Are you offering your patients a complete customer service?

Whether private or NHS, the key to keeping a practice busy is to ensure that its patients are always satisfied with the service that they receive. It’s an obvious statement, but despite this it is all too often overlooked: too many practices don’t realise that this doesn’t just relate to the clinical service they provide, but the overall experience of visiting the practice.

Though all practice staff will seek to make the patient’s time at the practice as enjoyable as possible from the moment that they enter the front door, it must be remembered that this isn’t where the patient’s experience began. For them, it starts outside of the practice, the very moment that they decide to book an appointment.

With this in mind, all practices should be making a concentrated effort to make sure that from this point onwards the patient’s interactions with the practice are both easy and enjoyable. Too many patients have to go through the gruelling inconvenience of constantly calling a practice, only to find that the line is engaged: this is annoying for any caller, regardless of whether or not they are suffering from dental pain. The practice has to make sure that they are always available when a prospective patient wants to get in contact with them.

The problem gets worse, outside of practice opening hours, there is virtually no way for a patient to get in contact with their practice to book an appointment. This is especially inconvenient as dental pain becomes more noticeable through the night. This is because not as much blood is pumped around the body due to a drop in heart rate when asleep, making the body more sensitive to pain. Many who have suffered from toothache know the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain, unable to do anything about it other than wait until 9am to start ringing around practices in the hope of finding an available appointment. After a sleepless night the last thing that they want to hear is an engaged phone line.

However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The introduction of online booking services is making it much easier for patients to find and book an appointment with a local dentist when they need it the most. Being able to book with a practice online means that the service is available 24/7, so if someone awakes at 3am in intense pain, they can log on to their computer immediately and book themselves an appointment for the same day. Knowing that they have an appointment booked may even help them to get some sleep!

There are a few of these services beginning to appear, such as Zesty who is now working with NHS Choices to make it even easier for patients to book a dental appointment. Practices who join Zesty are now able to directly link visitors to their profile from their NHS Choices page, not only does this make it easier for a potential patient to find and book an appointment with a dentist, it also gives the practice more exposure.

The benefits of a service such as this are numerous, for both the practice and the patient. It creates a greater online presence for the practice, giving them a chance to convey its own approach to dentistry, the treatments that it provides and is a simple way of getting its name more widely recognised. By introducing an online booking service, practices will have a wider reach when finding new patients and also be able to make sure that patients, both new and existing, are always able to book a dental appointment when they need it the most.

Making the process of booking an appointment easier for the patient drastically improves the quality of a practice’s customer service. This is especially important: providing a higher level of customer service than a competitor can be the deciding factor for a potential patient who is looking to choose the practice that is right for them.

The impact that the internet is now having upon the dental industry is undeniable, with most practices now having their own website, the industry’s migration online has been truly remarkable. The collaboration between Zesty and NHS Choices marks a new direction for this online revolution. Making NHS dentistry available simply and quickly to all will have a huge impact upon the dental industry. It allows patients to book with an NHS dentist at their convenience, making painful mornings trying to book an appointment a thing of the past.

Simply email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit www.zesty.co.uk or call 0203 287 5416 for more details of our Free Trial