Spending hours on the phone is all in a day’s work for the typical dental office manager or front desk employee. How does the process work? If your practice is like most, you have a POTS (Plain Old Telephone System), also known as a landline or analog phone system. When a patient calls, you answer the phone, ask the patient for their information, and then look up the patient in your practice management software to see what they need and how you can help.
As staffing issues continue to challenge dentists nationwide, with four in 10 dentists actively seeking new dental assistants, chances are you’re trying to do more with less. Wouldn’t it be nice to save some time on the phone? PhoneSight, a new product that integrates with Lighthouse 360 to help you create a smart phone system, can help.
How can PhoneSight benefit your dental practice? Let us count the ways:
1. Make your staff more efficient
PhoneSight helps you accomplish more with fewer people answering your phones. When an existing patient calls the practice, their patient information pops up in a window on your computer screen. You don’t have to ask for their name or birth date so you can look for the patient in the PMS or pull out a paper file. You can immediately greet the patient by name (which is sure to impress), then see what they need and any actions to take, such as getting their email address to complete their file.
2. Eliminate missed calls
Every missed call is a missed opportunity to attract or retain patients. DentistryIQ reports that the average North American dental practice misses a whopping 20% of new-patient inbound calls. That’s a lot of lifetime value left on the table. PhoneSight’s schedule-based routing automatically directs calls to the appropriate place based on your practice hours. For example, you can designate a customer phone tree, forward calls to your answering service after hours, or send calls to one of your offices when another is closed.
3. Provide a better patient experience
No one likes being transferred from person to person when they’re trying to talk to the dental office. PhoneSight’s auto attendants automatically answer the phone and help direct callers, including insurance companies, to the appropriate person on your team. Even on days when your staff is swamped and can’t pick up the phone, you can be confident that patient calls will get where they’re supposed to go.
4. Make more appointments
When it’s easier for patients to reach you—and for you to see what they need—you can schedule more appointments and boost production. You’ll have more time to talk to new patients, too, because you won’t have to put them on hold to grab another call. They’ll appreciate your taking the time to answer their questions.
5. Market your practice more effectively
PhoneSight lets you choose custom greetings. Select hold music that fits your practice brand, or create your own messages announcing current promotions or highlighting certain dental services. The call tracking feature lets you tie callers’ phone numbers to specific marketing campaigns. This helps you determine which marketing efforts are delivering the most ROI, so you can focus precious marketing dollars where they matter most.
6. Train employees and enhance customer service
Call monitoring and call recording features let managers listen to employees’ interactions with patients. You can provide feedback to help employees improve or share examples of great calls for others on the team to learn from.
7. Provide better patient care
When doctors in your practice need to consult other care providers or specialists about a patient, PhoneSight can help. It offers videoconferencing with AES-128 bit end-to-end encryption for security. Share images or charts and get the professional insights you need to give your patients excellent care.
PhoneSight is compatible with most cloud-based hosted VoIP phone systems and can save your practice anywhere from 20% to 40% compared to your POTS. When you spend less time on the phone, you can spend more time building relationships with patients and offer the superior customer service that sets your practice apart.
Learn more about PhoneSight.
