And today we have a special guest on the show with us to talk about creating an incredible patient experience. Jen Gray (Director of Product Marketing at Weave) is a master at creating marketing programs and unforgettable customer experiences at high growth companies and today we dive into the following topics:
- The importance of an amazing patient experience and the effect it can have on your bottom line (hint: it’s more than you think!)
- How to get started when it comes to creating an unforgettable experience
- And how it can result in new business via referrals, as well as expanded business from existing patients, and ultimately in increased patient loyalty.
So grab a pen and paper, you are going to want to take notes. Let’s dive in!
Full Transcript
Mark Thackeray: 00:02 Welcome back my friends to another episode of the Dental Marketing Secrets Podcast where we provide actionable tips and tricks to help you grow your practice, serve more patients, and leave a greater impact. My name is Mark Thackeray and I am amped up to be here with you today. It is such an awesome day and I’m excited to bring on a very special guest and I know you’re going to be walking away with some, some very powerful strategies to help grow your practice.
Mark Thackeray: 00:26 Today we have the one and only Jen Gray who is taking the time to talk to us about creating an unforgettable patient experience. And Jen is a master at creating marketing programs and amazing customer experiences at various high growth companies. And today she shares her insight into the following topics, one, the importance of an amazing patient experience and the effect it can have on your bottom line; two, how to get started when it comes to creating an unforgettable experience. And finally, third, how it can result in new business, be it referrals as well as expanded business from existing patients and ultimately in increased patient loyalty. So grab a pen and paper, you are going to need it. It is such an awesome conversation and let’s dive into it.
Intro: 01:11 What do you get when you combine simplified practice marketing, proven ROI strategy, and Vans skate shoes? You get Mark Thackeray, of course. So lace up, grab your green smoothie and get ready because this is Dental Marketing Secrets and this is Mark.
Mark Thackeray: 01:32 All right, welcome back to the Dental Marketing Secrets Podcast. I have a very special guest with me. Jen Gray has taken the time to meet with me. I’m actually, we’re actually in her office right now and I’m super excited to talk about this topic and I’m going to have Jen introduce herself first and share a little bit of background on who she is and why you should listen to her.
Jen Gray: 01:53 Excellent. Thank you. I’m really excited to be here today. I am Jen Gray. I have been doing tech marketing for about nine years now. I’ve been focused on building marketing programs and customer experiences at high growth companies. I started out at Qualtrics building out customer success and customer marketing there. Most recently I was, I was at Adobe building out marketing for their developer platform and now I am at Weave. And it’s been this interesting experience for me kind of translating more enterprise customer experience now to small businesses, and dental practices and kind of translating the same importance of customer loyalty to an industry that may not be as familiar.
Mark Thackeray: 02:38 Right? Yeah. And that’s really the theme of what we’re talking about today is just customer or patient experience. Right. So let’s start there. Let’s start with what that, what does that mean? How would you define patient experience? Where does it start? Where does it end? Talk to me about that.
Jen Gray: 02:52 Yeah, I’ve noticed that marketing I think in general has kind of made the shift to instead of just kind of one off campaigns, one app touchpoints to a full experience cause that’s really what our consumers are wanting on a day to day basis, especially millennials. I think instead of just having one great email or one great experience, they want their entire end to end experience with a business to be fantastic and personalized, so it makes sense. So it doesn’t feel like it’s disjointed.
Mark Thackeray: 03:19 Yeah, exactly. And how do you start that? I mean, I mean that’s, that’s a big thing, right? I mean, from the first touch point to the very end, that’s a lot to ask, you know, so how do you have… I guess that’s the question, right? I mean is how do you look at, so if you’re just starting out and you hear this, okay, we need to start working on our customer experience, really engineering an awesome patient experience for an office, let’s say. So what, where do you start?
Jen Gray: 03:45 I think first I would make sure that you are looking at it from like, I call it presale to post sale. And I guess you could say it from a patient experience, from attracting a new patient through, I guess their first transaction or their first visit with you and then through the rest of their relationship with you. So make sure that you’re thinking about marketing, not just as a post, like once someone becomes a customer, what campaigns or emails you send, but really what does it feel like to do business with you? Whether they’re in the office, at home, at their computer, I’m talking about you with their friends or family. I’m kind of thinking about what that experience should feel like, end to end.
Mark Thackeray: 04:25 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that’s so interesting because I’ve heard a lot about, you know, this patient experience and customer experience and like you said over the last, there’s been a big shift towards this, right? I mean, where it’s encompassing the first touch point to the end touch point. And it really, you know, there’s a, there’s a guy by the name of Jay Abraham who talks about the strategy of preeminence. You know, and preeminence means that you are the leader in your industry. You’ll do anything you can, you’re, you’re like the patient’s biggest advocate. You know, where you’re going to do anything and everything to provide the best, the most benefit to them possible, you know, and that, and that’s, I kind of look at patient experience that same way. You know, where you’re, you’re setting it up from the very get go to provide such an incredible experience that they’re going to want to then talk about you and then come back and then receive anything that they need to receive that, you know, in this case could be treatment so that they can, so they can ultimately obtain those, those transformations in their lives that they’re looking for. You know, so whether it’s health related, whether it’s social related, we’re all seeking something, right?
