Dentaltown July 2016 - (Page 14)

howard speaks column On Trust and Telephones Women make 90-91 percent of the appointments in health care. Many people, including myself, believe that this comes from the innate maternal instinct, which men don't have. Another way women are different: Most studies will show that for each one person a man talks to, a woman will talk to five. Men say fewer than 2,000 words a day; women are saying more than 7,000. So they talk a lot, and they talk to a lot of people. If I had to sum up women in a single word, it would be trust. Trust me If a woman comes into a dental office thanks to a generic ad or a promotion she saw on Facebook, she's buying one-third the amount than if she came in from a word-ofmouth referral. Let me give you a scenario: She gets a Groupon that says, "Come into the office and get a free cleaning, exam and X-ray." So she does, and the dentist looks at the X-ray and says, "You have three cavities, which will cost $250 apiece." Well, she came in on a coupon-she didn't want to spend money in the first place, and now the doc is telling her she needs to spend $750 for three cavities, in order to be OK? As far as she was concerned, she didn't have a problem; she just wanted a cleaning. She ends up not trusting that doc, and leaves. But if her sister had sent her to that office, the patient would be looking at the X-ray with the doc, trusting his recommendation. When a family member or good friend refers you to a dentist, you trust them. So much of our economy is based on particular branded products, and the core reason is trust. Humans are brand-loyal. If you go to the grocery store, you're not going to look at all 400 types of coffee; you say, "I trust this brand, it tastes good, it's consistent, and I've been faithful to it." by Howard Farran, DDS, MBA, publisher, Dentaltown magazine 14 JULY 2016 // dentaltown.com Phoning it in So for me, organic referrals are more important than external marketing to strangers. When I go into a dental office and say, "Tell me about your business," he might talk about what bonding agent he uses, or that he's a CAD/CAM guy, that he has a CBCT and all this cool technology. And I'll say, "Forget about that stuff. How many people called your dental office in the first quarter of this year?" No matter who I ask, that person never has any idea what that number is-no tracking. Then I'll ask, "How many of those went to voicemail?" There are 168 hours in a week, you're open only 32 of them-which is 19 percent-so at least half the calls come in "If you double the number of calls you answer with a real person-I don't care if you're delivering pizza or doing root canals-your business will double." when you're closed and they go to voicemail. The data I've seen suggests that 13 calls will come in before one caller actually leaves a voicemail. People aren't programmed to talk to machines; they just hang up. Now, realize that half the calls you get when you're open still go to voicemail, and on top of that you have no idea if those missed callers were new or someone who's been coming to the practice for a decade. If it's the latter, they'll leave a message-they trust me to get Continued on p. 16 http://www.dentaltown.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown July 2016

On Dentaltown.com
HOWARD SPEAKS: On Trust and Telephones
PROFESSIONAL COURTESY: Make Dentistry Great Again
Continuing Education Update
Industry News
Dental Assistant Bonuses
Guided Implantology Docs … You Just Saved $30,000
Curious Curing: How do you know if you’re getting the right output from your LCU?
You Be the Judge: Referral Slips vs. Progress Notes
MB2 Access Pics
Creating the (Sigh) Dream Team
The Truth About Digital X-Ray Sensors
New Products
The Poet Laureate of Dentistry
Townie Choice Awards Preview
Ad Index
Poll
Practice Solutions: LSK121
CONTINUING EDUCATION: Understanding Exceptional- Needs Patients
Dentally Incorrect

Dentaltown July 2016