If you own a dental office, you may be exhausted from handling most calls by yourself, and you are seeking an alternative way. Additionally, you may have tried your staff team to do so, but they still can't manage phone calls and other critical duties they carry around your office. Moreover, you find it difficult to provide your patients with services after normal working hours, weekends, and holidays. However, there is an alternative way of solving your dental office problems - a medical call answering service. Partner with a professional answering service and enjoy the following benefits:
Reduce Your Callers Waiting Time
Sometimes, a patient trying to reach your office may be put on hold due to a long queue. According to statistics, patients spend 15-20 minutes on hold every day as they call a medical facility, amounting to approximately 13hours every year. Ensure your dental office isn't part of these statistics. Therefore, once you partner with a professional medical service, your patients will stay out of the hold. The patient will be free to choose the person to speak with or leave their information for the staff team to provide feedback once they are back. The service will ensure your patients aren't frustrated and their time is honored.
Have a 24/7 Support To Your Patients
Dental diseases won't wait for the working hours. The problem may occur during the night, weekends, or even during the holidays when your dental facility isn't open. Your dental office must be available when your patient needs you the most. Although your patients don't expect your dental practice to be open for a full time, they will still expect feedback around the clock. As a dental practice owner, you should not let your patients down.
Therefore you should ensure that your dental office is accessible to your patients at any time. The best method of keeping your dental office open would be hiring a call answering service for the office. The agents at the service will professionally receive the patient's calls and arrange for an appointment at any time. Additionally, the service will be available even when the unexpected happens; for example, during floods, power outages, the office will remain open and accessible to your patients.
The Service Does Things According To Your Office Regulations
When you want the service agents to guard certain terms relating to dental services and avoid specific phrases for legal restrictions, they will follow your orders. Remember, a professional medical service won't stick to its ways of providing services. They will adapt to your methods of service delivery. Notably, the answering agents will incorporate your office's voice and patient greeting. This means the service is flexible, and you will sell your services the way you want. You are free to adjust the answering service depending on the patient's needs.
Stay Competitive With Other Dental Offices
A dental office may have less time to link up with their patients. Since the dental issues are very painful, the patient would like to connect with a professional, responsive, and reliable dental office. Does your company meet those features? A key element of meeting the above characteristics is its ability to meet the patient's needs professionally and quickly. Therefore, your dental office will remain growing and most competitive in the market with a medical answering service. Additionally, your patients will receive the services the time they need you the most; thus, they won't hang around and move to the next dental office.
Increase Your Patients Satisfaction
Most dental practices have shifted to an automated system for handling their after-business hour communications. Although using automated services may seem cheap, it will reduce overall customer satisfaction. Notably, automation services will limit your patients from human interaction. Any patient calling your office will expect feedback from a sympathetic real person. A patient may be undergoing severe pain; therefore, he/she will require your services the most at that particular time. Notably, the last thing a patient will want to hear is voicemail messages, automated message systems, or any form of communication which seems to fail to satisfy their needs. In case the patient receives automation feedback, they end up hanging up, feel frustrated, and possibly move to another dental office. If your dental opts for automated services, you may lose a lifetime patient, their relatives, and any patient they refer to your office.
Therefore the best option would be hiring an answering service for your dental office. Various dental diseases are very painful; thus, the patients will require a quick response from your dental office. With active call answering service, the patient's call will be professionally answered, and they will receive feedback immediately. The answering service agents will examine the urgency of their calls and redirect them to their respective personnel.
Send Appointments Reminders To Your Patients
Making an appointment isn't a guarantee that the patients will show-up during the arranged time. The patient may miss an appointment due to poor communication or a lack of reminders. If you miss the appointment, you may end up losing clients. However, if your dental office has an active call center, you will provide your patients with appointment reminders and reduce no-shows. Providing a personal call reminder to your patients about their upcoming appointments is a good way of showing your patients commitments. If the patient can't show up due to other factors, you may assist in rescheduling their appointments, thus maintaining them. Additionally, the patient will recognize your determination, and he/she will be stuck to your dental office.
Make Your Patients Feel Happy
The most benefit of a call answering service is providing your patients with great customer service. A happy patient will head to the dental facility where they receive services that make them feel comfortable. Notably, happy patients will probably share their feelings and experiences with their relatives and friends and refer more patients to your office. Although the patient doctor-bond grows mostly during the in-office visits, the bond begins on the phone call at your practice's answering service. Therefore making a seamless transition from a friendly call conversation to a comprehensive medical service in the office is a happy patient prescription. A professional call center will always make your customers smile by offering friendly and quality services.