Mark Thackeray: 05:27 So being able to do that, I’m setting it up and really looking at that process, breaking it down and engineering that process so that it happens again and again. You know, and patient experience is so critical because we’ve, we’ve talked about this on the pre-call, but we, but just how costly it is to acquire new patients, you know? I mean, so yeah. Tell me a little bit about that. I know you have a lot of experience with that.
Jen Gray: 05:50 And that’s the differentiator I think, really. I think about how many times I drive down the freeway and see billboards for new dentists and I see my dentist every six months like that. That is a lot of time to think about switching providers and, you know, customer experience in marketing is something that I talk about my whole life. But I think we’ve all sort of just accepted that our experience at doctors and dentists may not be great and we’ve all kind of just like, ah, that’s how it, that’s how it must be and how it is. But then when you have an experience with one great dentist, it’s like, wow, that really sticks out. So it’s kind of this interesting. So yeah, from a, from an acquisition standpoint, it can cost anywhere between five and 25 times the cost of acquiring a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one to keep retaining your current customers. So instead of making all this effort just to acquire new customers, you need to have a great experience. To keep your current customers because even though you’re pulling new customers in, are you paying attention to those that are walking out the door?
Mark Thackeray: 06:51 Yeah. And that’s so like you said, I mean, you just drive down the road. You mentioned the billboards, but you just drive down in the neighborhood and you pass six dentists, you know, a two mile radius. It’s just crazy how much competition there is. And like you said, those longer intervals where it’s six months, between communication, sometimes between your dentist and your office and you are the patient, that’s just far too long. Well, I mean, they’re, like you said, there’s so many opportunities for your competitor to sneak in and they are constantly, you know, constantly trying to woo away your patients to their office, you know? And rightfully so- that’s business. Right?
Mark Thackeray: 07:27 But the thing is most people, you know, especially when they’re looking to grow or scale their practice, they look at new patient acquisition. Like that’s all they see. You know? And, and it really is the most expensive way to do it. And like you said, most of the time they are acquiring all those, they might be good at acquiring those patients, but you know, how many, what percentage of those people are actually just walking out the back door?
Jen Gray: 07:53 And I would say don’t overestimate how loyal your customer base is. I think this new generation of consumers, especially millennials aren’t very brand loyal. Like they’re, we’re constantly bombarded with marketing messages and ads and emails and offers. And so we want the best, we want the very best. And that means that we would leave what we’ve currently been using or seeing for something new. So don’t overestimate, you know, you’ve got one customer in the door, don’t I guess underestimate what you need to do to keep that customer coming back every six months.
Mark Thackeray: 08:26 Yeah. Yeah. And that puts a lot of onus on an office, on a practice to be constantly looking at that experience and asking themselves, what can I be doing differently to ensure that they’re going to be coming back? To really differentiate yourself from all the other competitors. And like we talked about, there are so many, you know, I mean, here we’re here in Utah and the saturation is through the roof, you know, I mean, it’s just crazy. So that is killer.
Mark Thackeray: 08:53 So let’s talk about too, I mean, certainly acquiring new patients is one way to grow a business, but the other, another one that’s less commonly talked about is retaining those people. You know, having them come back, longer for longer periods in this case, having seen patients and retaining patients longer than normal. So talk a little bit about that and how patient experience ties into patient retention.
Jen Gray: 09:16 Yeah, I think from a retention standpoint, like again, don’t underestimate how important it is to focus on customer retention. That no matter how many customers you have, you really want the loyal ones because not only are they business that you can count on year over year, but those will eventually become your evangelists for your brand. Word of mouth is incredibly powerful, and so those people that you give a great experience to will not only earn you repeat business and possibly expanded business, like they’ll bring their family members, but they’ll also, you know, cheer for you on Google reviews. They’ll cheer for you when a new neighbor moved in and is looking for a dentist. So I think that will yield you that small effort and creating a better experience will yield you higher results than, than all of your efforts in new, in acquiring new customers.
Mark Thackeray: 10:07 Yeah, 100%. And the bottom line is, it’s crazy. I mean, when you look at the actual numbers too associated with retention and increasing retention, I mean, that can lead to increasing profits by, what was it, 25 to like 25 to 95% increase in profitability.
Jen Gray: 10:24 It was increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase your profits by 25 to 95%. So just a small pivot in what you’re doing.
Mark Thackeray: 10:33 That is tiny, you know? But yeah, for most practices, when they’re looking to grow, they only look at the new patients. In reality they should be looking at all these people that have already overcome that risk. You know, from a patient’s perspective to come into your office, to be seen by you and to, you know, open your mouth and let me know I can do all that stuff. Because it’s, as a consumer that’s very risky. You know, and when we’re trying something out, we need to feel like, Hey, we’re making the best decision possible. So these are people, these are patients that have already overcome that barrier and now you have that tremendous opportunity to keep them coming back. And then, like you said, to, to build on that and not only get referrals, but even expand the business. I love how you put that and then to create these people or to render them as evangelists.
