Your practice’s implant patient experience can make or break your implant practice. If you optimize your implant patient experience, your implant patient reviews will be glowing. Those implant patient reviews will build your implant dentist reputation. And your implant dentist reputation will help you achieve greater success when targeting dental implant patients with your dental implant ads.

Unfortunately, dental practices are so busy that designing an implant patient experience seems daunting to many practice owners. The good news is that designing an ideal implant patient experience doesn’t have to take a lot of effort. All you need to do is gather a few pieces of information and make a few tweaks to your process and you can be well on your way to building a thriving implant focused practice.

7 Principles Of Patient Experience Design For Dental Practices

1. You must understand your patient journey before designing a winning patient experience.

2. Make touchpoints personal so patients know they’re valued.

3. Patient experience is now a multi-media process, with patient interactions occurring both online and offline.

4. Patient experience is a living process to be consistently optimized.

5. Your patient experience process has a direct correlation with implant case acceptance.

6. An ideal patient experience process is interactive, with patients being able to connect with practice representatives online and offline.

7. Your best patient experience process is based on your ideal implant patients’ rational and emotional tendencies.

1. Know your prospect.

Not all implant practices are the same. From simpler, single implant practices to more complex implant focused practices, every practice’s implant practice is unique. Because of that, every implant practice’s prospects are unique and the ideal patient experience to build will be unique.

The first step in building your ideal implant patient experience involves understanding your ideal implant patient prospects. What questions do they need answered? What barriers do they need to overcome before they will say yes to treatment? Preparing answers to the most frequently-asked questions will help you and your team create a consistent, helpful experience for patients. From ad copy to web copy and answers when patients call, your leads will connect faster and better with your practice.

Knowing your prospects will also help you better connect your implant marketing process with your ideal patient’s unique buying journey. That helps you ensure your ads are presented in the right place and at the right time to reach your ideal patient when they are searching for implant solutions.

2. Know your current implant patient practice experience.

Conduct an audit of your practice experience. Write down every step of the process your patients experience from the time they learn about you to the after-care they receive after their implants are placed. The experience needs to be consistent with your ideal patient’s needs from the beginning to the end.

Start with the first impression patients have when they discover your practice. Does your website present the right look, feel, and messaging for your ideal patient? If you’re looking to build a five-star implant dentist reputation, you need to make a five-star first impression. Next, examine your marketing materials. Implant marketing makes a promise to patients about the experience you and your team will deliver. Ask yourself whether your marketing materials are consistent with practice interactions.

After learning about your marketing and practices experience, answer these questions. Are your marketing promises and patient practice experience consistent with each other? If so, are they both consistent with what your ideal patient desires? If your answer to either of those questions is no, one or both of your marketing or delivery needs to be adjusted.

3. Know your difference makers.

Key moments in your patient journey can make or break the patient experience. From pre-planned special moments you plan in advance to building empathy and customization into each piece of the patient journey, planning key moments helps you build deeper connections with patients.

For example, key moments in the general patient journey include phone interactions, first in-office visits, team member handoffs, operatory experiences, financial guidance, the moment of commitment, day-of-treatment experiences, and post-treatment experiences. Each of these moments represents an opportunity to win or lose a patient’s loyalty. Examine each of these key moments and make sure they are consistent with an ideal implant patient experience. If not, adjust them. If so, look for opportunities for improvement.

Patient feedback is critical in this step. Invite reviews and ask patients to be specific about each of these moments in time. Review your online reviews and welcome critical feedback as an opportunity to improve. If you ask and demonstrate a sincere desire for honest feedback, patients will be honest with you. They will tell you what they expected and where you fell short. And they will tell you what parts of their experience felt the best. For many practices, what their patients describe as the best and worst parts of their implant patient experience are not what the practice anticipated.

Pre-planned special moments are slightly different, focusing on incorporating unexpected and pleasant surprises for patients. In marketing terms, these are often referred to as magic moments, and are designed to delight your patient in a way they don’t expect from a dental practice. This can be as simple as sending a personalized letter or gift to their home before or after a procedure or as fun as sending them a cameo video from their favorite celebrity. Something pleasant and unexpected could go a long way.

It doesn’t take too much effort to create a world-class patient experience. All you need is some information, a little focus, patient feedback loops, and a willingness to consistently improve. But once you establish an ideal implant patient experience, everything about your implant focused practice will improve. You’ll convert more implant patient leads. Your implant patient reviews will come in faster and be better. And your implant dentist reputation will be enhanced.

To learn more about how we can help you set up an ideal implant patient process and convert high-value implant leads on autopilot, book a strategy call with us today.