3 common, crushing mistakes made by the person answering your dental practice's phone

A recent report by the Scheduling Institute revealed that dental practices are losing money and business simply because of the way the phone was being answered in the practice.

After researching more than 12,000 dental practices in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom, below are just three of the things listed in the report that turned a prospective new patient into a missed opportunity.

VOICEMAIL VORTEX

35% of the calls conducted, during normal business hours, went to voicemail. The number one rule when you have a business (especially one that is investing in marketing) is to answer the phone when it rings! Money is being wasted on marketing that encourages your potential new patients to call, but your staff isn’t answering the phone. That is thousands of dollars down the drain.

VERBAL VOMIT

The staff person spewing out unasked for and confusing information, such as how insurance works and doesn’t work, how long appointments take, pricing details, confusing information that isn’t relevant to the new patient, etc. The Scheduling Institute often discovered staff members diagnosing, advising or prescribing to the callers, which invites significant legal danger for the practice.

STUMBLING, BUMBLING, OBVIOUSLY FEARFUL ANSWERS

Staff members were often very uncomfortable on the phones, struggling to answer questions and unsure of how to respond to the most basic inquiries by the callers. The staff members would stumble with their words and often put callers on hold for several minutes, failing to treat the potential new patient with the respect and care he or she deserved.

RELATED: How the Scheduling Institute changed one dentist's practice

These are just three of the things uncovered by the Scheduling Institute in what they describe as a groundbreaking dental marketing discovery.

Editor's Note: Phone photo is "Bildtelefon T-View 100" by --Nightflyer 19:50, 17 March 2007 (UTC) - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.