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MailNote: This article describes a previous version of Patient Prism. You can read about the latest version of Patient Prism, V3, here.
Lead Management for Maximum Full-Arch Implant Production with Bart Knellinger
January 2022—After talking about the four areas of attrition that occur during the marketing and sales process to close full-arch implant cases (in part one of this video blog series), Bart Knellinger wants his clients to understand how Patient Prism’s AI software can guarantee that the leads coming in from their marketing campaigns get the attention they deserve. In this video segment, he interviews Patient Prism’s CEO, Amol Nirgudkar, about lead management using Patient Prism.
Knellinger says, “I think number one, in terms of lead management, a lot of doctors struggle with a lack of optics. A lot of them may know how many leads they get, but they don’t have the kind of data they need to manage their leads well. They don’t have a lot of actionable data. That’s something Patient Prism does a really good job of providing.”
From his experience, Nirgudkar thinks most dental practices don’t know how may leads they get. They know how many patients they saw but they don't know how many patients they could have seen. They have no idea how many calls were generated by Progressive’s marketing that were not answered or were not professionally managed to convert to appointments.
“There’s a lot of missing information that’s important. It’s important to know what is happening,” says Nirgudkar. “Did the potential patient fall off anywhere during the process of recognizing they had a need, finding your ad, looking at your website, and calling you? If the patient called you, did you pick up the call? If you picked up the call, what happened on that call? Did the communication break down? Where did it break down? This is all trackable, and there are solutions to reduce drop off once you identify the points where attrition occurs.”
Don’t Let Great Leads Fall Through the Cracks
“Post pandemic, dental demand is at an all-time high,” says Nirgudkar. “People want dental services. You just have to give them what they want, at the time they need it.” If you miss 25% of the calls about full-arch implant treatment this month and 15% of them are good leads who can afford treatment, you’ve missed three to four cases you could have closed explains Nirgudkar. “You spent money to drive leads, and having optics on whether you are answering the phone is important.”
“These are all $10,000 and above full-arch type cases,” says Knellinger, “so the leads are very important. We have clients right now who are underperforming drastically, but they don't know it because they're still getting a great return on the cases that they do close.”
“Twenty-five percent of calls during business hours are not answered,” says Nirgudkar. Dental practices don’t think about adding another phone line, even though the cost to do this is minimal. They don’t recognize that hiring a second receptionist to answer the phones in the most welcoming way is going to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in new income.
“That’s why optics are important,” says Nirgudkar.
“The numbers enable you to see what is possible that you are not doing. When Progressive’s clients dig into their data from Patient Prism, they will see that Progressive is driving an enormous number of leads during business hours. They will see that when calls are not picked up, very few callers leave a message. Most will hang up and move on to call someone else.”
“With full arch, once they’ve decided they want a fixed denture, they are price shopping,” says Knellinger. “They are going to talk to multiple offices, and if you don’t talk to them immediately and know how to handle a negotiation, you’ve missed the opportunity to impress them. Even if you answer the call, you have to be really good in managing the conversation.”
Often, there is inadequate personnel to answer all calls. Patient Prism monitors what times of day and the days of the week when highest call volumes occur. Peaks in call volume might correlate with times when your AdWords ads appear. If peaks in call volume are predicted, one or more additional team members can be trained to assist with the calls and be relieved of other assignments during the peaks.
Nirgudkar has observed thousands of dental practices over the years. “It’s so busy in the front that some team members are calling insurance companies. Some are checking patients out, plus the phone is ringing off the hook. Even if just ten percent of the calls are new implant patients, that's a lot of patients you’ve missed.”
Manage Leads to Optimize the Doctor’s Time for Implant Consultations
To consult with enough leads to close an optimal number of cases, dentists need to have their consultations shorter than the typical new patient first visit. The consultations should be specifically designed for patients who understand the costs of treatment and know they want implants. This way, consultations can be efficiently done without doctors spending an entire hour with each lead.
“We talked about this before in our earlier segment,” says Knellinger. “There has to be a triage process so the dentist can eloquently talk to them.” The best leads know they want this treatment, and they are trying to decide which doctor will provide the treatment. If the consult is managed well and the doctor has negotiating skills, the doctor should easily close the deal.”
