It seems that all you hear and read about these days is the need to attract more new patients. And as a management consultant, I am advising every client on strategies to be successful in this important endeavor. But I fear that in the pursuit of the new patient, we may tend to forget about – or certainly take for granted – our long standing patients of record.

I recently read an interesting study that analyzed the data as to when a patient decided to leave a dental practice. You might have thought it would be early on in the relationship. A patient decides that the staff, doctor, practice philosophy – whatever – doesn’t meet or match their expectations – so they leave. In actuality, it turns out that in this study, the average patient leaving a practice did so after six years. At the exit interview, here was the dominant theme. “When I first started at the practice, they always made me feel welcome and important. Nowadays, it seems like they don’t care that much about me anymore.”

That is shocking! And what a wake up call it should be. The dollar value of a dental patient – returning year after year for continuing care and new dental treatment – is huge. And think about the referrals and good will generated in the community from keeping a satisfied patient in the fold.

Hello – these patients are the people who pay our salaries and keep us in business. Perhaps it is time to redirect some energy towards our existing patients. Please look for every and any way to make an existing patient feel special. Praise them – coddle them – thank them – handle them with kid gloves. Let them know how much you care about them. To do anything else is indefensible and irresponsible.

A dental practice is populated with patients who respect and admire and trust you. Of course – otherwise they wouldn’t be there! So why don’t they refer more friends, family or co-workers to the practice? Probably because they think you are so busy that you don’t want or couldn’t accept any more new patients. I suggest it is time to educate your patient base and start asking for referrals.

But dentists and staff are reluctant to ask for referrals because they think it is either demeaning or un-professional. My assessment is that if you don’t ask, you are missing a golden opportunity. So when is it OK to ask and how do you ask? Very simple – you ask for referrals whenever a patient says “thank you.” This needs to be like a Pavlovian response – a patient saying “thank you” triggers the request for a referral. The doctor and each and every staff member needs to develop their own script for this. Here are two examples.

Patient says to the doctor after looking in the mirror – “I just love the way these front fillings look – thank you so much.”  Don’t be shy – you just heard the magic words. The proper reply would be “I’m glad you are pleased,  they do look great and I am excited for you. I love doing this kind of treatment – so if you have friends who might benefit, please send them our way. We’ll take just as good care of them as we did of you.”

Patient says to someone at the front desk – “Susie – thank you so much for getting my son a last minute appointment to get his teeth cleaned this week. We totally forgot he was going back to college.” A response might be “Mrs. Jones – it is my pleasure. That is the way we try to take care of all of our patients. So any friends you want to refer over – well we would love to see them. And you can be sure we will always extend the same courtesy to them.”

You get the idea.  Hopefully offering exquisite customer service is a corner stone of your practice philosophy, so you should be hearing patients say thank you all day long. Just be sure to seize that perfect opportunity to ask for a referral.