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Creating a great patient experience

Upgrading your patient experience is a proven tactic for building loyalty, boosting referrals, improving your online reputation and giving your practice an edge against competition. Here are five strategies for creating a great patient experience.

Better understand each patient’s unique expectations

Take the time to discuss both oral health and cosmetic goals with each patient to better tailor treatment recommendations to suit their expectations.

Modernize your scheduling system

Allow patients to schedule, alter or cancel appointments in real-time online.

Educate patients on how new technology works

Some patients tend to be enthusiastic about new technology and how the equipment works. The more patients understand exactly what is happening inside their mouth during their appointments, the more in control they feel of their care journey.

Ramp up your referral bonus

Giving patients a free cleaning for a referral is a decent incentive but offering the chance to win a much bigger and more exciting prize can incentivize people to dig deeper into their contact list. Depending on the size of your practice, you can make prizes monthly, quarterly or even annually, and adjust the value of the prize relative to the number of referrals you expect to get.

Fun social media giveaways

Not all social media giveaways need to be related to oral health. If you want to get your social media following engaged in a contest, something fun is more likely to garner attention than a new electric toothbrush. Require both engagement with your post and loyalty to your practice to be eligible to win.

Get to know your patient base

If you’re not sure which patient experience upgrades will resonate most with your patient base, ask them! Solicit feedback from your current patients to learn what changes would make their patient experience a little better. You might be surprised to learn that some of what they ask for costs very little to implement.