Jen Gray: 11:18 That is so powerful. And then you amplify that with social media and all these things. I mean, the effects can be astronomical. I mean, it’s really exciting. So that’s, that’s amazing. So one of the things too we talked about as well before was when you’re looking at your practice and there’s people that are, you know, we have, we’d say we have patients coming in, but we also know that there’s some leaving out the door, you know, that those are indications of possible experience gone wrong. You know, where we have, we have gaps, we have leaks in the system and that’s why people are walking out the, so those, or would you just, is that accurate? I mean those are, that’s already past the point. Like we can’t bring those back or how would you talk about that?
Jen Gray: 12:02 I think, I think truly though, once you start seeing a churn or customers leaving, you’ve probably failed them six months ago. I don’t think it’s necessarily too late, but I think it’s something that you need to start implementing now that it’s not just like, Hey, we haven’t seen them in a year, let’s reach out by that point. It’s too late. So I think doing smaller pro more proactive things to create a better experiences is critical. And, and honestly too, I think a lot of practices kind of chalk up a patient’s leaving that it’s like, Oh, maybe they moved or maybe their insurance, you know, switched. And I will say, I will drive just in Utah like 30, 40 minutes for a great experience. Like one of my fitness studios that I love so much. I drive 40 minutes to go cause it’s worth it to me. It’s worth it because of my experience, not because of anything like the price or what they offer that’s different. But my experience with them is great and it is worth, it’s worth the drive.
Mark Thackeray: 13:02 Yeah, 100%. 100%. So let’s, yeah, let’s talk about some specific examples like that, you know, is there anything else that comes to mind when you’re thinking about a very dynamic or very rich customer or patient experience? What else comes to mind? What are some companies that that immediately pop into your head and you think about patient experience?
Jen Gray: 13:21 You’d asked me this and I’ve been thinking about it all morning. I think when I looked at all the places that I visit frequently that I truly love, I think it really, it’s, it comes down to two things that my experience with them has been personalized and that it’s integrated and I’ll kind of break down what integrated means. For example, the fitness studio that I go to, my first visit there I was, the first time I had been, I was referred by a friend -again, referrals, very powerful. I went in, they greeted me, someone sat me down to like go through all the paperwork. They took my photo so that they could have my picture on my profile every time I came in. So that they knew when I came in, they knew what my name was. They knew the last time I visited, after my appointment, where am I guess my session.
Jen Gray: 14:09 They said thanks for coming. What was the highlights? I think they posted about me on their social media stories. Like, Hey, this is a newcomer. What did you think? I got an email when I got home. Say as a welcome email, Hey, welcome to this family, I got a reminder to come back. And then later that day I got a text that said, Hey, you’re probably really sore. Make sure you’re drinking lots of water today. And, and for me, that was incredibly personalized and integrated. Whereas I got an email, I got a text, but it wasn’t spam. It was things that I needed. It wasn’t just like, Hey, schedule your next appointment was relevant. And I think those kinds of followups are really interesting and it’s something that even dental practices could do to like, after a very large, you know, surgery or procedure check in at night and say like, Hey, how are you feeling? Like, can we do anything for you? And I think that really helps solidify my loyalty, my experience.
Mark Thackeray: 15:01 Yeah. And it just demonstrates that they are totally invested in you and your success. You know, it’s not about them. Like it takes all the focus off them and puts it squarely on the patient or the customer. And that’s where it needs to be, you know? And that’s why people feel so loyal to them cause they’re like, well, they’re looking out for me. Those are simple things. Like you said, simple text. It just just says, Oh, how are you feeling? You probably wanted this. I mean, how many characters is that? That’s like, it’s like a tweet,
Jen Gray: 15:26 Right? It was nothing. And I think that’s something you can do as well as sort of put yourself in your patient’s shoes and walk through how everything feels. That’s really what it comes down to. What does it feel like to get a bill? Did you get a bill mailed 90 days later with an already late sticker on it? What did it look like? Did you, was your logo on your bill so they knew what was coming? Was it personalize it to say like, Hey Jen, you have a bill due. What does your front desk staff say when greeting a new customer? Like it’s not so much about, you know, activities, but the, it’s the feel, it’s really the experience of how does it feel to walk in your office? How does it feel to park in your parking lot? You know, how does it feel to feel to pay my bill? How does it feel to get a followup email or texts?
Mark Thackeray: 16:14 Yeah, no, and I love what you said. You said walk through everything as if you were a patient or a customer, you know, and that really requires you to be as objective as possible. Of course, you know, but just be open to anything that may come up, you know? So if you’re going through, whether it’s a bill, whether it’s going through the actual procedure, sitting down on the chair or the welcoming, whatever it may be, look at that and be open to change, you know, just auditing everything that’s going on in your business so that you can then look at it and improve it along the way. So I think I’ve, one of the companies I always think of is Disney does a tremendous job with this.
Mark Thackeray: 16:51 You know, I mean, you write books and books about Disney and what they do, but they are in the business. I mean they’re not in the business of amusement parks. I mean they’re in the business of creating magic. Like that’s, that’s what it’s all about. Isn’t that a cool way to look at it where they give people the freedom to do what they need to do in order to make that happen. You know what I mean? That, that one is a whole other topic that could be dived into for you for hours on end.
