If it seems strange to think of your patients as customers, remember this: They have the free will and ability to take their custom elsewhere, as the British are find of saying. Your patients can become someone else's patients anytime they want to do so. You can't stop them from leaving an they have a perfect right to take their dental records with them.

But while you can't stop patients from leaving you, you can prevent them from doing so by making sure your practice provides everything they need, including top-notch customer service delivered seamlessly very time.

What, exactly is customer service? It's merely taking care of your customers' needs—and that includes their needs to be treated courteously, respectfully and in a professional yet friendly manner.

Your dental staff members are in your office not just to assist you, but to serve the needs of your customers—your patients. If they are not providing the best customer service available, your patients are likely to go elsewhere and your business will flounder.

Why? Because communication is the first step on the road to persuasion, and patients must be persuaded to buy your services. The five stages of persuading someone are to take the person from unawareness to awareness, then to comprehension, conviction and action.

These stages apply to literally any decision anyone ever makes, and that includes decisions about dental services. Initially, we are first unaware of a service. After being exposed to information, we are aware but may move no farther unless we truly comprehend what that information can mean to us.

Once comprehension has taken root, then, and only then, do we take action. So in order for your patients to make the right decisions about the dental services they need and take the actions necessary to implement them, your dental staff must be able to communicate what those services are and the important contributions they can make in improving your patients' lives.

How do you get testimonials? By asking for them.  Don't be shy about asking your patients to rate your services in writing. After all, even if you receive critical comments, you'll learn something from the feedback—just consider all complaints as free consulting and make corrections as necessary!

To get testimonials, be sure to keep a notebook at your reception desk at all times.  As patients exit your dental chair, shake hands with them and mention that you'd like some feedback from them on the services they have received. Explain that it doesn't need to be extensive, just direct and accurate.  Then, when patients go back to the front desk to check out, your receptionist can offer them a fresh page in the notebook and a pen.

Show your patients you appreciate their business by not overbooking them or scheduling appointments too closely together to give your patients your full attention and to not make them feel like you’re rushing them out as soon as they arrive.  You might also try little things like offering bottled water, comfortable chairs, current magazines, and a relaxing environment. 

Of course, the best thing you can do is to tell each and every patient you appreciate their business before they ever get out of the chair. 

However, when a patient misses an appointment there is usually a good reason, so having your dental staff follow up with the patient afterward is an excellent way to avoid futures "misses." Perhaps the patient has an underlying fear of pain and needs to be assured that procedures are in place that can minimize discomfort. Perhaps there's a financial emergency that took the funds that were budgeted for you, or a family emergency that simply drove the appointment from the patient's mind.

Whatever the cause for a missed appointment, it can probably be addressed in such a way as to avoid repeat performances. And if you decide to limit not charging for missed appointments to one miss per patient, your staff should make that clear as well, in the most pleasant manner possible.

To determine what consumers want, market research is essential. In other words, you have to ask in order to know! In addition, you must segregate your customers, clients and patients by age, type and other factors that give the differing groups something in common.

The same principles apply when marketing professional services such as dentistry. To make your practice highly successful, you must determine what it is that your patients need and expect from you.  Top dental care, obviously, and that always includes thorough professional cleaning and diagnosis. But beyond that, you will need to analyze your patients' files to determine the number of children, young adults and elderly patients your practice serves, for these demographics will want and need different things from you.

Once you've made these determinations, the next step is to let your various demographics know you can provide the services they desire.

Reviewing the past in order to make good decisions in the present is always wise; dwelling on past mistakes never is.  No amount of "coulda, shoulda, woulda" is going to make a hair's breadth of difference to yesterday.

If you've made mistakes (and who among us hasn't) take inventory of them an then let them go for good.  Focusing your attention on today and making wise plans for tomorrow is the only way that the future will be better than the past.

For example, if you were late developing an Internet presence, kicking yourself because your competitors got there first isn't going to help.  Finding yourself the best Web master you can locate and getting started building a great site that will attract new patients and provide added value to existing patients is what you need to do.

Whatever happened… happened and there's nothing you can do to change it, so move on and improve your Dental Practice.

Things like they are terrified of feeling pain, or how the dentist of their childhood years hurt them, or the fact that the tooth next to the one you're working on is extremely sensitive to heat, cold and sugar. The point is, when else do your patients really have a chance to talk with you other than when you are working on their mouths? They really don't!

By listening, you will also hear a lot about your patients hopes and dreams, especially if you know how to read between the lines, so to speak. The young woman who wants to be an actress knows she'll need a great smile but may not feel able to bring up the topic of financing the cosmetic dentistry that would give her that great smile.  The older man who was widowed last year may want  to start dating again but feel shy because his teeth don't look their best.

By really listening to your patients, you'll get all kinds of clues as to what they want and need in their lives, and as to how you can help them get it!

Think about how attorneys present their cases to the juries before which they argue.  They size up the jurors, figuring out which ones will respond to a certain presentation strategy and which ones are more likely to  provide the desired verdict if approached another way. While they must stick to the facts of the case, attorneys are free to make their arguments in the manner they believe will be most effective.

That's what you should do, too, and in one way it's much easier for you to do it: You actually know your patients, whereas attorneys don't know their jurors.

Think about what you know about the patient to whom you are going to suggest a certain course of action. Is he or she comfortable discussing money? Will you need to bring up that aspect? Will talking about dental health be more persuasive than talking about dental appearance?

You know your patients.  Use that knowledge to your advantage and theirs, and you'll both come out ahead.

You should be selling your dental services upfront for the very same reason: When things get slow, having secured appointments on your calendar is like having money in a savings account!

Securing appointments ahead of the month in which you will need them will help you get past those "downs" that are part of every professional practice. Typically, the first couple of months of the year are slower than other times.  Post-holiday sales are over, spring seems a long way away, people are recuperating financially from holiday spending, heating bills are higher, etc. etc.

So start doing some serious marketing now to avert a financial crunch in your practice then.  Sell dental plans, maybe four cleanings for the price of three. Give a discount on cosmetic dental services. Offer free exams for family members of patients. Do whatever it takes, but get the money—or at least most of it—upfront.  After all, if you're offering your professional services at a reduced price, why  should you have to wait to get paid?