"Low Conversion Rate” is getting many website visitors but only a few of them turn into actual leads. The average dental website has an approximate 3% conversion rate. This means that for every one hundred people that visit a dental website, only 3 people turn into actual leads. Dental websites have low conversion rates because the Call to Action (CTA) is usually non-existent or weak. An example of a weak CTA would be "Schedule an Appointment," or even worse "Request an Appointment."

The most successful dental practices manage their marketing with a mixture of organic word of mouth and paid advertising. Paid advertising can cost ten's of thousands of dollars each month, only for the practice to lose a vast majority of these leads without the proper CTA's. Lead conversion plays a very important role in your marketing, not enough leads and your practice is negatively impacted. Converse to this is too many leads that are unqualified, which also has a negative impact.

Unqualified patients are patients with no knowledge of what you can do for them and what it might cost  These are 99% of the leads you get today. These types of leads will keep your case acceptance at low levels. 

Virtual consultations will increase your conversion rate and filter out those unqualified patients.

According to Dental Economics, the average annual revenue of a dental practice is $525,000 and the overhead (not including the dentist’s salary) is $350,000. The average clinician works 33 hours per week for 48 weeks, which is 1,600 hours per year. This equates to  $312 an hour to keep the office operating properly. The average consultation time for new patient appointment lasts approximately one hour.  Assuming the average case acceptance is 30%, then 70% of these patients walk out the door without treatment. 

Based on the numbers above there is a cost to this inefficiency. Here is an example:

If a dental practice sees 30 new consults per month and 70% of these patients leave without treatment, that equates to 21 patients or 21 hours of chair-time.  Multiply that by $312/hour it equals $6,552 per month of wasted chair time. Every dentist's dream is to be able to filter out patients who cannot afford their services. Now you can through virtual consultations. By providing a virtual consultation you deliver all the necessary information a patient needs to make an informed decision, before they come to your practice. This reduces wasted chair-time by increasing case acceptance.

No one will blame their dental team or themselves, as it's much easier to say, "the leads our marketing people gave us are unqualified" The average case acceptance rate for existing patients is around 55%. When new patients are found through advertising the case acceptance rate drops to about 25%. Practices don't understand why patients from marketing have a much lower case acceptance rate than existing patients, but it's really quite simple - you have not developed a relationship and they do not trust you. Trust is established with patients after you have helped them in some way. 

In addition, these potential patients have unrealistic expectations of actual procedural costs. 

Most dental practices are their own worst enemy because they hold back pricing until the patient comes into the practice for their initial consultation. When patients are unaware of the cost the case acceptance will always be lower. The key to increasing case acceptance is to find a way to build trust with the patients, and to set minimum and maximum pricing expectation for these potential patients. Delivering a virtual consultation provides a systematic approach to setting expectations, building trust and providing value. This will enable dental practices to get to the serious patients without wasting valuable chair-time on patients that cannot afford treatment.

According to the ADA the average no-show rate for a dental practice is 16% to 20%. For patients coming from direct marketing efforts, the no show rate can be as high as 30% to 35%. Patients that come from advertising are not as embarrassed to no show or cancel, because they have not met, connected or bonded in any way with the dentist or his dental team.

The most common reasons for no shows are: fear of going to a dentist, lack of information on specific treatments, and unknown costs. In addition, the dentist has not developed any trust with these potential patients and without trust "no show" rates rise.

With virtual consultations dentists can now deliver value and build trust with the patient before they step foot into their practice, in turn reducing "No-Show" rates.

Let's face it. Most of the problems with getting new patients happens when your untrained employee picks up the phone and blunders away a lead ready to commit to treatment. One small change in how your team members communicate could revolutionize your practice and make every patient feel comfortable with you and your team.