If you’re not using text messaging for patient communication, you’re missing out on one of the best ways to improve patient satisfaction and optimize two-way communication. Texts have a with 9 out of 10 people opening their text messages within three minutes.
Read on to review the ways texting can help you draw in new patients and encourage them to keep coming back – and keep your dental practice growing.
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Texting Patients Benefits Everyone
When you use text messaging to contact your patients, you’re using the method of contact most people prefer for business interactions. Getting a patient to read a text message is much easier than getting them to take a phone call.
“Phone tag” is one of the most common healthcare practice struggles. How often does your office call a patient who doesn’t answer, leave a message, then miss the returned call, setting up a repeat of the cycle? With texting, your message gets to the patient even if they’re busy when you send it – and their reply gets to you even if you’re busy.
Dental software allows you to automate text messages, saving time over sending appointment reminders and invoices. This ease of communication means your dental office can expect to cut down on no-shows and improve the overall patient experience.
To summarize:
- Patients prefer texting
- Texts are opened at a higher rate than phone calls are answered
- Put an end to phone tag
- Reduce missed appointments
- Save time with automated messages
Check Out These Seven Ways to Improve the Patient – and the Practice – Experience:
1. Appointment Reminders
Many dental offices still send an email reminder before a patient’s scheduled appointment, but emails can be unreliable. With potentially hundreds of marketing emails bombarding their inboxes, patients can easily miss important messages.
Texting a reminder for an upcoming appointment ensures that the patient sees it as soon as possible and can clear their schedule if necessary. Patients can use the information in text reminders to quickly add the appointment to their phone calendars, making it less likely they forget to show up or commit to another meeting at the same time.
As mentioned earlier, patient communication software allows you to automate dental appointment reminders, notifying patients at set intervals ahead of the appointment. Additionally, the texting software can instantly update your office’s schedule once the patient confirms.
2. Personal Messages
Text messaging opens up two-way communication between your dental practice and your patients. A patient with a major procedure coming up might have questions, but it can be time-consuming to get the answers by phone.
With the ability to send and receive texts you can carry on a conversation, immediately addressing your patients’ questions and concerns. With this convenient form of communication, information on pre-op and post-op care becomes much easier to convey, easing their minds and increasing their chances of a quick and successful recovery.
Your dental practice can also improve patient engagement by incorporating text messages sent purely to delight your patients, such as “Happy Birthday” texts. Personalized communication helps patients feel closer to your practice, bolstering patient retention.
3. Follow-up on Missed Calls
One of the best ways to use SMS messaging is to set up automated follow-up texts when your office misses a call. Often, if a potential new patient’s call goes unanswered and they don’t hear back quickly, they will move on to the next practice on the list. With a simple, automated text message, you can convert potential patients into new patients.
With customized messages including your brand’s tone and practice name, you can greet patients and ask why they called. This automated conversation gives you more time to call back – and the information you need to address their concerns.
4. Notify Patients of Important Updates
If you have to unexpectedly close and/or reschedule a large number of appointments, contacting every patient on your schedule can be a real headache. With two-way messaging software, it’s as simple as sending a mass text to every patient affected by the disruption.
In contrast to phone calls and emails, texts have an extremely high open rate. As mentioned earlier, most people look at a text within a few minutes of receiving it. As a result, you’ll have fewer frustrated patients showing up for an appointment they didn’t realize was cancelled.
Sending non-emergency office updates over text messaging is another excellent way to keep patients engaged and informed. You can share the good news when you hire a new staff member or open a new location, helping patients feel connected to your practice’s community.
5. Request Reviews
Reviews are vital to your business; they determine your reputation and provide feedback to help you improve. Having more or fewer positive reviews than your competition can be a critical factor in your patient volume, so it’s crucial to have a solid plan for getting reviews from satisfied patients.
The best way to get a review is to make the process as convenient as possible. You can easily do this by sending a text follow-up to every appointment, requesting a review of your practice on Google, Facebook, Yelp, or another review site.
This friendly text includes a link to your preferred review site so your patient simply needs to tap the link to share their experience. Using this method, practices often see review counts skyrocket. A larger number of positive reviews helps spread your brand online and makes it easier for new patients to find your practice, so don’t sleep on this easy way to increase your review count.
6. Engage and Retain Patients
Keeping your patients is easier and less costly than attracting new ones, making patient retention an essential component of any successful practice. Staying engaged with your patients keeps you at the top of their minds, making it less likely they will miss appointments or leave your practice for another.
Because you know patients who have had dental procedures should absolutely return for check-ups and continuing care, consider texting those follow-up invitations. It increases your chances of them scheduling a return visit – ultimately enabling you to provide better dental care.
SMS marketing is a proven way for dental practices to increase return appointments. Recall reminders and special promotions for things like teeth whitening draw patients back to your office, keeping your schedule full and increasing your revenue.
7. Speed Up Payments
Phone calls and email reminders about payments might go unanswered for days or weeks, leaving your practice waiting to be paid. As the number of unpaid bills grows, your business can suffer. Systems like text-to-pay make payments simple and convenient, alleviating that source of strain.
Invite your patients to use text-to-pay when settling their bills. Instead of having to remember yet another password and log in to an online patient portal to pay an invoice, text-to-pay means patients can pay instantly via text. Sent and received immediately following the appointment, this encourages timely payments, increasing your monthly revenue and helping your business thrive.
Text messaging helps attract, retain and engage more patients
Ready to put texting to work for you? Weave is an Eaglesoft-integrated, all-in-one dental office communication software that makes it easier than ever to manage daily communications with patients, including text messaging and much more.
