Do you feel your dental practice has been in a stagnant position for quite a while? Are you caught up receiving small profits for years? Are you unable to increase your customer base? Starting a dental practice is challenging but attainable; however, what is truly difficult is sustaining it and getting it to grow further.
Every person who starts a business does so with the intention of growing till they become established. If you have been trying to grow like most businesses and are not able to achieve growth despite numerous trials; you are at the right place.
Here we have enlisted some basic ideas to help you grow your dental business.
1] Track your performance
Growth doesn’t happen overnight; you have to consistently put in efforts to actually attain what you wish to. For this, it is vital to keep a track of your performance. Know where you stand, study your competitors, analyse how far you have come from where you started, and get acquainted with your shortcomings. When you monitor your performance, you will know the areas of your business that need to be modified to bring about growth. You can then come up with growth strategies and implement those.
2] Enhance patient experience
Patients are the core factor contributing to the growth of every dental practice. Your patient inflow determines how successful you are. Since the dental business is seasonal in nature, it can be challenging to retain patients and attract new ones. Therefore, to grow, you must set your patients as your focal point. Primarily; get acquainted with what your patient base is looking for. Get a good understanding of your demographic, their budget, needs, their opinion of dental care and so on.
Once you know this, you must tailor your practice accordingly. Make effort to enhance their experience. Keep the process of appointment swift, be approachable, address their queries and criticisms, be open to different methods of communication, provide high-quality treatment, send reminders for appointments and so on.
Make sure your patients leave your clinic satisfied so they stay loyal to you and further publicize your service through referrals and reviews. You can also distribute patient satisfaction surveys so you know where you lack and can work on it.
3] Augment your marketing strategy
If your business doesn’t reach a vast audience, your growth will always be limited. Go beyond the traditional methods of marketing and stop waiting for patients to show up and enquire. Set up a user-friendly and attractive website and increase your overall digital presence.
A large chunk of the population today relies on digital information. When you are online, your reach goes beyond a specific locality. You can utilize SEO, social media, email marketing, video marketing and other digital marketing strategies to reach out to the people and make your presence known.
Study your competitors and offer something completely unique and beneficial to the patients, which will make them prefer you over the rest and drive them to avail of your service. Always stay updated on the recent trends in the market and accommodate accordingly.
4] Consider your staff
Your staff greatly determines the patient experience. Dental treatments are often anxiety-inducing and no one wants to deal with frowning staff when they are at your clinic. Therefore, it’s vital that your staff is friendly and possess good social skills additional to being good at their designated job. Your staff is the first point of interaction with your service and therefore, plays a significant role.
Train your staff sufficiently to provide the patients with a positive experience. Also, work on keeping your staff happy and motivated. Discuss growth strategies with them, take their inputs, encourage collectivist work culture and keep their needs fulfilled.
5] Offer incentives or discounts
Dental care is often disregarded by people due to it being expensive. Especially, people without insurance avoid it overall until absolutely necessary. So; offer incentives and discounts to lure in a greater patient base.
Introduce dental membership plans which allow patients to pay in advance for a year-long service and render several benefits and discounts. The dental membership plan could include preventive exams, timely clean-ups, 10-20% discount on other treatments and so on. Analyze what your competitors are offering and offer something better.
6] Design your space
The décor of your workspace can also influence growth by leaps and bounds. External appearances though believed to be deceptive are commonly trusted more. So; it’s necessary to design your space well. Declutter the space, include elements of nature, focus on comfortable seating and so on. Since many people get anxious at the thought of oral treatments; it is recommended that the space is furnished to be relaxing. A well-designed space also improves productivity by being serviceable.
Despite all this, you still fall short to expand your services further, think out of the box, optimize your services, get active in your community, make each visit of your patients count and never stop striving hard. There is nothing that can stop you from growing as long as you spare no effort trying.