Mark Thackeray: 17:15 But, so we went down to DisneyWorld with our family. We had three girls at the time and one of our girls, we actually went with Make-A-Wish, cause one of my girls has cancer and she’s doing really well. So like she’s healthy health wise, she’s doing tremendously well. But this was back when she wasn’t doing so great and it was, we went with Make-A-Wish and, and this would be true even if we weren’t part of Make-A-Wish, but when we went down there, the staff, like you said, I mean talk about a personalized experience.
Mark Thackeray: 17:44 They come in, they know exactly who you are, they know where you’re going. They know what you like. I remember when we first sat down for breakfast the following morning and they had the chef come out and they knew all my daughter’s names… So Ruby, what do you want today? And she picks something that wasn’t even on the menu. And she’s like, no problem. 10 minutes later it’s out on our plate.
Jen Gray: 18:04 Magic!
Mark Thackeray: 18:04 That’s exactly right! There’s no other way to explain it. But just, and things like that would happen constantly day after day after day. And I was talking about the same topic with a gal that I work with a client and she was talking about her experience when she was down there and they had the fireworks at night and she was out watching them with one of her kids and she’s, and someone said, I was it afterwards after the fact and she said, Oh, it was great. One of the staff actually was like, how was it? Oh, it was great except for I couldn’t, couldn’t really see. There was this little tree and the next night that tree was gone.
Mark Thackeray: 18:42 No, right. Talking about going above and beyond, you know, I mean immediately, not that like we’ll file that away and eventually get to them while they’re still in the resort. And I just could not believe it, but it didn’t, it didn’t surprise me at all because that’s what their philosophy is and that’s what they’re dedicated to doing.
Jen Gray: 18:59 So that’s incredible. Disney, we could have a whole podcast just on just on Disney.
Mark Thackeray: 19:08 Yes, Disn-ify your business. That’s a, that would be tremendous. But let’s look at the alternative side of that. So what are some examples of, you know, an experience that’s lacking? You know, a poor patient experience? Cause I couldn’t think of, you know, I’ll start and I had one a couple of years ago, you know, several years ago at this point, you know, and I went in and everything was going along great, you know, if I look back on it, the whole experience wasn’t bad.
Mark Thackeray: 19:35 But there were key points where I just felt totally underappreciated. Like, I wasn’t even there, you know, like it was a waste, not a waste of my time, but just that they didn’t really care that I was in the chair and they clinically were fine, you know, everything turned out great, checked all the boxes. But to me, I, the whole time I was there I was thinking, why am I here? You know, I, I literally passed six offices on the way to get here. I don’t have to be here, you know. And so they just dropped the ball on a couple of things and it’s not like they were busy and there was no explanation. There was no expectation, you know, to start off like, Hey, I was, you know, we’re going to be a little behind or you’re going to be waiting for a little bit while this numbs up.
Mark Thackeray: 20:17 There was none of that. There’s no apology. And so I left feeling like I’m never coming back. And I never did. You know, I think they called I think once to see and apparently they didn’t care if I was gone, they’re just focused on acquiring new patients.
Jen Gray: 20:30 But, but by that time it’s too late and you moved on to another provider.
Mark Thackeray: 20:34 I have, you know, and so I now go to a place that is one of my clients, they do tremendous work, you know, and it’s different. It’s like you were saying where they, they are follow up. They take the time, they set expectations right at the get go and they say, Hey, this is cause I just had a treatment, um, where, you know, it was uh, I had an uh, an extraction, a bone graph in preparation for an implant and you know, so they were telling me all along the way, okay, don’t worry, this is, this is how it’s going to feel. This is how, what it’s going to look like after a couple of days we’ve got these things that you can take medication and those talk about all this and then they follow up afterwards. And that makes it so much easier. You know, even if the process isn’t great, I know what it’s like going in because they set that expectation. So talk to me a little bit about that Jen too, as far as setting that expectation, setting realistic expectations, how does that play into the patient experience?
Jen Gray: 21:25 Oh, that’s a good question. I think for me it doesn’t have to be big stuff. I think everything that we’ve talked about I’m sure sounds a little bit intimidating. And like how in the world do I create a better patient experience? A Disney like experience? I don’t think it has to be big stuff. I think you would be surprised at small changes that meet expectations or our surpass expectations. Right? So if you think about like, integrated, like am I sending texts, am I sending emails? Great, but think about how, those are personalized. Like some of my worst experiences come from those same activities, but done poorly. So I’ll get an email where my name is piped in, but it’s the wrong name. You know, it’ll be like, Hey Barbara, my name is not Barbara. And I was like, I don’t know.
Jen Gray: 22:20 This didn’t land at all. And it would have been better if you would’ve just said hi there. You know why you even try and, or the text messages that are like, Hey you have an appointment next Wednesday, type Y for yes or N for no does not feel personalized and maybe checking a box. But I’m just like okay. And I, I think I typed a yes or a no and then it was like, okay sorry. And then I was like, well how do I, how do I reschedule now? Where do I go now to reschedule? Or is this it? Is this it? So even though you may be checking the boxes to make sure that those things are still landing and I think it is a little bit harder to patient experience cause you are setting expectations from the get go. So I guess build to scale, that’s something that we talk about in tech a lot. Make sure that you can sustain what you’re doing. Like obviously you can’t invite somebody in and have the red, the red carpet rolled out every for every single patient. So maybe focus more on kind of the small things that you can do to create a better experience that you know for sure your office can do forever.
