There’s one number that might be killing your practice. It sounds like a big call, but there’s one figure in your practice that could be costing you big time every year. If you’re aiming for growth and don’t know this number, chances are your efforts are going in one direction, while this number is quietly steering you in the opposite. That number? Call conversion. Every day and every week, potential new patients call your practice. The question is, how many of those calls actually turn into bookings? This stat is critical. From experience, only around 10% of practices even track it, which is madness. You could be doing an amazing job with your service and marketing, but all that effort can be undone in 60 to 90 seconds on a phone call.
So how do you track it? It’s simple. Every day, record the number of new patient calls. Then record how many of those booked an appointment. That’s your conversion rate. You want at least 80%, if it’s lower, there’s an issue with how calls are being handled. Staff need basic negotiation skills, need to know how to handle price shoppers, and most importantly, actually need to ask people if they’d like to book in. I’ve listened to countless calls where team members talk about dental concerns for minutes and never invite the caller to make an appointment. Your number one metric is this: track the daily and weekly number of new patient calls and how many convert. Get that right, or it could be killing your practice.