likes talking on the phone, automated or not, and a text message is another platform that will allow you to remind your patients about their appointment, without having to intrude.
Surveys:
- Website integration: Offer guests visiting your website an opportunity to offer feedback in the moment and find out why—or why not—they chose you to set up an appointment with, versus anyone else they looked at.
- Automated Phone Calls: After an appointment, you can set up an automated phone call to survey your patient about their experience. Find out the things that are going right and suggestions for things that aren’t working as well as anticipated.
Wellness:
- Website: Draw patients to your website by offering helpful health and wellness tips that are updated on a regular basis
- Email: For those who opt-in, sending out a regular email with health and wellness tips will help keep regular dental care on their mind.
- Social Media: Pull potential patients in by posting wellness information on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media pages.
Don’t forget to talk to your patients! As you can see, there are a lot of reasons to contact patients. When they come in, ask them how they would like to be communicated with, how often, and on what topics.
