How can a CRM influence practice growth?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is often heard in the realms of sales and marketing terminology. It can sound a bit jargon-y, but in its simplest form CRM for dental practices is just a good way of keeping track of communications between dentist and patient (or potential patient). It’s a way of capturing and logging patient data efficiently, of sending out emails and reminders without scrolling through endless address lists, and a way of maintaining secure and accurate patient profiles.

By improving the system that handles information from potential patients, you’ll improve response time and that’s just the start of the range of benefits you’ll see. A good CRM facilitates high engagement with prospective patients. It can paint a great picture of what your patients look like, what they are interested in and their concerns. The better you understand your audience, the better you can serve their needs – making you a pretty effective practice.

There are four main reasons why you should use an effective CRM system in your dental practice.

1. Improve patient relations
2. Optimise your marketing
3. Grow your practice
4. Promote a positive working environment

Improved patient relations

The clue is in the title: CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. Your customers are your patients, and a good CRM system will help you better serve your patients, whether prospective, new or existing. A system that includes automated messages and a way to track and access patient profiles, without resorting to reams of Post-its and complicated spreadsheets, goes a long way to keeping everyone well-informed. Watch it also reduce the risk of missed appointments and no-shows.

You’ll soon discover that CRM helps to better organise leads and patients – and when you understand your leads you can more effectively tailor and adapt your marketing campaigns and strategies.

Optimised Marketing

Let your CRM system shout about your practice USPs (Unique Selling Points) and offers. You can use your CRM to segment your patients and target those looking for specific treatments. At the click of a button you are able to see those who are interested in teeth whitening or Invisalign, for example, and nurture them with relevant information until they are ready to convert. You can also use it to see those who have previously invested in certain treatments and upsell relevant treatments that may be of interest. For example, someone who has had Invisalign may also be interested in whitening.

When data is collected and collated by one system, it’s much easier to pull just the information you need. Segmenting your data based on location, for example, can direct your marketing geographically. Where are most of your leads currently coming from? Is your current marketing targeting the right catchment areas? A CRM system will usually offer data capture that can help you hone your dental practice marketing, not only increasing leads, but meaning you don’t waste time and money on the wrong marketing campaigns.

Grow your practice

More and more practices are shifting their systems online – leaving behind their outdated software and stacks of hastily scribbled notes. Need to call back a lead? Forget rifling through mountains of paper, your CRM will prompt you with a notification, complete with their telephone number and access to all the information they’ve provided your practice with so far.

View where your leads have come from, and how many. Improve your practice conversion rates – see how effective you are at each stage of the lead journey and what needs attention. For example, is your busy practice struggling to fit in follow-up calls after consultations? It could be that this is where some leads are getting lost. Discover practical tips for following up consultations. Reporting options give you insight into your practice team’s performance and how effective it is at following up enquiries, making initial contact and continuing the nurture process.

As your systems become more streamlined, you’ll find it easier to convert leads and increase your practice revenue.

Your staff will be happier

Practices are busy places. Everyone has an hundred and one things to do, and the last thing you need is a clunky system slowing you down and taking up valuable time. When you run a CRM that’s simple to use and effective, it frees up time to allow you to get on with what you do best – to see and treat patients – which improves everyone’s practice experience.

Even better if your CRM system is cloud based, as this means that it’ll be faster, not to mention accessible from anywhere there’s an internet connection. Say goodbye to lengthy server updates and frustratingly slow systems.

In summary

In short, a good Customer Relationship Management system can make the world of difference to your practice productivity. It can improve efficiency, encourage team collaboration and promote a positive working environment, as well as helping with financial decisions and planning for the future. This is especially true if your CRM system is cloud-based, as it will allow you to integrate other applications with ease and be easily accessible for your whole team. Far from being complicated, cloud CRM is an easy way to maintain good communication between your practice and your patients, as well as increase leads.

DenGro – CRM simplicity for dentists

If you thought CRM sounded like complicated marketing jargon, you’ll be relieved to discover that it’s quite the opposite with DenGro. DenGro is a cloud-based CRM system that has been designed specifically to make dental practice life easier and lead conversion faster.

You might have outdated systems that simply can’t handle the amount the amount of data you need. After all leads don’t just walk through the door, they come to you via social media, Google, telephone, email and marketing campaigns. Taking each and every case can be time consuming and strenuous for staff. You don’t want to be downloading enormous spreadsheets and wading through emails, which is why you need DenGro to sort, contact and convert your leads for you. So, you and your team can better spend your time treating patients.