Make Appointments Anytime
To ensure your dental facility grows, you should have a full-time appointment booking. Commonly, there are forty working hours per week, leaving another one hundred and twenty-eight hours untouched. That means, most hours in a week, your dental office remains closed. Therefore, you should keep the dental office working even after the working hours and during weekends and holidays.
By hiring a medical call center for your dental office, you will be able to schedule appointments anytime. The service has well-trained agents with knowledge about dental services and office operations. Your office will even avoid recording missed calls since all calls are professionally answered and appointments arranged.
Give Your Patients A First Impression
Since dental issues are too painful, the patients will require a friendly welcome from your office's receptionists. When a new patient calls your dental facility, their first interaction with your medical facility is crucial in determining the outcome. The facility may become very hectic at the moment, with the administrative staff being stressed/distracted, leading to hurried interactions with their patients or even missing the calls entirely. Mostly a busy dental service will result in poor performance due to poor services.
However, if you hire a dedicated medical call answering service, you will eliminate the above problems. Each call will be answered with the utmost care and by professionals. Therefore even when your dental office is congested or after business hours, every patient will receive the best services.
The Service is HIPAA Compliance
Although the service is critical to your dental office, few services may not meet the government requirements or HIPAA compliance. Therefore you should be keen when choosing an answering service for your dental office. Notably, before hiring a medical answering service for your dental office, ensure the organization meets government requirements and is HIPAA compliant. Under the HIPAA, any call center sustaining patient information electronically should follow the security and privacy of their firm of employment. The agents should be highly educated on how to handle the patients. A call center not HIPAA compliant doesn't fit your office.
Reduce Your Staff's Work
As a result of the several services provided at the dental practice, the facility may be congested with patients visiting to arrange for an appointment while others seek medication. Therefore the facility may require additional staff or machines to cater to the patient's needs. Medical answering service will take over several duties of your staff's phone duties, so you don't require many staff members to work in your dental office. Notably, fewer employees will greet patients, enter their information, and keep up a record. If your office works that way, you will save money by reducing the number of employees performing similar work simultaneously. Additionally, by using a call center, you will reduce the work of current administrative staff. When your staff is working with fewer interruptions, they will produce the best services for your patients.
Prevent Mistakes and Save Valuable Time for Your Staff
If your staff team is too busy answering phones and at the same time attending to other patients, things may go wrong. For instance, if your staff team is trying to schedule appointments and answer patient questions simultaneously, they will feel overwhelmed. Therefore your staff team will feel unhappy. Notably, if your staff members answer all the incoming calls, the patients visiting your dental office will have to wait. The patients at the waiting bay may feel frustrated and move to another dental facility. Additionally, when your staff members are juggling patients and calls, they may obtain and record the wrong information.
However, an active answering service will be helpful to your dental office. With the service, you may redirect the patient's calls whenever you are busy. You can use the service at the necessary time and also when the activities get hectic.
Offer Services to Your Patients Outside The Normal Working Hours
To provide quality care to your patients, you need to be available around the clock. For instance, a patient may be working for late hours and need to call you to schedule an appointment. Additionally, your patients may have a question and need consultation on their medication right away. Therefore if the patients are reliable to your office or limited hours, you aren't providing your patients with comprehensive services. Alternatively, staffing your dental office around the clock might be expensive.
Therefore you should opt for a medical answering service for your office. The agents will be able to provide services around the clock. Notably, the service will be available after business hours, weekends, and during the holidays. The patients will be confident to access you at any time, even during an emergency. A 24/7 call answering service is better for your office. For instance, your dental office will be advantaged over other dental offices without 24/7 services.
Let Your Patients Speak With Professionally Trained Agents
Any patient calling your dental office wants to know whether the person they are speaking with is well-equipped in understanding medical problems or their needs. Your office should have professionals properly trained and well-versed with medical terminologies and have the ability to determine an emergency from a check-up.
The problem may be solved by hiring an answering service with well-trained experts on dental issues. With an active answering service, you will rest assured your patients are comfortable with the agents on the other end of the call.
Final Verdict
Having an active dentist answering service for your dental office to provide communications after working hours is the best method of providing quality services to your patients in and out of your office. You won't miss any calls either during the day or night time. Therefore a flow in patients will mean growth of your dental office. If you own a dental office and you don't have an answering service, make an attempt, and have one today to solve several problems in your dental office.
