Americans spend thousands of dollars a year on convenience. With all the pulls on our time, that might not be surprising. So what does that mean for your implant practice?

Many practice owners know late hours or weekend appointments help fill seats. But it’s not just beneficial for drilling and filling. It’s also beneficial—and even more beneficial—for implant dentistry.

Complex procedures like implant dentistry take time to perform. They are invasive. They often require multiple appointments. The more convenient you can make it for a patient, the more likely they will be to move forward.

If you offer flexible hours or convenient appointment times, you might consider highlighting the convenience enjoyed by your patients in your practice branding.

The Rise of Convenience as a High-Value Offer

While convenience has always been popular, it has recently skyrocketed to the top of the list for many consumers. In fact, convenience is equally important as price for many consumers these days, especially Millennials and Gen Z consumers, who represent the largest group of consumers and rising.

Even in the highly competitive world of e-commerce, 97% of consumers have abandoned a purchase because the service wasn’t convenient enough.

In Short, If Two Similar Services Are Offered At A Similar Price, A Prospective Customer Will Take The More Convenient Route.

The good news is, implant practices can easily make the patient experience more convenient. And, if you do, you might consider incorporating those efforts into your branding. Here are four simple ways to get started. 

1. Make sure your practice responds to messages and questions quickly.

Many practices aim to answer within one hour during business hours, and within anywhere between two and six hours after hours. For non-emergencies, even a simple “Thanks for the question, we’ll get back to you on Monday with more details,” will work. Your prospective patient will feel heard.

If An Implant Lead Reaches Out To Two Practices, The One That Responds First Will Have A Big Advantage Over The Other If The Rest Of The Experience Is Similar.

You can achieve this level of responsiveness pretty easily, too. Many practices use a chatbot to automatically respond to messages on their website and social media. You could also outsource the task of responding to messages to a virtual assistant or delegate it to a team member.

2. Offer services seven days a week, at least for high-value procedures.

Dentists work hard, so the idea of working seven days a week doesn’t always spark warm feelings. Many dentists rightfully resist adding more scheduling options.

Offering Services Seven Days A Week For High-Value Procedures Doesn’t Mean You Need To Actually Work Seven Days A Week.

You certainly could have multiple doctors on staff and can stagger schedules. Or you could take turns working weekends, with each doctor working one weekend a month. But you could also offer additional hours only for implant patients. That’s what some of our clients do, focusing their typical work week on weekdays but opening on the weekends for $10,000, $20,000, or even $50,000+ implant cases. They even cut down other days because they earn so much more with dental implants.

3. Use technology to conduct virtual consultations with leads.

While very few positives came out of the global health crisis of 2020, people’s comfort level with virtual medicine certainly qualifies as one. Many implant practices switched to videoconferencing for consultations out of necessity.

Virtual Consults Saved Practices In 2020. In 2021 And Beyond, They Will Likely Elevate Practices To New Heights Of Profitability.

Today, practices are using them because they are convenient for both the patient and the practice. Implant leads will be grateful you are saving them time and money by not having to get a day off work and transport themselves to your practice.

4. Utilize Virtual Patient Advocates to provide concierge-level service to implant leads.

We created our Virtual Patient Advocate, or VPA, program with both cost and convenience in mind. With respect to cost, it can be expensive to invite leads in your chair if they’re not prequalified. It’s also expensive for your team to have to answer questions and prequalify every lead. Our VPA program takes all that cost from you, only sending you prequalified patients with financing in place for their treatment. All that’s left is for them to meet you and finalize the relationship.

While the savings of having an experienced VPA prequalify leads are significant, the convenience factors are often life-changing for doctors and staff.

VPAs Can Single-Handedly Turn Your Implant Practice Into A Convenience And Profit Machine.

Our VPAs make getting implants tremendously convenient for patients. Our VPAs are experienced, knowledgeable, and professional. They learn everything about your practice and act as a true extension of your team. They work all across the U.S. so answering the phone in the evenings is not a problem. Patients love working with our VPAs and our clients love how easy it makes running their implant practice.

Any number of these four ways can immediately boost your practice’s convenience factor in the market. Even better, they are all simple to do. In fact, our VPAs can handle much of the work for you in connection with your implant practice.

With these in place, you can confidently position your practice as one that prioritizes patient convenience. To get started, book a free strategy call with us. We’d be honored to help.