It can get a bit hectic at the front desk of your dental practice. You get inquiries about your services and calls from existing patients wanting to schedule or reschedule – and you won’t always have the time and energy to pick up each phone call.
But what if there’s an emergency? Even if there isn’t, you’re still losing out on business with each call you do not or cannot answer. An answering service solves this for you!
Improved Response to Emergency Calls
When a patient calls because of an emergency, they don’t want to hear an automated voicemail. Ideally, the patient will talk to you directly, but you can’t just drop your tools in the middle of a procedure.
If they can’t talk to you, the patient will at least want an actual person to address their needs and inform you of their emergency. An emergency answering service will give them just that and relay pertinent information to you.
Answering services are available 24/7 and can even help patients calling after office hours. They can screen the calls and identify what needs your immediate attention and what can be put off until tomorrow.
But even when there isn’t an ongoing emergency, having a dental answering service is extremely helpful.
You Can Focus on Patients in Your Clinic
You went to dental school to learn how to provide quality dental care, not to take calls. That said, you can’t just ignore the phone whenever there’s a patient in the clinic. If a calling patient finds you unresponsive, there’s a good chance they’ll just choose someone else’s services.
With a live answering service, you won’t have to worry about how your dental practice is represented when no one is there to take the call. A live virtual receptionist will take calls and messages so that your work goes uninterrupted.
Your live virtual receptionist can also schedule and confirm appointments for you and remind clients of their appointments on your behalf, enabling you to be more productive.
Improve Your Patients’ Impression of You
A live answering service will improve calling patients’ impression of your dental practice.
On especially busy days, your staff might be tired and overwhelmed, increasing the risk of unpleasant calls for patients. Unlike the rest of your team, a virtual receptionist is dedicated to being there to receive calls and receive calls only.
Virtual receptionists are trained to handle calls professionally. They will ensure that each caller is left happy with the service they received. Repeat customers are valuable to your business, and good customer service increases your chance of retaining them.
Save Money on Staffing
What about not-so-busy days? On slow days, you might not get many calls and your staff will be able to handle everything just fine. There won’t always be a need for somebody to receive calls and messages for you full-time.
While full-time employees get fixed monthly salaries, you only pay virtual receptionists for the minutes they work for you. If they take calls for you for two hours, then that’s it. You also avoid additional expenses associated with hiring a full-time employee, like benefits and equipment costs.
