The solution to building a better dental practice might be how you communicate with patients.
Has your team missed calls—and you’ve wondered if they were from potential patients? Is patient information scattered and difficult to find? Have patients been slow to get in touch with your office, despite receiving excellent care?
If some or all of those signs ring true, the solution for a more productive, organized, and patient-friendly dental practice could be unified communication.
What is unified communication?
You and your team already talk with patients on the phone and via email.
A unified communications platform lets you contact patients through calls, emails, and more using the same software for your whole team. Plus, it stores the history of every contact you’ve made. So you can quickly see the patient calling now had emailed a month ago to reschedule their appointment.
There are several benefits to keeping all information in a single platform your whole team can use. And you can even integrate other ways for patients to get in touch, like text messages, live chat, and more.
Unified communication can help your teamwork productively, stay organized, and attract and retain more patients.
Create a more productive team
Today’s unified communication platforms work in the cloud. Instead of an on-premise system of phones and computers, you can log into the software from any device.
That means your team can respond to patients from a mobile phone or tablet just as they would with a desk phone. And patients can talk with team members working from home without knowing they’re not in the office.
And since the data is stored in the cloud, it’s updated automatically. For example, if your receptionist contacts a patient on an office computer, that data will show up immediately for the same patient if you log in using your tablet at home.
And it might even be the most affordable solution. You only pay monthly for the software instead of expensive setup fees for on-premise servers and systems.
Not only will it make your team more effective and efficient, but it will also help your practice stay organized.
Keep patient information organized
Right now, you might track patient data in a half-dozen places, from phone calls to emails to handwritten notes from your receptionist about upcoming appointments.
Unified communication collects all that information in a single source that’s always up-to-date. There’s no need to search for information somewhere else or wonder if you’re missing something.
It saves your practice time and gives you the insight to anticipate patient needs. With a patient’s history in front of you, you can quickly spot patterns you would have missed before. For example, you can ask a patient who’s in the office about symptoms they had called about months ago—but had forgotten.
Seeing a reminder of the earlier symptom can help you pinpoint problems early on and provide preventative care. But that’s not the only way unified communication can help you deliver a superior patient experience.
Give patients a better experience
Patients rarely stay with a dentist based on skill. More often than not, it’s due to a great experience that unified communication can help you deliver.
With instant access to patient communication, your team can bring a personal touch most patients have never seen. Instead of general greetings, your staff can ask about details in a patient’s life—even if they haven’t stopped by in years.
And by offering different kinds of communication, you can let patients feel heard for the first time. For example, according to a customer service software study 82% of customers are satisfied with help over chat compared to only 44% happy with a phone call.
Unified communication gives your practice the modern tools patients expect, letting you deliver an experience unlike anywhere else.
Attract more patients
A unified communication system can professionally accept calls when you’re not there. If your team can’t pick up a call, but you use multi-channel contact center software, it will prompt the patient to leave a message that’s stored in a central location.
Your team can then return the call and schedule an appointment.
And if you already use a tool to build awareness and find new patients, unified communications can integrate with the software you already use. You can keep up with one-time patients and stay in touch until they come back.
And unified communication platforms help with the best marketing tool of all—recommendations. A positive patient experience encourages referrals and helps grow your practice through word-of-mouth.
How your practice can look with unified communications
Unified communications can change your dental practice.
Imagine a practice where you can talk with patients however they prefer—via phone, email, text message, or more. And it doesn’t take extra time away from your team’s busy schedule.
You have all patient data in a single place. That means you can quickly see messages over time and predict questions before they ask.
Patients aren’t only happy with how organized and helpful their care is. They’re impressed with how the staff treats them between visits. The experience is so unique they can’t help but recommend you.