Mark Thackeray: 23:21 Yeah, no, for sure. For sure. And there’s a lot of ways I think too that you could just do, like you said, where you set the expectation and you surpass it and it doesn’t have to be, you don’t have to go 100% above and beyond. It could be 1% better. You know? I mean I remember I used to have a photography company years ago and I remember I used to do this every single time. When I was getting to know kind of my intake form for clients, I would them a series of questions about their event cause I did a lot of weddings and events. And then I’d ask a couple of personal questions just like, what’s your favorite candy? You know, what do you like to do in your spare time? Just things like that, that I’d file away. And then and then I would just surprise him after with, with the photos, I do a nice presentation that come in the mail. Well two things. So come to the mail and I don’t always include their favorite candy, whatever.
Jen Gray: 24:08 That’s special!
Mark Thackeray: 24:10 How did you know this? And I’m like, well, I asked you about it. And then the other thing was just, you know, usually it takes four to six weeks for me to process all the images and get it back to you. And then I’d get him down in two, three weeks. It really doesn’t take me any longer, you know, to do on that that way then as opposed to the other way. Cause I was getting, it’s usually takes me a set amount of time regardless, you know? And so that was a super easy way to exceed expectations every time. And then they get them, they were like, Oh my gosh, you know, and I’d say something like, you know, I just, once I started editing your photos, I couldn’t stop. And so I got them done a couple of weeks earlier just to, you know, make it a point that they know, you know, I’m kind of reaffirmed that and this was the expectation, this is what I’m delivering, you know? And they would just rave about it. And those are simple things. And you can do the same thing with your practice, you know where it’s a, and this treatment is normally 60 minutes even though you know it’s a 40 minute procedure just so you’re building in that buffer and then now, Hey, you were such a good patient that we got through in 40 minutes and they’d be like, sweet. You know, I am a good patient,
Jen Gray: 25:17 Something my daughter’s orthodontist does that I really appreciate. I think somewhere on my patient profile they have that I like appointments after 3:00 PM because I work and I can’t get away before that. So it is so refreshing to have them call me to schedule an appointment and they’re like, Oh, you know, and obviously after three like on Thursdays is that work and it’s small. It’s so small that they just, you know, every time they, they pull up my patient profile, Oh, she likes appointments after three and it matters to me cause then I don’t have to go through and say like, well I work, my daughter’s in school, I’m going to have appointment after three. I know that they remember that and, and will try to schedule me at that time. Oh, that’s critical. It’s so small.
Mark Thackeray: 25:56 Exactly. You know, and that’s a, that’s a cool thing that I know you guys do as a company is you provide those tools for practices to make it such a more personalized visit. You know, where it’s easy for them. Talk to us about that phone, the phone features, you know, where you just, they call in and automatically pulls up all those details.
Jen Gray: 26:14 So as soon as, Weave customer or a Weave office has a customer call in, Weave Pop will come up and it’s a patient profile. It’ll show their name, their family members. It’ll show all of this upcoming scheduled appointments. It’ll show their birthdays. You can say like also, Hey, it’s your birthday and you’re scheduling your dentist appointment and happy birthday way to celebrate. And it has places too for notes as well. Like this patient, you know, likes to be billed 30 days later. This patient likes their bills texted to them. So you can remember those preferences so you don’t have to keep, the customers don’t have to keep repeating themselves cause that also makes you feel kind of lost in the shuffle when you’re like, man, I have told you this four times and you forget. And that makes me feel not as valued as a customer.
Mark Thackeray: 26:59 Yeah. Yeah. That’s so cool. So that’s a, that’s something that Weaver offers as a service, and you can do it yourself. I mean, if you have, you just, you’re just creating a system whereby that you can, like Jen was saying, where it’s scalable that you can do time and time again and that slows little things that will make a huge, huge difference to your patients, but also to your business when you’re thinking about it, because you’re, again, we’re looking at, we’re trying to improve that retention and increase your profitability, your profits by anywhere from 25 to 95%. Like that’s, that is amazing. You know?
Mark Thackeray: 27:33 So one of the other things that I thought about too was that you could do this in your practice is just going back to the setting expectations. If you know they’re coming in for a certain procedure, you could send them an email that has, you know, maybe a video from the doctor that’s explaining that procedure.
Jen Gray: 27:48 Oh I love that.
Mark Thackeray: 27:49 Something like, Hey, this is what you’re likely going to experience before. Or here’s what, here’s what I’d do to prepare when you come in and it’s going to take about this much time, here’s what it’s gonna look like afterwards and then move forward. You know, I mean that could be a 60-second video and they probably do that all the time in the chair. If you were to just record that and then now you can, you can deploy that on a regular basis. So easy. We have so many tools out there to do that, you know, so it’s just taking the time to really develop out these different pieces of your patient experience process. So anything else you’d add to that?
Jen Gray: 28:22 Yeah, I think, maybe if you’ll let me, I’ll dive kind of tactically into some more examples. I think again, and I’ve seen a lot of these webinars or podcasts too that talk about patient experience, customer experience, and it seems so like pie in the sky. It’s like how… What do I do now? So tactically, I mean, just some things that I’ve seen and experienced and even done in, in my, is I think first and I’ll kind of put you through like what I do from a marketing perspective. I think about what our go to market strategy is first.
