Tell me if this situation sounds familiar: Your treatment coordinators make phone calls for an hour each day, but complain that not many patients pickup the phone. My staff that calls patients on behalf of our dental clients (we call them “Patient Specialists”) typically make 400+ calls a week, and here’s how we do it.
1. Change The Time of Day You Call
We try a variety of approaches and find that calling at various times can have different pickup rates. Mid-morning can be good (between 10:00am-11:00am) as well as late afternoon/after work (4:00pm-6:00pm). We tend to avoid Mondays and Fridays whenever possible because people are either busy with work or checked out for the weekend.
2. Use A Familiar Phone Number
The benefit of a Treatment Coordinator calling from the office is that it will increase the chance of a pickup. We call from a separate phone line for our clients and while we get good results (15% pickup rate and typically book about $11k in treatment per month), it’s easier for coordinators who call from their practice. A familiar caller ID encourages patients to pick up the phone. Also, it’s a bonus if you can text as well and get them to hop on a quick call to go over the treatment.
3. Use A Personalized and Friendly Approach
Make sure your Treatment Coordinator is warm and genuine on the phone. If the patient knows the Treatment Coordinator, they are more likely to schedule the treatment. You can make it more personable by taking notes on key elements of the patient’s life like asking about their family, if they bought a house or their birthday.
4. Use Text and Emails After The Call Strategically
Most people don’t pick up their phones these days. We find it helpful to follow-up calls with either a text or email. Texting can help get a quick response. Emails work too. With each of these communication tools, we suggest NOT discussing the details about the treatment (so that we are HIPAA compliant) but instead using them to encourage a phone call to go over the details of the treatment.
5. Provide Value and Education
Each call is not just about getting the treatment scheduled, but also helping the patient better understand their oral health. Use each call as an opportunity to go into the details about the patient’s issue, how it could progress if it’s not treated and how it will help them long-term to take care of it NOW rather than later.
6. Make Multiple Contact Attempts
The average sales takes 7-11 points of contact according to sales experts, so be ready to be put in the work. Your Treatment coordinator can follow up once or twice a week for 4-11 weeks to finally get that patient to say Yes. Don’t get discouraged! We only leave one voicemail per week, but play around with your contact frequency.
The goal is to be persistent without being aggressive.
7. Leave A Voicemail
Voicemails serve one goal: Get the patient to take action and call us back. Our go-to voicemail is a simple “Hi (patient name), I’m calling on behalf of (doctor) and (dental practice) to get your treatment scheduled. Please call us back at (number) we’ll be happy to assist you. Thanks!”
It’s simple and effective!
If you’d like help following up with your Unscheduled Treatment Plans from my team so your appointment book is full, Net Profit King can help out. We partner with dental practices and guarantee $150,000 per year in Case Acceptance or we work for free. We will call your patients with HIPAA-certified treatment coordinators that are effective at getting results. One of our clients got $11,000 in Treatment scheduled in the first 30 days. Book a 10-minute consultation meeting with our team to learn more.