How do you increase referrals? Dental practice growth remains one of the top goals for dentists who own their own practices. The most important factor in growing your patient base is patient-to-patient referrals.
When one patient has a great experience, they have the potential to increase your revenue and expand your patient base. They achieve this by giving multiple organic, authentic referrals to friends, family members, coworkers, and more.
How you create and share these positive experiences is just as important. You must be intentional with dental patient referral strategies. Here’s how to get more dental patients and keep them.
Deliver an Experience Worth Talking About
The first step in encouraging more patient referrals is deceptively simple. Give your existing patients great experiences. The patient experience is always at the center of any practice’s growth.
The entire patient experience makes a difference. From the moment they first walk in, they should feel welcomed, at home, and comfortable.
This means staffing a friendly team with effective communicators, great chairside manner, and a helpful receptionist. Small details make a bigger impact than you may think.
Make sure your patients have easygoing visits, free from common pain points or stressors. Stay ahead of common problems like scheduling errors to avoid creating a negative impression.
After-visit measures matter, too. Clear communication is perhaps the best strategy for retaining patients and encouraging referrals. Keep patients updated at all times, sending them reminders and helpful information about their dental health.
Ask for Referrals at the Right Time
Stay keen on timing. You want to ask for referrals when patients are happiest, such as at the end of a great visit, after getting a good result, etc.
Keep your strategy natural and simple. Patients who feel pressured or sold to are less likely to make a referral.
Simply ask them to refer others in a way that feels doable to them. Busy patients might prefer to leave an online review, for example. Older adults may be more likely to refer friends and family through word of mouth. All are good starting points for growing your patient base.
Make Referring Easy
Keep shareable information on hand so patients can easily refer others without doing much extra work.
Lay out business cards with simple referral instructions on your front desk so patients can grab one on the way out. Include links to leave online reviews in every email you send out. Verbal reminders at the end of every (positive) visit also work well.
Remove any possible barriers and inconveniences ahead of time. For example, test your digital links to make sure they work and direct patients to the right page right away. Make all printable matter easy to read but small enough for patients to pocket.
Leverage Reviews and Social Proof
Public patient satisfaction encourages more trust in your practice, which can increase self-referrals. These self-referrals come when patients (or primary decision-makers in their homes) browse local practices and decide on yours.
Online or printed reviews often sway new patients to finally book an appointment. Because of this, you should encourage all satisfied patients to leave positive reviews at their convenience.
Their public feedback creates an initial feeling of trust and security in your practice before a new patient ever walks through the door. The more positive reviews you get, the more trustworthy your practice becomes in the local community.
Expand Services to Keep Referrals In-House
Offering more treatments opens your doors to more patients. Your existing patients are then able to refer others they know who need specific services. New skills like orthodontics help establish your office as a reliable source for a wide range of dental treatments.
Keeping referrals in-house removes a lot of friction from the patient experience. Most patients prefer to visit one office for all of their dental needs, rather than seeing different professionals.
Additionally, it’s always a good thing when you can fix a patient’s problem yourself. They begin to see you as the ultimate authority on their dental health, which increases patient retention and satisfaction and encourages repeat visits.
Giving patients a yes more often than a no creates a positive impression of your practice as a whole. Saying, “We can do that here,” encourages word-of-mouth growth, as patients then refer others who need special services like orthodontics.
Add Orthodontics to Your Practice: Explore Courses From the American Orthodontic Society
Referrals will unlock a whole new level of growth in your practice, no matter where your starting point is. Proactivity is how you turn happy patients into opportunities for more.
At the American Orthodontic Society, we offer comprehensive orthodontic courses for general dentists. Let us help you expand. Browse our course catalog to get started today!
To learn more about our popular orthodontics courses for pediatric and general dentists, check out one of the upcoming events below.