Jen Gray: 28:55 So I would define this as what is your business value? What differentiates you from your customers? So maybe it’s because you offer later hours because you want to accommodate working professionals. Maybe it’s cause you have a very good location. Maybe you’re great with kids, like double down on that and everything that you say and everything that you do and all your marketing materials of what your differentiator is.
Jen Gray: 29:19 And I think another piece too, don’t underestimate your channels. So like what are your social channels doing? Emails. Something that you could do today that always gone over well with me is a welcome email. I love a welcome email, right? And it can be so personalized. Like I see my dentist every six months and mouth is usually preoccupied. So I don’t really get to chat with my dentist at all. So welcome email of like, Hey, I’m your dentist. This is where I went to school. This is what I like to do. Here’s my front office staff. Here’s who you’ll see, like, welcome to the team. I think are incredibly personalized and offer a great experience.
Mark Thackeray: 30:00 Well that’s such a good, easy way, you know? Yeah. Like you said, especially if it’s done in like a video format or something like that where you’re saying, Hey, let me introduce you to our family. You know, and then, and then you go into, like you’re saying all your key differentiators, your competitive advantages, you know, to really make sure that they understand and recognize that, cause that’s again, that’s going to help them become those ambassadors for you and your practice. You know? And I think it’s an easy way to inject some personality too. You know what I mean? And like you mentioned, you said having the doctor or having the team members maybe mention a few of the things that they’re interested in because we…trust is built on like/shared interests.
Jen Gray: 30:38 We’re humans, we want to connect with other humans. And I think we forget about that. Like I want to know, you know, what you like to do, what your family’s like, why you like being a dentist? I want to know who going to greet me when I come to your office. I’ve seen a cool, like some videos from some fitness studios that do like office tours on social media. Like on Instagram. They’ll do kind of like, just like a video or on Facebook like, here’s our office. Jjust so you can get a better feel for your experience that you feel a little bit more loyalty to. I think those are really small things that you can do.
Mark Thackeray: 31:11 Oh, totally, totally. Cause yeah, you want them to feel comfortable. You want them to feel like it’s familiar when they come to the office and that’s easy. Another super easy way to do that. I love that because one of my, one of my clients has a lots of things going on and a lot of more practices are doing this now, but where they’ll have coffee, they’ll have a Keurig, where you can make your drinks and whether it’s coffee or hot chocolate or whatever, and they have fresh made cookies.
Jen Gray: 31:40 That would totally get me. Where is that? Who is that dentist? Cause I need to find that now!
Mark Thackeray: 31:44 It’s things like that, you know what I mean? Showing them around. I love that idea of a tour. Cause you’re getting that personal interaction with whoever’s doing the videoing and the narrating, but you’re also seeing visually. Okay. And really giving it, providing some context. So when they get into the office there and say, Oh yeah, here’s the, here’s the drinks over here. Here’s the bathroom. Here’s the kids’ play area – just so that they’re comfortable.
Jen Gray: 32:07 Yeah. Well, and I know too, the kids’ play area as well as a great idea that I know as a mother I can take my kids, I don’t have to try and find a babysitter. I can take my kids while I’m getting my service done.
Speaker 1: 32:17 Yeah. Yeah. That’s so key. That is so key. So one of the things that we’ve talked about before was consistent communication. You know, we mentioned earlier in the podcast that Hey, which six months, it’s a terribly long time to be waiting to communicate. So what would you recommend in terms of, so if I’m an office, how do I, how do I, you mentioned too, don’t underestimate the power of your social channels. So yeah, be active on there. What types of things would you say? I mean, what types of content are we, are we sending out there via social, email? What would you say?
Jen Gray: 32:50 So we call this omni-channel. So I would first take stock and audit what channels you want to use and make sure that you’re constantly driving people to those first. That’s key. So whether it’s a little sign on your, on your desk that says like, Hey, do we have your current email? Hey, have you followed us on Instagram or have you followed us on Twitter or Facebook? Just pick your channels and make sure you’re constantly driving cause that those channels would do you no good if no one’s there. So first do that. I think second, email marketing I think is incredibly powerful. But as a marketer, I know it, there’s a very thin line between good email marketing and spam where I will delete you immediately. So with your emails, making sure that you’re not sending to, I would say once a month is probably plenty, maybe even less.
Jen Gray: 33:33 But make sure they’re are relevant and timely. So good emails I’ve seen from a salon that I like, is they do seasonal facials, like I think in the fall they did like a pumpkin one, which I think is incredibly fun. But then it’s timely. It’s like, Hey, we haven’t seen you in awhile. We were doing this special, you know, we’d love to see you again. And I’m not like, Oh, if they’re just spamming me, it’s like, Oh, they do have a new facial or a new special. I get a funny email from my dentist around Halloween. It’s like, here are five tips for avoiding cavities around Halloween. And that’s, you know, there’s really no, it’s not too salesy. You’re not trying to sell me anything. It’s just like, Hey, we’re your dentists, we’re looking out for your teeth.