Optimize Block Scheduling for Implant Consultations
A major point of attrition is when the caller wants the consult, but time slots are not available soon. “If you tell them the next available appointment is six weeks from now, they’re going to say, ‘Okay, bye,’” says Knellinger.
The number one point of attrition during calls is just this, says Nirgudkar. Patient Prism analytics show that between twenty and twenty-five percent of callers drop out when they are not able to come in soon. “If you don’t have your schedule optimized with block scheduling for implant cases, you are going to lose patients to your competition,” says Nirgudkar.
If you are 30 to 40 days booked out, you don’t need to spend more money on implant marketing campaigns. You need to solve the scheduling bottleneck problem. Either you focus on creating time to close and do more of these highest-value cases, or you continue to fail in serving as many implant patients as possible to maximize your income.
“With full arch cases, the consult cannot be an initial comprehensive exam, like you would do for a general new patient,” says Knellinger. “A lot of times, these patients have already had two CTs. They’ve already had one or more dentists tell them they are a candidate for full-arch implants.” A shorter appointment should be created for the purpose of selling the patient on why you should perform the treatment. “That’s your opportunity to just sell them--to get them closed. And for a big case like this, you want to get them in immediately. If the consultations are shortened, you can see enough leads to account for the increased no shows and unqualified buyers in this demographic.”
Automate the Alerts and Feedback Receptionists Need to Optimally Qualify Leads and Schedule Them
Patient Prism’s Cloud-based AI platform is focused on tracking call data and quickly providing analytics and coaching. The automated feedback your team receives teaches them best practices, so they better handle future calls and know specifically:
- The questions to ask to qualify leads
- What to say to get them scheduled
After assessing over eight million new dental patient calls, Patient Prism’s AI is the most advanced in dentistry. And it’s the fastest call response system on the planet.
When it comes to decreasing no shows and qualifying the best leads, your team needs to know how to optimally lead the phone conversation. They need to know which questions must be asked and how to qualify the lead while at the same time heightening the potential patient’s desire for the treatment in your practice. Patient Prism’s AI is designed to constantly remind them and coach them.
Patient Prism’s fast alerts, constant coaching, and easy-to-read analytics enable you to solve problems and optimize lead management. Not only is it affordable, but if you are a Progressive Dental Marketing client, Patient Prism will set you up to remind your team to ask the key questions and deliver the key messages recommended by The Closing Institute.
What Data Does Patient Prism Track?
The following list represents some of the data Patient Prism delivers:
- On what days and times of day are most potential implant patients calling?
- How many calls generated by your implant marketing campaigns did you miss? How many did you answer?
For each individual caller:
- Where did the caller go to find the number on which they called you? (Marketing attribution)
- Did the caller spend time reading about you online?
- Did you pick up the call?
- Did you call back a missed call? How soon after the call did you do that?
- What was talked about on the call?
- Were there points in the call when conversation stalled? What was being talking about at these times?
- Did the receptionist have the information to optimally respond?
- Did the receptionist ask key questions the AI knows will move the conversation forward to appropriately qualify the lead and book a consultation?
- Did the receptionist deliver key messages the AI knows will increase the probability that the patient will accept treatment during the consultation appointment with the doctor?
- What was the result of the conversation?
- If the call did not result in a booked appointment, does the AI still consider the caller a good lead for treatment?
- What can be said on a call back that increases the probability that the caller will book a consultation?
- Was a follow up call made after the first conversation to check-in with the potential new patient and offer to assist them in moving ahead with the treatment they need and desire?
For individual employees who are voice recognized by the software:
- How many leads did they answer?
- How many did they successfully schedule?
- How many showed for their appointment?
- How many were closed by the doctor and had their treatment scheduled?
- What is the conversion rate of the individual team member?
From the above data, you can gauge if a team member needs more training or incentive, you can provide performance feedback, and you can identify who is the most skilled at qualifying the right leads and scheduling consultations. If no shows are a problem, you can improve appointment confirmation.
Patient Prism knows and reports all the above listed information and more. It assesses the monetary value of the lead and what could have gone better on a call within twenty or less minutes of each call. It then alerts you with actionable intelligence on what you can do next to still convert that lead and improve future new patient conversations. You never have to listen to recorded calls. The AI does this for you.
Watch Part 3 of 4:
Managing Full-Arch Implant Price Anxiety >>
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