Whether to move forward with getting dental implants is a big decision for patients. While dental implants can truly change their life, they’re an expensive procedure with significant out-of-pocket costs. If you don’t build trust with your implant patients, there’s little chance they’ll move forward.
While getting the right clinical training, marketing strategies, and training for your team can bring a regular flow of implant patients to your practice, it won’t build the trust necessary to move forward with the treatment. That trust starts building during the first five minutes of your implant consultation. Here’s how to start building trust during those first crucial minutes.
Schedule dental implant consultations at the right time.
Building trust begins with proper scheduling that sets you up well to make a positive first impression on consultation day.
Few things frustrate patients more than making them wait. When you’re running an implant marketing campaign, make sure everyone knows to schedule implant consultations first thing in the morning or afternoon to avoid making patients wait. Schedule all other procedures mid-morning and mid-afternoon.
Make your dental implant patients feel welcome and important.
When implant patients arrive, make sure your team doesn’t immediately ask them to fill forms, make payments, or provide insurance cards. Make their initial experience pleasant. Ask if there’s anything you can do for them. Offer them coffee or tea. Give them a tour of your office. Point out pictures on the wall or other things about your practice that humanizes you and your team.
Ask how their problem impacts their daily life.
Don’t wait for your consultation to ask them about how their tooth issue is impacting their life. Ask that during the tour. For example, you might have your team ask patients general questions about their mouth health and how it’s impacting them, such as, “The doctor is looking forward to meeting you. We know how dental issues can impact day-to-day living, and we work hard to help our patients get their life back. Tell me a little bit about what’s going on with you.”
Simply asking patients about their daily life will go a long way toward building trust and rapport. It will make them feel important and let them know your practice cares about more than just the procedures it performs. It shows them you care about finding solutions to their real-life problems.
Dig deeper before beginning your exam.
While the first three steps to building trust typically take only a few minutes, they are powerful minutes. These next few minutes will be even more important. After asking the general, relationship-building questions about their teeth and mouth health, get more specific with your questions to focus in on why they’re looking for teeth replacement solutions.
The time when reviewing health history is a great opportunity to do this. Don’t just confirm the information on health forms. Use that time to ask how their missing tooth is impacting their eating, what frustrates them about their dentures, etc.
That will give you much better insights into each patient’s specific concerns. Remember, no dental implant patient goes to the dentist looking for dental implants. They go looking to get rid of their dentures, to make deeper romantic relationships by not hiding their smile anymore, to get full use of their mouth again, or more.
Once you learn each patient’s specific concerns, begin your exam and frame your conversation around solving the specific problems that patient described, and not what you know about the typical implant patient. You’ll make a much deeper connection with patients this way.
Is your team setting up dental implant consultations for success in the first five minutes?
Five minutes is all you need to start building trust with dental implant patients. By scheduling appointments for a time with no wait and focusing the first five minutes on building rapport and understanding your patients, you’ll be well on your way to building the trust you need to close more dental implant cases.
How do you build trust with patients at your office? Let us know in the comments or on social media by sharing this post and tagging us, on Twitter, @DrivenDental, or on our Facebook page.
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