The Average Practice Converts only 1/3rd of New Patient Calls to Appointments. Why?
Tracking and measuring key metrics, including missed calls, is crucial to run a successful dental practice.
Let’s start by talking about missed calls. While leaving voicemails and waiting for callbacks was once a common practice, patients today expect their calls to be answered during working hours. A high missed call rate can result in missed opportunities to connect with new patients. Therefore, tracking and improving this metric is imperative to ensure that your dental practice maximizes every opportunity to connect with potential new patients.
Why does the average practice convert only 1/3 of new patient calls?
Converting new patient calls into actual appointments is challenging for many dental practices. While the desire to gain new patients is high, the reality is that a significant portion of these calls needs to be translated into appointments. In fact, on average, only one-third of new patient calls result in actual visits to the practice. This means that out of 100 new patient calls, the average practice only books 33 new patient appointments.
If you are like the average dental practice and want your call conversions to improve, or you don’t even know your call conversion rate, the very thing you need to do is track your call conversion rate.
What is the call conversion rate?
To calculate the call conversion rate, divide new patients who booked appointments by the number of new patient calls. You must listen to 100 to 150 calls made during the month to find the call conversion rate. Then identify the new patient callers and those new patient callers who booked appointments. This process can take anywhere between 15 to 20 hours. But knowing this data is critical for your long-term success. 90% of dental practice owners I have spoken to do not know their call conversion rate. However, they believe it is high. 80% of the time, what the owner believes is happening is very different from what is happening. We only find this out by listening to 100 to 150 calls.
What goals can your practice set for improving your call conversion rate?
We consider a conversion rate of 70% or higher as an ‘’A’’, while 60% plus is a ‘’B’’, and 50% plus is a ‘’C’’.
To improve your call conversion rate, you need to do three things:
- Know your call conversion rate and missed call percentage every month.
- Identify six calls you can use to coach your team to answer your phone. We suggest four good calls and two bad calls.
- Monthly 60-minute meeting to review the above two as a team in a supportive environment where the team continues to improve
Last but not least, you need patience, especially if you are a practice with a low call conversion rate.
What are some goals your practice can set to deal with missed calls?
Missed calls are acceptable for all practices but for many, to measure your practice’s missed call rate, you must determine the percentage of inbound calls that go unanswered during business hours (not just new patient calls). For example, if your practice receives 100 calls during work hours and 20 go unanswered, your missed call percentage is 20%.
To evaluate your practice’s missed call rate, we recommend using the following grading system:
- A: Under 10% of missed calls
- B: Under 20% of missed calls
- C: Under 30% of missed calls
- F: Anything over 30% missed calls
By tracking your missed call rate and striving to improve it, you can ensure that your practice makes the most of every opportunity to connect with potential new patients.
What can you do if your practice is not getting enough new patient calls?
For Dental Business Journal listeners and readers looking to improve their practices, Ekwa Marketing offers a free marketing strategy meeting valued at $900. Our marketing experts will spend 6 hours analyzing how you are doing with digital marketing before the meeting. During the meeting, they will share their findings and a 12-month plan to help you dominate Google and significantly grow your new patient call volume.
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