The New Patient Tour

This afternoon we had one of our routine team meetings. We try and get together as a group every 6-8 weeks for an afternoon in addition to our other meetings.At the last meeting I asked the team to make the agenda for today’s get together and they came prepared. The first item on the agenda was “NP Tours-Do We Have To Do Them?”. The question alone was telling about the feeling regarding tours but I went forward into the conversation anyway. So I asked the team to share how the felt about the tours and I got a variety of answers from ” I don;t like them” to “I think they are great”. The next step was the most critical and it was to answer the question “why”. So we started to tackle the discussion of what the outcome of giving new patient tours is? After some discussion and having to put ourselves into the shoes of the patient we came up with quite a list of outcomes attained from a new patient tour.

• Shows patients our office is different/Sets us apart
• Allows us to showcase our technology
• Allows us to introduce our team to new patients
• We talk about the range of services we offer, including having an orthodontist
• We can address our sterilization techniques for concerned patients

With our list in hand we then asked the question “what ways can we reach all of these outcomes?”. Now you may be wondering about this second question and the continued conversation. I do have a personal opinion about completing new patient tours, but I did not express that int he meeting. I also know that as with anything in our office I could simply say “this is what we are doing” and the team would try their best to do it for me, and it would fail. I have a fabulous, talented caring team but it would fail because no one can continue long term to do something they do not value, own the purpose of or that meets their values. I also know that I am only one person with one point of view and if we open up the conversation ides can come up that would have never been possible. That is exactly what happened as we created our list.

• New Patient Tours
• A Virtual NP tour on the television int he waiting room or consult room
• A printed “Meet Our Office” brochure we could mail, email or have printed in the office
• Talking about our office once int he consult room or sharing where appropriate during the new patient appointment.

The most important thing that came out of our discussion was reaffirming that we are not the “average, ordinary” dental office and we have to help our patients know that through all of the “soft” things we do. So how do you make sure patients understand the value of being a patient at your office?