It’s the end of the month, and your team is busy analyzing the practice’s financial performance. Despite efforts to acquire new patients—investing in online ads, running social media campaigns, and sending promotional emails—something isn’t adding up. Revenue is stagnating, and when you dive deeper into the numbers, you notice that current patients are churning more than normal. While new patients are coming in, more and more of your existing patients are becoming inactive, meaning all your efforts are just plugging the hole instead if growing the business.
This scenario paints a troubling picture: existing patients are slipping through the cracks. Most patients only visit once or twice a year, making it critical to maintain relationships between visits and stay top of mind. Without consistent engagement, they drift away, often to other practices that better meet their scheduling, financial, or personal needs. Worse, these lapses in engagement can lead to missed referrals from satisfied patients, further impacting growth.
Your efforts to grow the practice are being undermined by the silent churn of what should be loyal patients. Building strong, engaged relationships with existing patients is the key to reversing this trend.
Practice Pain Point: Retaining Existing Patients
Retaining patients is a challenge faced by many dental practices, and losing patients is costly. Studies show that dental practices lose 15-20% of their patients every year, and it costs significantly more to acquire a new patient than to retain an existing one. Here are some reasons why patients leave:
- Limited Scheduling Options: Patients struggle to find appointment times that fit their busy schedules.
- High Treatment Costs: Without flexible payment plans or promotional offers, treatment can seem out of reach for some patients.
- Lack of Engagement: Patients are not kept informed about their oral health needs, promotional activities, or updates that help to build relationships with the practice.
- Poor Patient Experience: Dissatisfaction with service quality leads patients to look elsewhere.
When patients leave, chairs are empty, referrals decline, and marketing costs increase trying to attract replacements. Preventing this churn requires consistent engagement and proactive communication strategies.
ClearDent Solutions for Patient Retention
Strengthening relationships with patients is essential to retaining them. By delivering better service, engaging marketing strategies, and personalized communication, practices can foster loyalty and lasting connections. ClearDent offers innovative tools to streamline this process and ensure your practice stays top-of-mind for your patients:
- Communicate Marketing Activities with Bulk Newsletters: ClearDent’s Bulk Newsletter feature allows practices to easily send newsletters tailored to their audience. Whether it’s practice announcements, promotional offers, or oral hygiene tips, this tool lets you set criteria to target specific groups of patients effectively. By sharing relevant and engaging content, practices can build stronger relationships, keep patients informed, and encourage loyalty and referrals.
- Increase Visibility Through Digital Marketing: Use email campaigns, blogs, websites, and online booking to maintain patient relationships. These tools and services ensure patients stay informed about the practice’s activities and offerings and have an easy, seamless way to book their appointments.
- Maintain Relationships by Following Up on Treatment Plans: With ClearDent’s Manage All Patients tool, practices can easily identify inactive patients or those with unfinished treatments. Send personalized messages to remind them of their care plan or inform them of promotions that could reignite their interest.
- Show Patients You Truly Care: Personalize interactions by remembering details about patients and their concerns. ClearDent’s Patient Portal enables practices to collect and review patient information before appointments, streamlining conversations and ensuring personalized care. If a patient hesitates on a treatment plan due to financial constraints, ClearDent’s tools can help the practice offer flexible payment options or promotions tailored to their needs.
- Gather Feedback with Patient Surveys: ClearDent makes it easy to collect valuable patient feedback through surveys. By regularly soliciting feedback on their experience, practices can identify areas for improvement, address concerns proactively, and demonstrate that they value their patients’ opinions. This helps build trust, enhance service quality, and improve overall patient satisfaction.
The Pain-Free Practice
Imagine this common scenario: A long-time patient visits your office for a routine cleaning. During the appointment, you notice an evolving issue with their alignment and jaw strain and recommend Invisalign. The patient expresses interest but isn’t ready to commit. Months later, your practice launches a promotional campaign for Invisalign. Using ClearDent’s Manage All Patients tools, you quickly identify all the patients who previously showed interest in Invisalign and send them a targeted email or text message about the promotion using the Bulk Newsletter. For those still unsure, you include links to a blog post on your website that educates them about the benefits of Invisalign. The email also includes a button for online booking, allowing them to schedule an appointment in just a few clicks.
This seamless integration of patient data, targeted marketing, and online booking keeps the patient engaged, informed, and more likely to choose your practice for their treatment.
Attract and Retain Patients with ClearDent
In today’s competitive landscape, retaining existing patients is just as important as acquiring new ones, if not more important. ClearDent provides the tools practices need to build strong relationships, deliver personalized care, and keep patients coming back. From engaging newsletters to seamless online booking and personalized follow-ups, ClearDent helps you foster loyalty and create raving fans who are more likely to refer others.