A lot of dentists miss out on the chance to keep their previous patients coming back for more services. In fact, dentists can generate additional revenues from their previous patients when done right.
The question here is: How to approach and reactivate inactive dental patients?
Some dentists might think that it could be a waste of time approaching inactive patients because they might have already started seeing another dentist. However, in some cases, it could have nothing to do with you as patients tend to drift away for many reasons.
The good news is that you can apply a few strategies to fill the cracks and keep your patients coming back for more treatments.
Generally speaking, an inactive patient is someone who hasn’t scheduled an appointment in the past year and a half.
What is The Value of an Inactive Patient?
Some dentists don’t give enough value to an inactive patient and an unfair assessment because they chose your practice in the first place.
That’s why you need to have the correct information on each patient
- The reason they choose your practice
- How they found out about you
- When they first scheduled
- Their scheduling history
Knowing these reasons why a patient may choose to “ghost” your practice can help salvage your relationship with this patient.
That’s where our strategy comes into play.
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Reach Out on a Personal Level
The right communication can shorten the time between dental visits. It may surprise you to organize your inactive patients based on the frequency and quality of their communication level.
You could find similarities between inactive patients based on how long it took to hear from you and the quality of communication they received from your office.
Generic, templated communication is delivering an impersonal message to your patients but good communication is personal which means that it delivers a more effective message. Effective communication also takes time and needs intuition about the relationship of each patient with your office.
Reach out on a personal level to inactive patients. When you understand each patient, you’ll be able to make a connection to your dental practice such as a team member, what they liked the most, their previous treatment goals, etc.
Start by creating a brief message that indicates you know them and that they’re more than just another patient to you. You can remind them about their previous treatment goals or a personal reason for choosing your practice.
Personal gestures can go a long way with your inactive patients they’ll come back for treatment or provide a referral as a result of your personalized effort.
Keep Your Inactive Patients a List
Most dentists take the easy way out by deleting inactive patients from their database. But there’s another option that is more profitable. Keep track and organize your inactive patient data and start working on routine communication through this list.
Keep in contact with your inactive patients by newsletters or emails about new offers or even a new blog post or content that they might find useful. When sending this type of content on regular basis it can influence the decision of inactive patients to come back for dental services especially if your communication resonates with them.
They can be part of your current mailing list just like your regular patients and the more they see or hear from you the more likely they come back for a new treatment or even send you a referral
Inactive Can Still Be Reachable
Having a system in place (preferably an automated one) that keeps inactive patients in the loop with your dental practice can be a great advantage for your practice.
Here are some ideas to engage your inactive patients with your practice:
- Use available data of inactive patients
- Analyze the data
- Organize the data for reactivation opportunities
Drive New Patients and Keep Them Coming Back
Driving new patients is as important as keeping them. Otherwise, you will be losing their business. Your services have to be impeccable and your staff needs to be friendly and professional at all times in order to keep your patients’ coming back.
As a dentist, you need a system to generate new patients and keep them. That’s why at Zivvy, we specialize in helping dental practices generate 3X more new patients using our fully customizable New Patient Booster Plan tailored to your goals. At the same time, we teach practices how to keep their patients loyal to their practice and that alone can make a huge impact on your annual revenue. If you’re interested to learn more, go ahead and schedule a free assessment with our dental marketing experts and we’d be happy to help!
