How an Onboarding Brochure Can Transform Your Dental Practice's Patient Retention in 60 Days
Attracting new patients is just the first step—keeping them coming back is where many dental practices struggle. Let me share a story that might sound familiar.
A friend of mine who runs a dental practice faced a common frustration: despite attracting a steady flow of new patients each month, some never returned for follow-up visits. They were investing time, money, and effort into marketing but were struggling with lower-than-ideal retention rates, leading to missed revenue opportunities. As a result, their practice wasn’t growing as they had hoped, and it felt like they were always starting from scratch.
This isn't an uncommon challenge. Let’s dive into why this happens and how to fix it.
Patient retention is a common struggle for many dental practices, but understanding the challenges is the first step toward solving them. By recognizing these barriers, it becomes clear why investing in a structured onboarding process is essential to ensure patients feel informed and connected to your practice.
The Challenge of Patient Retention
It can be difficult to keep patients coming back after their first visit, and here’s why: When a practice lacks a system to properly onboard new patients, they often don’t receive a personalized and welcoming experience. This can leave them feeling disconnected.
Patients who feel like just another number are less likely to remember your practice or feel motivated to return for future appointments. Instead, they might be more open to switching to another dentist who takes the time to build a stronger relationship.
The Impact of Poor Retention
Addressing these challenges requires a thoughtful approach to patient retention, one that keeps patients engaged, informed, and connected to your practice. Every patient who doesn’t return represents lost revenue—not just from missed treatments but also from potential referrals.
Plus, it’s far more expensive to attract new patients than to retain existing ones, which means more time and money spent on marketing efforts.
Additionally, when patients don't return, it’s harder to generate positive reviews, as it often takes multiple visits to build the rapport needed for them to leave a glowing review.
The good news is that there’s a simple tool that can help tackle all these issues.
My friend found a solution that made a huge difference. It was an onboarding brochure that provided new patients with everything they needed to feel informed, valued, and connected to the practice.
Almost immediately, their retention rates improved, follow-up appointments increased, and they started seeing more referrals and reviews from satisfied patients.
But how exactly can an onboarding brochure address these challenges and transform your practice into a patient-centric, thriving business?
An onboarding brochure might seem like a simple idea, but it can have a significant impact on your dental practice. Especially if it's the doctor that using it with a warm and helpful experience, providing a leave behind with empathy that it all might be a lot to take in right away.
Here’s why it’s an essential tool for any dental practice that is looking to grow consistently every year by improving patient retention strategy:
Warm Welcome: The brochure makes new patients feel valued from the moment they walk through your door, setting a positive tone for their experience. This welcoming touch helps them feel confident they’ve chosen the right dental practice.
Professional Image: A well-designed brochure showcases your practice's professionalism, making patients more likely to trust your services and return. It’s often the small details that leave a lasting impression.
Answer Common Questions: Patients often feel overwhelmed during their first visit. An onboarding brochure provides answers to common questions, such as office hours, services offered, and payment options, reducing uncertainty and building trust.
Introduce Your Team: Including team photos and bios helps new patients feel comfortable and connected, making it easier for them to remember your practice when scheduling future visits.
Outline the Next Steps: The brochure provides guidance on what to expect next, encouraging patients to follow through with treatment plans and schedule their next appointment. This clarity fosters confidence and reduces the chances of drop-off.
Clear Calls-to-Action: The brochure includes reminders for patients to schedule their next visit, making it more likely they’ll return for ongoing care. When patients know what to do next, they’re more inclined to stay engaged with your practice.
Referral Opportunities: By mentioning your referral program, you encourage satisfied patients to spread the word about your practice, bringing in more new patients over time. This not only strengthens your patient base but also builds credibility.
Boost Repeat Visits: Patients who feel informed and valued are more likely to become loyal, long-term clients, reducing the need to constantly attract new ones. This steady stream of repeat business is a key driver of growth.
Higher Treatment Acceptance: When patients understand the full scope of your services and feel confident in your care, they’re more likely to proceed with recommended treatments, increasing your overall revenue.
Differentiation: Many dental practices lack a structured onboarding process, giving you an edge over competitors. An onboarding brochure positions your practice as one that goes above and beyond to care for its patients, setting you apart in a crowded market.
Consistent Branding: A professionally designed brochure reinforces your brand identity and helps patients remember your practice long after their visit. This consistency builds trust and makes your practice memorable.
This means that far more people that had a positive welcoming experience, actually became long term patients and referred our practices more new business.
In short, the professionalism of these "patient retention tools" warmed people up to us in the short term, but the long term effects were compounding.
Creating an onboarding brochure is a thoughtful process that requires attention to detail, personalization, and professional design.
Here’s step by step breakdown of how other offices have done it:
With these steps in mind, and maybe a little help from Canva and ChatGPT, you can whip up your new patient onboarding asset pretty quickly.
But how do you ensure it gets done in the next week or so?
While setting up your own Onboarding Brochure is something that you can absolutely do on your own, I know that your time is valuable. This is a task we do for our customers all the time and my team and I would love the opportunity to do it for you.
It's not expensive and it's something that we can have ready for you to use and benefit from in less than 3 weeks from today.
I guarantee that within 60 days of us setting it up and you using it consistently, that you’ll start seeing a stronger connection with new patients and more people coming back to your business (with the brochure being a key in that process).
All you have to do is sign up using this link and we'll get it built for you within 14 days. Let myself and my team get you set up and if you aren't completely satisfied with the results of your "Onboarding Brochure" after 60 days, you never have to order any more. We do a small run of these to start in a batch of 100 and you can decide if it's something that works in your office, or not.
My sincerest recommendation is to give it a try and let's work on something together that can unlock more growth for your practice.
Click Here to Sign Up Now and let us build your dentist office with an "Onboarding Brochure"
Call or Text me at (336) 537-5376
