Referred by Patient Report
Although not a dentist, like you I read all of the dental journals I can get my hands on to discover pearls of marketing wisdom to share with TruDenta doctors. In perusing this month’s issue of Dental Economics, in an article called Preventive Practice Management, they urge doctors to review DAILY the “Referred by Patient Report.” The quicker you can thank your patients for their referrals, the better off you are. Why? Well it’s simple. Gratitude is the currency of life. Most of your patients don’t receive enough gratitude in their lives. Set yourself apart from the pack and send them a simple letter the same day.”
You can read the whole article here:
But this leads me to a recent story. My dentist is a high dollar “cosmetic dentist” (check out the Google search numbers on this term that every dentist seems to include on their website, no one cares nor searches for this term…TMJ/D is searched 260,000 times per month in the US and cosmetic dentist far less than 10,000 times). I referred him a patient a couple of months ago. I even set the appointment time/date for my friend who showed up and is now a patient. I got no recognition for this referral whatsoever. Not a note, not an email, nothing.
Their patient reminder system texts me 10X before an appointment and they call me 2X to make sure I show up (even with my perfect on time attendance record!), but when I referred them a patient with a $10,000+ in collections lifetime value, crickets! Do you think I will be sending him others?
To put an even higher dollar example on the table, an acquaintance from Europe is building a $10,000,000 summer house in the U.S. He asked me who I recommended for its insurance. I sent him to my insurance agent a couple of months ago. Last week I was interacting with my agent and casually asked if she had ever talked to my European referral. Her response was yes, thanks, we got all of his US business last month. Did I hear about it? Get a thank you? Nope, more crickets. This is a multi-hundred thousand dollar lifetime relationship. All I wanted was to stay in the know and maybe get a THANK YOU. It’s just not that hard…
Patient referrals can be the lifeblood of your practice both for TruDenta and all of your care. What are you doing today to acknowledge your referrals and say thanks? And as the above article points out, you should be doing it DAILY. One TruDenta doctor got 250+ new patient referrals from WORD OF MOUTH ALONE in her first year. I have not checked, but I will bet that 250+ notes of gratitude went out the same day. This stuff does not happen by itself, you have to focus on it. It is just not that hard!
Happy Grinding to All!
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