Jen Gray: 34:12 Even when you’re not in the office, we’re looking at for your kid’s teeth. I like, we miss you emails. Like, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Duolingo to learn any language. I start and stop constantly and I love sort of like the emails that I get. It’s like always, always. They’re like, Hey Jen, you started this three months ago. We miss you, but kind of we miss you emails. And then some good ones too are getting feedback. So I like getting surveys and NPS surveys or feedback forms. I think those are timely too, that it’s like, Hey, we’ve been a customer for six months. How’s it going? Like, how’s your experience with us? Do you have any suggestions for improvement? And don’t be afraid of that feedback. I think I as a marketer kill for customer feedback. So always make sure that you’re appreciating the time that your customers take to tell you what they think. Don’t be scared of it. It’s something that they are investing time to do to help you improve your practice.
Mark Thackeray: 35:11 Well, just, I love that because it’s, you have to recognize that they are that passionate about what it is, what happened in that they’re that passionate that they’re willing to share. You know, cause a lot of them, if they have a bad experience, so, and have done this so many times where I just don’t say anything, like I just don’t go back, you know? But those people that actually speak up and verbalize what they feel that is, like you said, is so valuable.
Jen Gray: 35:32 It’s powerful. And I think from a social standpoint, something that I love is I like Instagram posts or Facebook posts of office closures around holidays. It’s so simple and it helps me, cause when I go on Google and look for your office hours, it will be like dependent on the holidays. And I’m like, that’s what I’m wanting to know. The holiday, what are your hours? So just a post that’s like, Hey, just a reminder, we’ll be closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. You know, where we’re taking patients on Thursday. Like that’s simple. It’s relevant, it’s timely. It’s valuable.
Mark Thackeray: 36:04 Yeah. Yeah. So good, so many things in there. So I wrote a few notes. One I loved what you said is pick your channels. Don’t be on all the channels. So you gotta you got to understand that that requires an understanding of who your patients are really, you know, where are they and where do they hang out. But also maybe even where am I best suited? You know, where do I naturally, you know, what lane do I naturally filter into? You know, do I like Twitter? Do I like Facebook? Do I like Instagram? Whatever. So understanding that, but also just, I love what you said about emails and personalizing the content, cause there’s so many tools now where you can segment your patient list or your customer lists so that then now only a specific group is receiving an email about dental implants or you know, about cleanings or about whatever. You know, I mean you can make it so that they’re not just general emails that go out to them. Yeah. They have no relevance to that person except for the 1% so yeah, taking the time to invest in those tools or do it manually so that you’re not, you’re not spamming people. Cause that’s the way it’s looked or perceived as when it’s not relevant.
Jen Gray: 37:12 When it’s generic, I will unsubscribe it a minute cause it wasn’t helpful to me and my inbox is already too full.
Mark Thackeray: 37:19 I know. I think we all feel that way. That’s the first thing we do in the morning is we go to our phone, check the time, like delete, delete, delete. I can delete all these and then you feel good about yourself.
Jen Gray: 37:27 You do!
Mark Thackeray: 37:27 Yeah. So true. So okay. So we’ve talked a lot about patient experience. Let’s, I just want to recap, the big takeaways, like the big benefits rather. Okay. So investing the time, cause again, it can feel very overwhelming when you’re looking at all these things and you’re looking at, okay, from the first step, first contact to a patient, getting them into the office, everything in the office to afterwards, continual marketing afterwards and messaging. That’s a lot. Okay. But, but let’s talk about, I just want to reinforce the benefits. So talk to me about that. As we touched on a little bit, but reviews, referrals, expanded business, just yeah, we’ve got to go over that day cause it’s so crucial.
Jen Gray: 38:09 So most companies and businesses spend most of their marketing budget on new customer acquisition. I think if you were to take 5% of that budget, 5% of that effort and, and invest it into customer experience and retention, not only are you getting more profit because you have customers that you can count on to keep coming back, but then like you said, turn those customers new patient acquisition marketing that’s completely free, pretty much, it’s having people give you social proof, write you good reviews and refer, refer their friends and family like that is, I would argue the most effective new customer acquisition money you could be spending an effort and that’s, it’s killing two birds with one stone, 100%. Especially when you’re a small business and you don’t have a lot of time and resources and people to do these things. Make sure that you’re investing in the biggest output for the littlest effort.
Mark Thackeray: 39:11 Yeah, yeah, exactly. We did a podcast a couple of episodes ago on referral generation. That’s exactly right. I mean it’s something that you can, it’s one of those levers that if you, if you just push in the right direction, it can open up a floodgate of patients, you know, and, and all those patients, even if they don’t become actual patients or they’re just leads or referrals, you know, they’re, they’re generally so much easier to work with, higher trust value, they negotiate less. They don’t, you know, they’re, they’re more consistent with their appointments, you know, they tend to tend to accept more treatment or because of the trust level.
Jen Gray: 39:44 They’re not late.
Mark Thackeray: 39:44 Yeah. Know all those things and they refer more people to. So yeah. So critical.
