Do you know how to get more new patients through referrals?
Do you have a dental patient referral process in place that works, or do you just ask patients for referrals haphazardly and hope for results?
According to research from the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry, 93% of respondents indicated that the demand for services is “driven by referrals from friends and family members who have had a positive experience.”
Referrals are important to the health of your practice. But how do you obtain good referrals without being pushy or taking time away from your staff members’ core responsibilities?
There are plenty of referral marketing tools available so how do you choose? Some are better than others and you don’t want to waste resources or ruin your current, positive reputation with patients so here are…
3 Helpful Tips to Obtain Dental Patient Referrals
1. Create a referral environment.
Set up your office environment so that patients and visitors know that referrals are important to the life of your practice.
Add signage throughout the office stating that you appreciate patient referrals, place verbiage about the importance of referrals in your patient paperwork, run videos in the office, and remind all patients that you appreciate their referrals in your marketing emails and messaging.
2. Train your team to ask for referrals.
Create a referral process that works with the culture of your office and let staff members know how important this is.
You can even have internal competitions to see who can get the most referrals each month!
To start, as soon as a happy patient enters the office, have them fill out a simple form where they list the names and emails of some potential referral patients. Make it as simple as possible and offer some kind of thank you for their efforts. After they leave, send them a surprise thank you for their referral and let them know how much you appreciate it.
3. Keep it non-sales oriented.
No one likes pushy, sales messages. Your referral processes need to be unique to your staff members, patients and office environment. All of your requests should be honest and come from the heart… at the right time.
With this in mind, schedule a brainstorming session to develop fun ways to obtain referrals from your patients.
This may include special giveaways, contests, an interesting email series, and other creative tactics. Create your processes, and test to see what works best. Then, keep working on it to improve results.
Increase Referrals in 2024
With the new year almost here, now is the perfect time to prepare your referral plan for 2024.
Get your staff members involved and make it a fun process that everyone will enjoy. Develop an office environment that focuses on referrals. Remind team members how important referrals are on a regular basis and keep your messaging honest.
Before you know it, you’ll have referrals coming in on a regular basis… without wasting time, money or resources!
To learn more, or schedule your appointment, please call (815) 254-1560, text (815) 473-3560 or visit https://wisdomteethjoliet.com.