Barak Granot of DentoMetrix, a specialty dental marketing and public relations firm, works to educate dentists on how to compete in a rapidly changing marketplace. Since the Internet and Google searches have become the fastest growing way for potential patients to find and choose a new dentist, dentists have felt forced to complete on price with new patient specials, coupons or inexpensive cleanings. Granot educates the dentists that work with him that price is not the best way to compete, as it drives the entire industry down and can sacrifice patient care and quality while causing dentists to struggle to pay their bills and keep up with new technology and new materials that become available. According to Granot, “The importance of reducing the number of lost patients and retaining existing patients to a practice cannot be underestimated.”
It costs a lot to constantly be looking for new patients. The problem is that in a marketplace where most dentists complete on price with “new patient specials” or low introductory offers for common services like cleanings, most don’t offer anything comparable to existing and loyal patients. He adds, “For a dentist, to retain an existing patient is more cost effective than to attract a new one. The conservative value of a lifetime of dental services for one patient is around $10,000, so it is very important to focus on patient retention.”
Granot teaches dentists how to create compelling offers geared only to keeping existing patients happy and making sure that they are aware of all the services their dentist can offer. Granot and his company, DentoMetrix, offer unique solutions for dentists in our economy. The problem dentists face today is called dental migration; this is when an existing patient leaves the practice, not because they are unhappy with their services, but for other reasons such as seeing a “deal” or “coupon” at the dentist across town. This dental migration, costs dentists money as they are forced to constantly seek new patients to maintain their practice and it also can lead to poorer overall care for the patient as dental history and relationships need to be reestablished.
Well known Business Experts and Authors, Sheldon Bowles and Ken Blanchard, would seem to agree with how Granot teaches his dentists to create lasting patient relationships—they call it creating “raving fans.” In the book, Raving Fans, they write, “Your customers are only satisfied because their expectations are so low and because no one else is doing better. Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create Raving Fans.” Blanchard says, “I once heard profit is the applause you get for taking care of customers and your people.” Granot offers his dentists programs designed to stop them from competing like everyone else and failing and instead figure out how to retain existing customers, get the right referrals, manage their online presence and social media and ask for and use reviews. All these pieces work together to teach dentists how they can compete on expertise instead of price.
For more information about Barak Granot and DentoMetrix please visit his website at: http://dentometrix.com/.