Jen Gray: 39:49 Something small that a photographer I’ve worked with recently did, it was super small. I think she just posted on Instagram and said, Hey, if you have worked with me in the last six months, write me a review on Google and I’ll enter you to win a $50 Amazon gift card. Like, it was so small. It was one social post. And I said yeah, I’ll do that. I’ll spend the five seconds to write you a good review and be entered to win a gift card. I think constantly driving to getting that feedback doesn’t have to be a huge effort.
Mark Thackeray: 40:17 Yeah. Yeah. I mean I think, too I think that’s a great idea to incentivize them to, to review. And one another way I’ve found that’s effective as well. It’s just asking if you phrase it the right way to say I need your help. Cause we naturally as humans want to help someone, you know, if someone asks us for help, we’re generally going to say, yeah, what can I do as long as it’s in our power and it’s legal. But I found that to be very effective but I also like incentivizing them as well. So I mean those are two great ways to do that.
Jen Gray: 40:44 I’m going to use that tip is asking for help. Like if you’re asking for feedback or a survey to say, Hey, we need your help, we want to improve. And that’s incredibly, I’m human.
Mark Thackeray: 40:54 Yeah, I know. I know. It’s more intrinsically motivated. And I love what you put there too. You have to preface it by saying and sincerely you have to be sincere about this. We want to get your feedback because we really are trying to deliver the best experience possible. And then it would help to follow up and say, Hey, thanks for your input into some of the steps we’re taking to make it a better experience for other people. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then, and reviews is a, that’s another way, you know, I mean, like we were talking about just that social proof is so important nowadays. You know, people go there first and foremost, you know, I mean they checked the reviews is one of the first things they do when they’re looking at whether it’s a new restaurant, whether it’s a new provider that’s the first place they go,
Jen Gray: 41:39 Oh yeah, I’m sure everyone knows this. Cause if it’s starting to become very, very big. But man, just to reiterate, I do not go anywhere without looking at the stars. It’s, they’re there. They matter. They matter.
Mark Thackeray: 41:50 Totally do you know? And that’s it. And it’s just such a good way to get feedback and to evaluate your own personal progress as a practice. And, and that goes hand in hand with NPS reviews that are more internally focused is an NPS review, but both are equally valuable.
Jen Gray: 42:05 and something I’ve noticed too is not only getting those reviews, but I really have started paying attention to businesses that respond to reviews. When I go onto a page and I see that the last review was responded to even just like a, Hey, thanks for leaving a review, it was great to see you. Wow, this is a very engaged business, that this is a business that tries on a daily basis. And so just in general, when you’re responding to reviews, just remember it’s, it’s marketing for you. So make sure that you’re not being too negative, that you’re, you’re writing your response as this will be read by people looking to start business with me.
Mark Thackeray: 42:40 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And not shying away if there’s a negative review. You know, cause there’s a lot of people that, that’s one of the first things they go to is they see how a company responds when they receive a negative review. You know, are they defensive? Do they, you know, cause then you can see it escalate and you’re like, no, as a marketer.
Jen Gray: 42:59 Cringing. Why are you doing this?
Mark Thackeray: 42:59 And it becomes so much worse than it already was. But they want to see, they don’t really, and this is the thing that I found too, is they don’t expect perfection. What they expect is that if something goes wrong, you’re going to do what you can to fix it. Yeah, exactly. You know, and that’s what I’ve found. So that is a critical, critical point. Okay. Any last words? You know, I know we’re coming up on time. Any last thoughts, words that you’d say regarding patient experience or anything that we’ve talked about?
Jen Gray: 43:24 I think in general, just cause I, it’s not as intimidating as you think. I think everyone again, really wants a great experience but are like, man, where do I start? If I could say anything, start with what differentiates you. Figure out what makes you special or what makes you different. Take a look at your experience, end to end. Like go through it, you know, walk in like you were a customer. Pick your channels again, it doesn’t have to be all of them. And then I would say pick two or three of the things that we talked about today. Like do a welcome email. Do appointment reminders via text, leave customer notes or patient notes, like pick two or three and start there, start there and then you can grow from there. But again, make sure that it’s scalable, but start small. You’ll be, you’ll be surprised at how much of an impact those will make.
Mark Thackeray: 44:15 Yeah, totally agree. 100%. 100%. Thanks so much, Jen. what last question is, where can people get a hold of you if they’re interested in contacting you, learning more about what you guys do here at Weave or anything like that? Where can they, what’s the best way to get in touch?
Jen Gray: 44:31 Oh yeah, so we share tips and tricks all the time. So if you’re interested, it’s getweave.com, man, I had to think about it. Getweave.com I’m on LinkedIn, just Jen gray. I’m on Twitter too. It’s Jen_l_gray
Mark Thackeray: 44:51 Cool. Yeah, I’ll, I’ll put that up in the show notes so they can check those out. But honestly, thanks so much. It was such a great conversation. There’s so many things in here. If you could just take one of them and really go deep with it, it would mean the world to your practice. I mean, you’d be so much farther ahead and if you were to do all the things that you’ve been trying to do in the past. Sure. Yeah. We’ll have to do a followup conversation to this later on, but thanks for the time and we’ll talk to you soon.
Jen Gray: 45:16 Thank you.
Outro: 45:17 Did you enjoy this episode of the Dental Marketing Secrets Podcast? Head on over to iTunes to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And for more proven marketing strategies to grow your practice, visit practicerocket.net.
