Last Updated on August 3, 2023

A prospective call should become a new appointment for any dental office. Dentists must determine the reason whenever these prospective calls do not turn into appointments. Call recording empowers dental offices to obtain insights and the data needed to improve appointment scheduling, acquire new patients and grow the practice. How do dental offices accomplish this?

This article discusses the benefits of call recording for dental offices, how to unlock valuable insights and find out what patients are looking for in their search from recorded calls.

Why get call recording into your Dental Office?

Call recording provides dental offices with valuable insights with prospective calls. Specifically, call recording is a valuable tool to determine what resources are needed and provides direction in regards to staff training.

How does call tracking improve Customer Service experiences?

A common mistake dental offices make is to improve their marketing without implementing call tracking. Improved marketing will increase the volume of inbound calls. Dental offices that do not have a proper incoming call strategy may miss this increased call volume. Potential patients that spend too much time on hold or never have their call answered typically give up and move on to the next dental practice. The solution is to implement a powerful call recording software program that contains call tracking features. Please read What is Call Tracking Software? for more detailed information about call tracking software.

Business Intelligence reports are typical features built within call tracking. These reports provide information about day-to-day call activities and identify the busiest times of the day, week and year. This information may be used to provide adequate staff to receive inbound calls, book appointments during the busiest times and track the top performing agents.

Why is your dental office losing prospective patients?

Dental offices lose prospective patients for one of two reasons. The reasons are:

1. The call was abandoned.
2. The prospective patient was looking for something they could not find at the practice.

To mitigate call abandonment dental practices should:

• Analyze their Business Intelligence reports to ensure proper staffing to answer phone calls.
• Ensure a proper answering system or service is in place to receive call overflow or after hours.
• Simplify the phone tree system.

Addressing loss because the prospective patient can’t find what they’re looking for requires call recording software. Dental practices may discover why each prospective patient was lost by monitoring each call and resolve the issue. The most common reasons for prospective patient loss during a call are typically:

• It was too difficult for the agent to build a rapport with the prospective patient.
• The prospective patient requested information that the agent could not deliver immediately.
• The agent’s tone of voice was inappropriate, there were lapses in the conversation or the agent forgot to ask to set the appointment.

All of the issues listed above may be mitigated by providing call recording. The dental practice may monitor the calls and identify the agents that require additional training. Focusing on improving soft skills will be the most effective training in the situations listed. Read more about how to improve soft skills via coaching.

What else can recorded calls in Dental Offices reveal?

Call recording primarily helps dental practices analyze the needs of the callers and the performance of the staff.

There are marketing benefits to monitoring recorded calls. By providing agents with scripts and asking questions during the call, the dental office can determine:

• What marketing campaigns are driving new patients to the practice.
• If the marketing campaigns are driving the correct types of inquiries.
• Is the website providing the correct information if the potential patient visited the website.

How does call recording benefit Dental Offices?

There are multiple benefits call recordings can provide to dental offices such as:

• Improves customer interaction – informing each caller that the conversation will be recorded will change attitudes. Callers and patients are typically kinder and more receptive when they know the call is recorded.
• Exiting the patient – The practice may choose to exit the patient if the patient is rude for non-legitimate reasons.
• Complaint verification – The call manager may review the call to understand more about the situation if a patient complains about the service they received over the phone. This reinforces trust with the staff.
• Establish a peer review and learning system – Developing a great staff requires the entire team. Agents learn from their peers. The agents with more training and experience can listen to calls and provide feedback for improvement. The entire team may be invited to listen to calls that were particularly successful. This promotes positive feedback and helps to boost the attitude of the staff.

Read Benefits of Call Recording for more information.

How to implement Call Recording in your Dental Practice?

Start gathering insight from your calls by implementing a call recording system at your office. The procedure is simple and may be accomplished in the following four steps:

1. Acquire a Call Recording Software system – Setup your dental practice with a system that records calls, provides call tracking and analysis.
2. Communicate with your staff – Inform your staff about the new call recording platform and establish expectations. Provide scripts and develop a coaching / training plan.
3. Monitor your recorded calls – Setup a regular cadence to listen to recorded calls with your team and discuss what is working and what is not working.
4. Use information from your recorded calls to coach staff and adjust marketing campaigns – Deploy your coaching / training program and continually improve the performance of your staff. Make the necessary marketing adjustments if you are hearing calls with the wrong inquiries from traffic driven by your marketing campaigns.

At Versadial Solutions, call recording, monitoring and tracking are fundamental components of our platform. Contact Us for an evaluation and a customized plan to meet the needs of your dental office.

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Last Updated on August 3, 2023