You need to make an appointment with your doctor, and you prefer to schedule it over the phone rather than online. As you call their office, expecting to have your needs met, instead of talking to a real person, you have to leave a message with a machine and wait to be contacted later. You hang up the phone unimpressed and frustrated by your interaction—or lack thereof—with the practice.
If you rely on an automated answering service at your dental practice, this is exactly how it can feel for your patients as they attempt to contact you. A smarter alternative is to turn to us at Dental Support Specialties for your dental answering service so that your valued patients can interact with a friendly team member and build a trusting relationship that lasts for years to come.
Impersonal Machines
Although machines are capable of doing many tasks these days, often much more efficiently, some things are best left to humans. For instance, a machine can take messages while your staff is unavailable, but machines are not able to truly take care of your patients. What if a caller has a question or needs to schedule multiple appointments for family members? What if the caller isn’t already a committed patient? Interacting with a cold machine could mean a lost opportunity to bring that potential patient in.
Value of Strong Customer Service
At every step of the dental experience, your patients need to know they are well cared for, especially those who feel a little anxious about dental visits. But a compassionate, caring voice on the other end of the line can put your patients at ease even before they set foot in the practice. At that point, your in-office team can take over and deliver outstanding service that keeps each patient coming back.
As helpful as talking to a real person can be in and of itself, good customer service includes much more than just that. Dental Support Specialties does more than just answer the phone and take messages. We offer dental scheduling support, which means that we can actually assist patients and get your schedule filled. As a result, your patients can hang up with a positive impression of your practice, starting your relationship with them on the right foot.
Catching What Your Team Can’t
As capable as yours front-desk team is at their job, they are not always available. Illness, vacation days, and lunch breaks are inevitable, and if you don’t have backup, phone calls can go unanswered, potentially taking away income from your practice. We can cover the phones when you need us most so that no patient falls through the cracks or feels ignored.
You wouldn’t accept sub-par customer service for your patients, so why settle for it on the phone? The good news is that you don’t have to! You can make sure that each patient who gives your practice a call gets the best treatment possible and increase your practice’s productivity and bottom line.
About Dental Support Specialties
Dental Support Specialties began offering remote administrative services for dental practices in 2008. As experienced professionals, we can adapt to any software suite and work within your scheduling system. We can also proudly serve as your practice’s first point of contact for patients. If you have questions about our dental answering services, you can contact us by calling or clicking here.